בס״ד
R. Zalman's Candid Exchanges with the Rebbe
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 456-457, no. 27
R. Zalman Duchman's directness and warmth gave him an unusually open relationship with the Rebbe, so much so that chassidim would choose him among the elder chassidim to bring their requests. His diary records a yechidus in Elul 5728 (1968) in which he told the Rebbe two accounts he had heard about the Rebbe Rashab and eating before davening — one about the Rebbe's grandfather Meir Shlomo the rov, heard from R. Binyomin Althoiz, and one from Yehoshua Beshenkovitzer, a rov in Vitebsk — after which the Rebbe remarked that those were early chassidim and that today one must eat, though not as they do in Kfar Chabad. Another entry records that on Chof Daled Teves 5712 (1952), after mincha outside the Rebbe's room, the Rebbe asked whether he was named after the Alter Rebbe, and when R. Zalman noted his bris was on Chai Elul before that date was known as the Alter Rebbe's birthday, the Rebbe answered, "But in Heaven they knew." The story adds that when R. Zalman was ill and went to the mikvah anyway "since this is the way of chassidim," the Rebbe blessed him and the ailment left him that day; that the Rebbe gave him a siddur and Tanya to place on the operating table before surgery, which was successful; and that a siddur he lost in Chicago was returned to him after a non-Jewish woman brought it to a shul and it reached R. Yankel Katz, who recognized his name.
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The Rebbe
Also this occasion
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.
The Rebbe
HiskashrusAhavas YisraelMesiras Nefesh
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"I Want to Be the Rebbe's Partner"
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 474-475, no. 7
After R. Mendel Futerfas left Russia in 5724 (1963) and came to 770, he rebuked the chassidic community for ignoring the material plight of chassidim still in Russia. R. Yisroel Duchman responded by co-founding Lishkas Ezras Achim, raising large sums for Russian Jews and later partnering with Dr. Yirmiyahu Branover's Shamir to settle Russian immigrants in Eretz Yisroel. At a Shamir dinner he brought a philanthropist to the Rebbe after putting tefillin on him for the first time; the Rebbe gently noted this was nothing to be proud of, then offered the man tefillin of his own and instructed R. Yisroel to buy them and bring a paid receipt. When R. Yisroel tried to refuse full reimbursement so as to be the Rebbe's partner, the Rebbe insisted he take the money, saying, "We will be partners in other things."
The Rebbe
Ahavas YisraelCompassionHiskashrus
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