בס״ד
Farbreng.ing
Stories for
Pesach
The Only One Who Took Them In
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 491-492, no. 9
R. Eliyahu kept an open house. In 5715 (1955), while his own five children still shared one small room, a large Moroccan family arrived in Toronto on erev Pesach; the shul's rov appealed to the congregation to take them in, and after everyone else dispersed to their sedarim, R. Eliyahu alone hosted the family of seven for the whole festival and saw that they lacked nothing. When a father of ten in a Skulener chassidic family died, R. Eliyahu collected a large sum and established a fund for the widow and children, then married off all ten — finding matches, providing their needs, and worrying for them as if they were his own children so they would never be ashamed. After his passing the Skulener Rebbe came to the shiva, arriving in Toronto at 3 A.M. due to a flight delay and asking the family to receive him at that hour, to thank them for the kindness done to his chassidim.
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Holiday: pesach (5/5): The central episode takes place on erev Pesach and through the festival, and the text invokes the Haggadah's 'whoever is hungry let him come and eat' as the reason the guests had to be taken in.
Also this occasion
How Reb Aizel's Father Came Around at the Seder
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 302-303, no. 35
The zeide related Reb Aizel's own account of how he became a chossid of the Alter Rebbe: whenever the Alter Rebbe heard of a promising young scholar he would send a shliach to draw him close to Chassidus, and such a shliach came to Homil after Sukkos and brought Reb Aizel to Liozna. Returning home for Pesach, Reb Aizel established a minyan davening nusach Chabad, but his father R. Mordechai — who spent much time in Leipzig and kept his distance from chassidim — returned shortly before Pesach and forbade him, on the grounds of honoring one's father, from davening there. At the seder, hearing his son's brilliant expositions on the Haggadah, R. Mordechai understood that Chassidus had not harmed him, permitted him to return to the minyan the next morning, joined the minyan himself for the rest of Pesach, and by Shavuos traveled with Reb Aizel to Liozna.
Hafatzas HamaayanosEmesInfluence of one Jew
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Holding the Rebbe's Siddur at the Locked Gate
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 471-472, no. 4
What R. Yisroel Duchman treasured most was being at the Rebbe's side. On Rosh Hashanah 5717 (1956) the Rebbe and the chassidim walked to tashlich at the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens through a torrential downpour only to find the gate locked; the Rebbe decided to scale the enclosure, declined R. Yisroel's offered help, and handed him his siddur to hold while he climbed. Each erev Pesach R. Yisroel took matzah from the Rebbe not only for himself but for the Yiddish writer Chaim Grade, traveling hours to bring it, and the Rebbe would press him for details of their exchanges; the year he hesitated and did not come, the Rebbe told him he had wondered the previous day why he had not come, and thereafter R. Yisroel — and later his son R. Sholom — always received matzah. After Rebbetzin Chana's passing the Rebbe asked R. Zalman to watch over her apartment and told R. Yisroel, "Your father will watch over the apartment and you will watch over him." On another occasion R. Yisroel asked to speak "yisroel umalka bilchodoihi," and the Rebbe motioned his secretary to leave.
HiskashrusAhavas YisraelMesiras Nefesh
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