Parshas Tazria

Some­one told the Al­ter Rebbe that his chas­sidim were char­la­tans (“tzvu’im, ” lit. col­ored). “Good, ” he replied, “they’ll get what they de­serve, as the Sages said: Some­one nei­ther lame nor blind — but who pre­tends to be — will not leave the world with­out truly be­com­ing so. They truly will be chas­sidim. ”

The same as­sess­ment was pre­sented to the Tzemach Tzedek. “It’s a sign, ” he said, “that they are fond only of this color. ”

On an­other oc­ca­sion he an­swered: “When some­one soaks him­self all day in col­ored dye — it is un­avoid­able that some of it will work its way in­side, as well. ”

Gen­er­ally, my zeide would also say Chas­sidus on chas­sidic fes­ti­vals.

My knowl­edge of the sto­ries is based upon know­ing when it was a good time¹⁷ for my zeide, for he would say: “In ke­li­pah there is only laugh­ter and gai­ety; in ke­dushah, I have seen, there is ‘strict­ness. ’” (The Rebbe Ray­atz ex­pressed it bet­ter as “se­ri­ous­ness. ”)

17. In the original: di gute tzeit, an appropriate time. ↩

They told Reb Aizel that there were Jews who poke fun at long peyos, side­locks.

“Mas­ter of the Uni­verse!” they heard him cry out later. “Now Yid­den, too, are ridi­cul­ing long peyos?! — Take me away from this world!”

Dur­ing the Tzemach Tzedek’s life­time his son, R. Yehu­dah Leib, once said at a far­bren­gen in Chernigov:

“Our chas­sidim would be highly re­garded — it’s just the kar­bele (a Rus­sian coin) that gets in the way. ”