My zeide said that as a small child he was in Reb Aizel’s sukkah while the s’chach was being piled up thickly. He asked Reb Aizel: “Doesn’t the halachah state that the stars should be visible through the s’chach?”
“Listen, Yoel’ke, ” Reb Aizel told him, “I was with the Rebbe in Liozna when they put the s’chach on the sukkah. The Rebbe stood and signaled with his holy hands: Make it thicker…thicker.” And Reb Aizel cried out, “And I can’t do it any other way!”5
(My zeide told me something that had always puzzled him. He was named after his two grandfathers: Reb Mordechai, a chossid of the Alter Rebbe, and Yoel, a businessman. Nevertheless both the Rebbe — the Tzemach Tzedek — and Reb Aizel called him Yoel’ke.)
Sefer Haminhagim (p. 65) records that it is our custom to use a lot of s'chach. ↩
My zeide recounted the story of the Baal Shem Tov’s sukkah in great detail.
The Baal Shem Tov’s students once gathered together in his sukkah and, looking around, noticed many questionable features. Sensing their thoughts he asked for a piece of parchment and, leaning on it, fell into deep contemplation. When he removed it from beneath the tablecloth, the parchment was inscribed with the words: “The sukkah of the Baal Shem Tov is kosher — signed Matat.”25
How Chassidim Came to Use the Rebbe's Lulav and Esrog
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, p. 455, no. 59
Continued from the biography of R. Zalman Duchman:
As is known, the Rebbe would give his lulav and esrog to the chassidim to perform the mitzva. What many don’t know is that this came about through a heartfelt and brazen request by R. Zalman. It was Sukkos 5712 (1951), the first Tishrei since the Rebbe had formally accepted the nesius. On the morning of the first day of Sukkos, R. Zalman approached the Rebbe and said, “In Leningrad the daled minim [four species ] were hard to get, and we would recite the bracha mitzva over the [Frierdiker ] Rebbe’s lulav and esrog. I am therefore asking permission to continue this practice and be given such a zechus. ” [R. Zalman had also used the Rebbe Rashab’s lulav and esrog in Rostov.]
The Rebbe acquiesced, and R. Zalman was delighted. Not one to keep his excitement to himself, R. Zalman told his fellow chassidim and they asked to be given the same opportunity. Permission was granted, and this evolved into a standard practice of chassidim using the Rebbe’s very own lulav and esrog each year.
The tomim R. Gershon Chein,40 the Rav of Alexandria, told me in 5686 (1925) that Mendel, the Rebbe’s attendant, came to him in the zal when he was in Lubavitch and said that the Rebbe wanted to speak with him.
“Koppel is bringing the esrogim early tomorrow morning, ” the Rebbe told him, “and I want you to be there to receive them. Most likely you will not sleep tonight. ”
“I stayed awake all night in the zal,” R. Gershon said, “and in the early morning I thought to myself that I’d better get to the mikveh quickly. After the mikveh I set out in the direction of the wagon and, sure enough, Koppel appeared. I told him that the Rebbe instructed that he give me the esrogim, and he gave them to me. When I came back inside with the box of esrogim, it was still quite early. The Rebbe had just come into the room where people would wait before yechidus, and he took the box of esrogim from me and placed it on the table. Clasping his hands together and bending slightly, he circled the table over and over again. How many times — I don’t know; it was like hakafos, with extraordinary deveikus. And he took the box back to his room. ”
A student in Tomchei Temimim who was close to the Rebbe Rashab. He was a respected Chabad Rav and later became Rav in Chaifa. ↩
Sanctity of a tzaddikKabbolas OlPower of a mitzvah
The Rebbe also said then, “The four days between Yom Kippur and Sukkos correspond to the four letters of Hashem’s Name, Havayeh.1 The first day corresponds to the Yud, and is therefore called ‘G-d’s Name’ (Gutt’s Nummen).”
My zeide related Reb Aizel’s account of how he became a follower 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. Accordingly, a shliach arrived in Homil after Sukkos and, succeeding in his mission, traveled with Reb Aizel to Liozna. When Reb Aizel returned home for Pesach he established a minyan that davened nusach Chabad.
Now Reb Aizel was the only son of his father R. Mordechai, who spent much time in Leipzig and kept his distance from the chassidim. And when R. Mordechai returned home shortly before Pesach he forbade his son — on the basis of a son’s obligation to honor his father — from davening in the new minyan.
But everything changed on Pesach. Sitting around the seder table and listening to Reb Aizel’s brilliant expositions on the Haggadah, his father understood that Chassidus had not harmed his son. And not only did he permit him to rejoin the Chabad minyan the next morning, but for the remainder of Pesach R. Mordechai himself joined the minyan and, with the approach of Shavuos, joined Reb Aizel on the trip to Liozna.
In the course of a farbrengen at his mother’s house, the Rebbe related that a chossid dreamt that his previous Rebbe had told him, “In the coming year one of your children will pass away. ” When the chossid went to his Rebbe for Rosh Hashanah, the Rebbe told him, “Tracht gut vet zein gut” (Think positively, and it will turn out well). But, unable to shake off what the previous Rebbe had told him, the chossid was deeply apprehensive and returned home.
On Simchas Torah, when everyone was dancing, he stood to the side and wept. But then came the thought: “Nonetheless, it’s Simchas Torah!” And he jumped into the dancing.
When he went back for yechidus after Sukkos, the Rebbe asked him, “What did you do on Simchas Torah?” He described what had happened, and the Rebbe told him that his exuberant “Tracht gut vet zein gut” nullified the decree.
My zeide went often for yechidus. Before Rosh Hashanah, for example, one must go. And after Sukkos — when the Rebbe reached loftier levels — one, of course, must go again.
The Tzemach Tzedek once asked him: “Why do you come so often?”