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Stories from As I Heard Them (Lesheima Ozen) by Reb Zalman Duchman. © The Duchman Family; used with permission — share this sheet as produced, do not republish the stories in other formats.

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בס״ד

Farbreng.ing

Stories for

Yud Shevat

10 Shevat

Yahrzeit of the Frierdiker Rebbe (1950); the Rebbe formally accepted leadership with Basi LeGani (1951)

"It Is the Same Father"

As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, p. 251, no. 88

כאשר קבלנו הידיעה המרה המחרידה (הסתלקות כ"ק אדמו"ר זי"ע, י' שבט, תש"י) נפלתי לארץ בלא קול רק שפתי נעו, אבדנו, אבדנו...

כעת נזכרתי מה ששמעתי מחסידים זקנים, כי אלו החסידים אשר אמרו "זה" בכל דור, האָבן געגרייזט. וגם אני בעצמי איזה זמן אחר אדמו"ר שלנו (הרש"ב) זי"ע פלעג זאָגן: אַז מיין טאַטע איז ניטאָ, נאַדיר אַן אַנדער טאַטן? נאָר דערנאָך האָב איך זיך געכאַפּט, אַז עס איז דער זעלבער טאַטע און נאָך מיט מער שטאַרקייט. און ווען איך בין געקומען אויף ר"ה תרפ"ג, איז אויף דער ערשטער יחידות האָט דער רבי ריי"צ געזאָגט: פאַר אונזערע קינדער דאגה'נען מיר וועגן פרנסה.

When we received the bitter, dreadful news ( of the Rebbe’s passing on Yud Shevat, 5710 (1950) ) I fell to the ground, stunned; only my lips moved: “We are lost, we are lost…. ”

I remember now what I had heard from the senior chassidim: that those chassidim who said “he” in every generation — were mistaken. And I myself, sometime after [the passing of] our Rebbe (the Rebbe Rashab ), would say, “If my father is not here, can I take another father?” But only afterwards I understood: it is the same father, but with greater strength.

And when I came for Rosh Hashanah, 5683 (1922), the Rebbe said in the first yechidus, “We provide parnassah for our children. ”

Occasion: yud_shevat (5/5): The story opens with the news of the Frierdiker Rebbe's histalkus on Yud Shevat 5710 and the narrator's collapse on hearing it — natural material for a Yud Shevat farbrengen.

Also this occasion

"In That Case He Is Very Healthy"

As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 445-446, no. 18

After the Frierdiker Rebbe's passing on Yud Shevat 5710 (1950), R. Zalman Duchman wrote a long letter to our Rebbe accepting him as successor, though the Rebbe did not take up the leadership until a year later. Some months later R. Zalman wrote that the honorifics would now have to change — wishes for health replaced by mention of his righteous memory — recalling that his grandfather R. Mordechai Yoel of Homil, speaking of the Tzemach Tzedek years after his passing, would still say "the Rebbe, may he be well," then catch himself and add "in Gan Eden." The Rebbe answered that there is nothing to fear in saying it: Tanya, Epistle Twenty-Eight explains that the life of a tzaddik is faith, love and fear — in that sense he is very healthy.

HiskashrusSanctity of a tzaddikEmunah

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The Weeping of Yud Shevat 5674

As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 390-391, no. 16

The Rebbe Shlita related in the name of chassidim that the Rebbe Rayatz was deeply shaken when his grandmother, Rebbetzin Rivkah, passed away on Yud Shevat 5674 (1914). The narrator's brother Chaim Baruch, who was present on motzaei Shabbos (Yud Shevat fell on erev Shabbos that year), heard him daven Maariv and said the crying was beyond description. It was said that the Rebbe Rayatz felt responsible: Rebbetzin Rivkah had asked him to summon his father, the Rebbe Rashab, who was then in Menton, but he was protective of his father's strength, and the renowned physician Lieberman was brought from Vitebsk and said there was no danger. When word of Yud Shevat 5710 (1950) arrived, the narrator said that only then could one grasp the loss of 5674; he also notes that the Rebbe Rayatz was traveling and absent when his mother, Rebbetzin Shterna Sarah, passed away on 13 Shevat 5702 (1942) in New York.

Sanctity of a tzaddik

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What Sort of Chossid Sleeps Until Nine

As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 204-206, no. 12

At Simchas Torah 5685 (1924) in Leningrad, the Rebbe Rayatz spoke passionately against the chossid who sleeps until nine, has davened and eaten by ten, and then strolls Nevsky Street looking where he should not, imagining that a kapotah and gartel or three rubles given to the Rebbe make him a chossid. He cited R. Hillel Paritcher's remark that he does not care for one who strayed and did teshuvah — who knows what sort of teshuvah it was — and explained the teaching that baalei teshuvah stand where perfect tzaddikim cannot: the baal teshuvah is not the same person, he is someone else. He then turned to a young man from Kherson living in Moscow, told him "It's not you," and instructed him to accept divrei chavrus and give a Kiddush on Shabbos Bereishis, adding that everyone must accept upon himself not to sleep past seven in the morning.

The Frierdiker Rebbe EmesKabbolas OlTeshuvah out of love

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