בס״ד
Farbreng.ing
Stories for
Simchas Torah
The Last Dance and the Platform at Leningrad
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 433-435, no. 10
Under constant surveillance in Malachovka, the Frierdiker Rebbe decided to leave Russia, departing on Isru Chag of Sukkos 5688 (1927); chassidim traveled from across the Soviet Union for that last Simchas Torah, where R. Zalman Duchman remembered the Rebbe raising his hands and singing Nye Zhuritze Chloptzi. R. Zalman brought his eight-year-old daughter Rochel for a bracha at the Rebbe's house and again at the train station — a bracha he later said protected her through the war — and recorded the Rebbe's farewell words, "I didn't write this letter with my heart — it is my heart." Rochel recalled the black-packed platform, the crowd running after the departing train with not one dry eye, and the newspaper article describing the Rebbe's G-dly face. Even after the departure the Rebbe kept them in mind, sending a bracha for their newborn son Yisroel and, through R. Zalman's brother Yisroel Noach in Eretz Yisroel, the message "I know quite well what is happening with them... I do not forget them."
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Holiday: simchas_torah (5/5): The centerpiece of the story is the last Simchas Torah with the Frierdiker Rebbe in Russia and the final dance during the day.
Also this occasion
Tracht Gut on Simchas Torah
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, p. 225, no. 41
At a farbrengen in his mother's house the Rebbe told of a chossid who dreamt that his previous Rebbe said one of his children would pass away that year. His Rebbe told him "Tracht gut vet zein gut," but he remained badly shaken; on Simchas Torah he stood aside weeping until the thought struck him that it was nonetheless Simchas Torah, and he joined the dancing. In yechidus after Sukkos the Rebbe asked what he had done on Simchas Torah, and told him that with that he had nullified the decree. The Rebbe did not say the names of the Rebbeim involved.
BitachonSimchaKabbolas Ol
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"Let Them Be Impacted by You!"
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 472-473, no. 5
Simchas Torah was a special time between R. Yisroel Duchman and the Rebbe: he led Shacharis, made kiddush over mashkeh with joy before hakafos, and came in with two large trays of cake his wife had prepared, setting off the day's celebration in 770. The Rebbe enjoyed his natural chassidic happiness and would motion for an explanation whenever he seemed subdued — as when he told the Rebbe that his wife, worried about the impression on guests unfamiliar with chassidic life, had advised him to restrain himself, and the Rebbe answered, "You be impacted by them?! Let them be impacted by you!" On another Simchas Torah, when R. Yisroel dismissed Dr. Resnick as "a yukel," the Rebbe drew out of him that he was the doctor's paying patient and concluded simply, "Nu..." At his last Simchas Torah, in 5749 (1988), the Rebbe handed him his handkerchief; R. Yisroel said it would go with him, and when he passed away unexpectedly later that year it was laid over his face in his resting place.
HiskashrusInfluence of one JewSimcha
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Adoneinu Moreinu VeRabbeinu
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 54-55, no. 34
Reb Groinem, the mashpia in Lubavitch, told how one Simchas Torah the Alter Rebbe was called to recite the pesukim of Atah Horeisah with the title 'Adoneinu Moreinu VeRabbeinu.' Seeing his face glow, they repeated the phrase again later. The next day he was overheard pacing his room, bitterly repeating the words with a nigun and saying that had he had a pit he would have buried himself alive; when asked how this fit with the glow they had all seen, he answered that when afflictions are sent one must accept them with love.
HumilityBittulKabbolas Ol
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