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Beis Nissan

Yahrzeit of the Rebbe Rashab (1920)

ב׳ ניסן
2 Nissan

"Tzav — Now and For All Generations"

As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, p. 162, no. 42

The schol­arly R. Zavil Zei­den­feld11 (may G-d avenge his blood) al­ways re­counted this story with over­whelm­ing hispa’alus:

R. Yaakov Ko­rinitzer12 had told him in Ros­tov that, days be­fore the Rebbe’s last Purim,13 the Rebbe gave him in­struc­tions with re­gard to check­ing the wheat to be ground for she­mu­rah matzah. The Rebbe’s words were, “The term tzav ( com­mand) al­ways refers to the present mo­ment — and to fu­ture gen­er­a­tions.”14

  1. A great lamdan and Kotzker chossid who lived in Warsaw, and was later killed by the Nazis. ↩
  2. R. Yaakov Landau, a student in Tomchei Temimim and a rov in the Rebbe Rashab's court. He later became the rov of Bnei Brak. ↩
  3. Roughly two weeks before the Rebbe’s passing on the second of Nissan, 5680 (1920). ↩
  4. Rashi on Vayikra 6:2. The Rebbe gave him instructions for then — and for future years. ↩
LeadershipZrizus

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Seeing the Rebbe at the Ohel on Erev Rosh Hashanah

As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 133-134, no. 3

On erev Rosh Hashanah — 5667 (1906) or 5668 (1907) — when we were at the Ohel of the Tzemach Tzedek and his son, the Rebbe Ma­ha­rash, some chil­dren said to me, “Do you want to see how the Rebbe is stand­ing in the ohel? Climb up on the wall” — since the ohel was open to the sky.

The Rebbe stood wear­ing his silk hat and a black coat; a white silk scarf was vis­i­ble on his neck. In one hand he held a pidyon, a large long sheet of pa­per; his sec­ond hand held a large bun­dle of ad­di­tional re­quests. His coun­te­nance was ex­traor­di­nar­ily pale. Ter­ror seized me; I leaped down to the ground.

(I al­ways re­gret­ted my ac­tion, but when the Rebbe Ray­atz’s notes ar­rived — printed in Kun­tres Beis Nis­san, 5710 — in which he ex­tolled the merit of gaz­ing at his fa­ther at the ohel, I was filled with joy.)16

  1. “Certainly there are those who merited to peer through the ohel walls’ chinks and see the light emanating from [the Rebbe Rashab’s] holy countenance, a transcendent white radiance known unto G-d Himself.” – Sefer HaMaamorim 5710 p.162. ↩
Sanctity of a tzaddikHiskashrus

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Shtreimel and Maivir Sedrah After the Mikveh

As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 178-179, no. 66

When I was in Ros­tov on the sec­ond of Nis­san 5695 (1935) on be­half of Anash in Leningrad, one of the Rebbe Rashab’s at­ten­dants, Shmuel Mendel39 the son of Yechiel the meshu­lach, told me, “I saw some­thing that none of you have ever seen. On erev Shab­bos, af­ter im­mers­ing in a mikveh, the Rebbe would put on a shtreimel and re­view the weekly Torah por­tion with Ara­maic trans­la­tion (maivir se­drah).”

  1. He was a student in Tomchei Temimim and the Rebbe's attendant in Rostov. ↩
Sanctity of a tzaddik

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