Parshas Vayechi

One Pe­sach, when ev­ery­one had fin­ished dav­en­ing and was ready to leave, my zeide said, “Let’s wait a bit. ” They went then to Reb Aizel’s room, where he was sit­ting on a sofa. See­ing them, he said, “You have no con­cept of how one must love a Yid. What is a Yid? Ne­shamah, emu­nah, and Torah and mitzvos. How could one not love that?” He re­peated his words — and ev­ery­one was very happy to have stayed.

I heard this from the Rebbe Rashab on Sim­chas Torah, 5679 (1918):

They were talk­ing about the fact that peo­ple were giv­ing large amounts of tzedakah, and the Rebbe’s son (the Rebbe Ray­atz) com­mented that peo­ple give be­cause money means noth­ing to them.

The Rebbe Rashab did not agree. “Who do you think will bring Moshi­ach? — the pen­ni­less?” he asked. “No, the wealthy — they will bring Moshi­ach.”

While they were sit­ting in the Reb­b­itzen’s room be­fore go­ing to hakafos, one of the chas­sidim com­mented, “There are zeitike men­schen ( out­siders ) in the zal.”

“What is the mean­ing of ‘peo­ple from out­side’?” the Rebbe asked. “If they are ‘out­siders, ’ they are not ‘peo­ple’; if they are ‘peo­ple, ’ they are not ‘out­siders. ’”