Purim 5687: "I Accept Upon Myself the Four Executions"
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 256-257, no. 95
Purim 5687 (1927) was terrifying. “Who are they, the Yevsektzia?!”17 the Rebbe screamed. “A rabbi’s son? A butcher’s son? A villager’s son? I am not frightened by them. ” His intensity became fiery. He unbuttoned his kapota; you could see his tallis katan. “I accept upon myself the four forms of execution, ” he screamed. “When you see the body aflame you should not have compassion. ”
The chossid R. Meir Simcha began shouting, “We need the Rebbe here.”
But the Rebbe repeated again and again, “We must sacrifice our lives — but not send our children to their schools. ”
Knowing that informers were present we were very frightened and called his mother, the Rebbetzin, to restrain him. He stood up the moment she came, but told her, “Mother, go back to your room and say some Tehillim, with tears — with no one watching. That will help. ” And he reassured her, “I am not doing any of this on my own initiative. I asked Father. ”
The Rebbetzin continued to stand and speak, until he fainted — and barely revived.
Everyone was in dread. The arrest came after Shavuos.
The rabidly anti-religious “Jewish Section” of the Soviet Communist Party. ↩
The Great Purim in Rogochov and Reb Yossele's Megillah Gelt
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 63-64, no. 3
The “Great Purim” took place in Rogochov, and my zeide told this story:
Reb Yossele der chazzan , a chossid whom the Alter Rebbe once blessed to become wealthy, lived in Korma, and on that “Great Purim” he came to Rogochov. (Korma is close to Rogochov.) The Mitteler Rebbe honored Reb Yossele with reading the Megillah, and, right in the middle — when he read [Haman’s proud statement] Whom would the king wish to honor more than me?6 — he spat, “Feh, kelipah!”
The next morning everyone assumed that, knowing how the Mitteler Rebbe detested any outward show, someone else would read the Megillah. However, the Mitteler Rebbe called him again, and when he came to the table the Mitteler Rebbe told him, “You do not know that one must first put Megillah gelt on the table”7 — and the Rebbe laid down a golden rendel coin, and each of the more than a thousand gvirim there followed suit, laying down a golden rendel.
The Alter Rebbe’s blessing was fulfilled and he became a gvir.
Continued from the biography of R. Eliyahu Akiva Lipskar:
In the year 5712 (1952) the Lipskars arrived in Canada.
That year, in honor of Purim, the Rebbe sent him a ticket to enable him to travel to him. He remarked to the Rebbe’s secretary Rabbi Hadakov that he did not have the appropriate documents to reenter Canada. The Rebbe responded with a smile that his mother had informed him of R. Eliyahu’s success in dealing with the Russian border guards – and now he couldn’t sort something out? On Purim in those years when he would partake in the festive farbrengen, the Rebbe would tell him to say “ l’chaim. ” On one occasion, after saying “l’chaim” and finishing the cup, the Rebbe indicated to him to have another cup – and he drank another cup. Following the second cup the Rebbe said “Nu!” and he had a third. The Rebbe then indicated with his holy hand that the cup should be full. Following this, the Rebbe stated that he should have yet another cup. And so, R. Eliyahu drank four large cups, until he was rolling under the table…
Before he returned home, the Rebbe told him in yechidus that when he arrives back in Toronto he should report what he had heard in New York. R. Eliyahu answered that the ideas which were said before chatzos he could tell over, however, he had not heard the teachings from chatzos and onward. The Rebbe responded that after chatzos they were much better than before…
The Rebbe once said on Purim, “Today, we farbreng and talk, and tomorrow it is likely that what we talked about will need scouring and scrubbing with iron brushes. Today, though, this is what we need. ”3
One needs to ascend from his current state, though he knows that the ascent is not the ultimate level. ↩
On Purim 5686 (1926) a young man gave the gabbai, R. Elchanan, a pidyon nefesh on behalf of his nephew in Homil, who suffered from heart disease. At the festive Purim seudah, which became a farbrengen that stretched into the night, the young man stood nearby the Rebbe and gathered the courage to ask, “A bracha for Zalman. ”
The Rebbe spoke into the young man’s ear: “You already wrote a pidyon; I read the pidyon carefully. Write to him that if he takes upon himself the support of a cheder, then I take upon myself his health issue. ” And as the Rebbe spoke, his holy hand struck his heart. “A person can live with a heart defect. I am telling you this now, ” he continued, “but customarily, when you come to me for yechidus, I sit with a cigarette and say nothing to you; though the inside of my stomach may be churning — I say nothing. But now I am telling you. ”
I think it was on Purim, 5686 (1926), after the Alter Rebbe’s nigun and after the dancing. The Rebbe had sat down by the western wall, and I went over and said to him that I heard from my zeide — and he heard from the Tzemach Tzedek — that One who repeats a teaching1 is no more than as though the author is standing before him; but with a nigun, it is the composer of the nigun, himself.
And the Rebbe said, “Emes, emes (True, true). ”
Talmud Yerushalmi, Kiddushin 1:7: One who repeats a teaching in the name of its author should picture the author as though standing before him. ↩
R. Aharon Leib Lein — the grandson of R. Chaim Dovid, the shochet of Nevel — told me that when he came from Poltava to spend Purim in Leningrad, and had yechidus after Purim, the Rebbe asked him, “Did you hear what we spoke here?”
“I would like a bracha, ” he said.
“A blessing from a Jew is noteworthy, ” the Rebbe answered. “A blessing from a Torah scholar is certainly noteworthy; a blessing from the son of holy pure tzaddikim is absolutely noteworthy. But what is a bracha? Rain, the bracha of rain — when one plows and sows and Hashem gives rain, then good things grow, good kernels. But on an untilled field there is nothing. ”
I think it was Purim in Leningrad, 5667 (1907). The Rebbe Rashab sat at the head of the long table and we stood around the table. Behind us, people were standing on a chair, leaning on us to hear better – and the chair broke. Beryl Yudevitch (may G-d avenge his blood) muttered to himself, “Even better.”32
The Rebbe heard his words and repeated time and again, “To be broken is even better. ”