Farbreng.ing Pre-release
Stories from As I Heard Them (Lesheima Ozen) by Reb Zalman Duchman · © The Duchman Family; please share this sheet as printed
Farbreng.app – Created by Menachem Spielman, l'zechus those who keep the Yiddishkeit of yesteryear alive
← pick another occasion Paper: A4 · Letter
בס״ד
Stories for the week

Parshas Beha'aloscha

"All Your Days Are in Teshuvah"

As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, p. 82, no. 9

In his later years the Tzemach Tzedek held yechidus with the chas­sidim stand­ing lit­er­ally back -to-back [ one’s au­di­ence with the Rebbe be­gan im­me­di­ately when the chos­sid stand­ing in front of him had fin­ished].

On one oc­ca­sion Reb Itzele Rover from Homil, a ven­er­a­ble chos­sid of the Al­ter Rebbe, came to the Tzemach Tzedek for yechidus. Di­rectly be­hind him was my zeide, who heard Reb Itzele re­quest a bless­ing from the Rebbe: not to die with­out do­ing teshu­vah.

“Reb Itzele, ” the Rebbe cried out, “what do you want from me? — All your days are in teshu­vah.”19

  1. Shabbos 153a. Likutei Torah, Devarim 71c. ↩
Seeing good in another JewHumilityTeshuvah out of love

Read in full →

The Footbridge Dream

As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 55-56, no. 36

My zeide would tell the fol­low­ing story:

The Mit­teler Rebbe once dreamt that they had to go over a foot­bridge above a stream. His teacher, the Mag­gid of Mezritch, was the first to go over, and he stum­bled on the way. His fa­ther, the Al­ter Rebbe, was next, and passed over with­out in­ci­dent.

When the Mit­teler Rebbe later asked the Al­ter Rebbe about this, he an­swered, “How can you com­pare me with the Rebbe? Has the Rebbe made as many baalei teshu­vah as I have?”

HumilityTeshuvah out of loveInfluence of one Jew

Read in full →

The Bochur Full of False Ideas

As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 158-159, no. 37

R. Moshe Aizel Rabkin, a gvir who lived in Homil, was at a far­bren­gen with the Rebbe — I think it was Purim in Men­ton. He de­scribed how the Rebbe had spo­ken of Tom­chei Temimim ’s spe­cial qual­i­ties, and had then re­lated a story of a young per­son who showed up in Lubav­itch hop­ing to be ac­cepted into Tom­chei Temimim yeshivah:

“The young man didn’t find fa­vor with the ad­min­is­tra­tion, and when they sent him to me, I saw that he was filled with false ideas. Nev­er­the­less I in­structed that he be ac­cepted. Much later there was a lev­ayah in Lubav­itch, and af­ter the lev­ayah I went into the small zal to re­cite the Yo­shev Be’seiser5 seven times. That same young man, deeply en­grossed in dav­en­ing, was stand­ing there — com­pletely obliv­i­ous to the tu­mult. ”

  1. Tehillim 91, customarily recited upon returning from a funeral. ↩
Seeing good in another JewAhavas YisraelTeshuvah out of love

Read in full →

"He Inherited It All, and He Does Better"

As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, p. 230, no. 48

The Reb­bet­zin also re­lated an episode re­gard­ing a shid­duch sug­gested for a Tom­chei Temimim stu­dent. She ex­pressed her opin­ion about the mat­ter, while her son, the Rebbe, felt dif­fer­ently. Later she said, “It seems to me that ‘The wife of a Torah scholar is com­pa­ra­ble to a Torah scholar’16 — none­the­less, he in­her­ited it all, and he does bet­ter (macht besser).”

  1. Avodah Zara 39a. ↩
HumilityEmes

Read in full →