Tisha B'Av

In the sum­mer of 5674 (1914 ) my brother be­came ill with tu­ber­cu­lo­sis. We brought him from Homil to Kiev for surgery, and a year later he un­der­went an­other op­er­a­tion. Fol­low­ing a third op­er­a­tion he was very weak. (Peo­ple were given seda­tives to drink be­fore op­er­a­tions in those times.) I wrote a pidyon and sent it to the Rebbe’s sum­mer home (datche) in Zal­sha. Hashem helped; an open­ing de­vel­oped there and the phlegm grad­u­ally drained. When the doc­tor — Kostritzky was his name — ob­served this, he said it was the first time he had ever seen this.

I brought my brother to Lubav­itch for Rosh Hashanah 5675 (1914 ). The war had be­gun on Tisha B’ Av, 5674 and the flow of guests was im­mense. We were un­able to have yechidus, and at the end of Yom Kip­pur we had to leave since we lacked funds to re­main through Sukkos. As men­tioned ear­lier, I was in the Rebbe’s din­ing room to break the fast, and af­ter­wards — when the Rebbe left the room — I told the Reb­bet­zin that we had to leave. She let me wait in the small room be­tween the din­ing room and the room where the Rebbe held yechidus, and when the Rebbe came out of his room very late, I said to him — for the Rebbe knew me quite well — “This is my brother. ”

“This is the one whose leg hurt?” the Rebbe asked.

Isn’t this ex­tra­or­di­nary? There is no way to es­ti­mate how many peo­ple passed through that year from af­ter Shavuos un­til motzaei Yom Kip­pur!

Once at a far­bren­gen it was quite hot and cramped, and some rav there, want­ing to get up from the ta­ble, was un­suc­cess­ful. “They won’t let me out, ” he said.

Over­hear­ing him, the Rebbe — the Tzemach Tzedek — said, “Who would dare not let a Yid out? Who would dare not let a Yid out?”