Parshas Va'eira

In the course of a far­bren­gen at his mother’s house, the Rebbe re­lated that a chos­sid dreamt that his pre­vi­ous Rebbe had told him, “In the com­ing year one of your chil­dren will pass away. ” When the chos­sid went to his Rebbe for Rosh Hashanah, the Rebbe told him, “Tra­cht gut vet zein gut” (Think pos­i­tively, and it will turn out well). But, un­able to shake off what the pre­vi­ous Rebbe had told him, the chos­sid was deeply ap­pre­hen­sive and re­turned home.

On Sim­chas Torah, when ev­ery­one was danc­ing, he stood to the side and wept. But then came the thought: “None­the­less, it’s Sim­chas Torah!” And he jumped into the danc­ing.

When he went back for yechidus af­ter Sukkos, the Rebbe asked him, “What did you do on Sim­chas Torah?” He de­scribed what had hap­pened, and the Rebbe told him that his ex­u­ber­ant “Tra­cht gut vet zein gut” nul­li­fied the de­cree.

When the Rebbe came to the G.P .O. on Tues­day, they told him to ap­pear again eight days later, on Wednes­day. (It was a law that one has to present him­self weekly.) When he said that he wants to come on Tues­day, they laughed, who would want to come to them a day ear­lier? Yet, when he came on Tues­day, Yud-Beis Tam­muz, some­one told him that that - al­though it was a lo­cal fes­ti­val - a tele­gram signed by Dz­erzhin­sky¹ had ar­rived and he was free. Mis­takes can hap­pen, ma­jor mis­takes, they told him, and they asked for his for­give­ness. That was the di­rec­tive from Mos­cow.

1. The founder of the Cheka secret police. ↩

The Al­ter Rebbe once said, “If my chil­dren de­vote them­selves to ruch­nius, they’ll have gash­mius as well. ”