Parshas Tetzaveh

Look­ing through his se­fer, Shnei HaMe­oros, Reb Aizel of­ten com­mented, “Ap­par­ently, when I was young, I had an un­der­stand­ing of Chas­sidus. ”

R. Eliyahu Chaim Al­thoiz (may G-d avenge his blood) re­lated that he once asked the Rebbe why he didn’t lie down to rest dur­ing the day. Af­ter all, he rea­soned, when the Rebbe’s fa­ther, the Rebbe Rashab, was the same age, he would lie down to rest dur­ing the day. The Rebbe an­swered, “ Ay! — where my fa­ther was at my age…!”

My zeide de­scribed the depth of the chas­sidim of yore:

R. Yosef Lubav­itcher²⁰ — also known as Der Fet­ter (Un­cle) Yosele, for he was the Tzemach Tzedek’s un­cle²¹ — was in Chernigov one Yom Kip­pur, where R. Nochum [Galttman] — a great man, one of Reb Aizel’s ven­er­a­ble stu­dents and a chos­sid of the Mit­teler Rebbe — served as rov. (My zeide called him Rabbi Nochum Chernigover.) Be­fore Kol Nidrei , Der Fet­ter Yosele took his place along a wall, where he stood un­til the fol­low­ing evening.

Now af­ter Neilah the cus­tom among chas­sidim is to sing and, ac­cord­ingly, a joy­ous tu­mult broke out. R. Yosef ran to Rabbi Nochum. “Nochum, ” he ex­claimed, “what an un­prin­ci­pled city²² you have! Af­ter Kol Nidrei they’re al­ready singing?!”

20. R. Yosef’s father was Rav Yissachar Ber, the rabbinic authority of Lubavitch. ↩
21. His wife was the sister of Rabbi Shalom Shachne, the Tzemach Tzedek’s father. ↩
22. In the original: tzelozenne shtutt . ↩