Parshas Vayeilech

The Rebbe told Chaim Am­stislovsky, “You be­came who you are from a tzad­dik’s glance!”

Af­ter the Rebbe left for Riga, Reb Chaim of­ten re­lated what hap­pened:

Reb Chaim — a good-sized lad, tall, hand­some and rich — was walk­ing along the street in Pet­ro­grad when R. Yitzchak Yoel Rafaelovitch, the Kre­menchug rov’s son, grabbed him and said that the Lubav­itcher Rebbe [the Rebbe Rashab ] is in town. “I want to meet him, ” said Reb Chaim. “He is not meet­ing with any­one, ” R. Yitzchak Yoel an­swered.

To be brief, through great ef­fort he was ad­mit­ted to yechidus — and was so shaken that he didn’t know whether it was day or night. He only re­mem­bered how the Rebbe Rashab told him: “May you be suc­cess­ful wher­ever you turn. ”

“And just the day be­fore that, ” Reb Chaim said, “I was stand­ing be­fore Com­rade Sol­dier Min­is­ter Bi­ly­ovsky, and I spoke with­out a trace of fear. But here — I was nonex­is­tent (bot­tel gevoren)!”

In his old age Reb Chaim Avra­ham, the Al­ter Rebbe’s son, went to the Tzemach Tzedek to hear him blow the sho­far. The Rebbe Ma­ha­rash (the Tzemach Tzedek’s son) asked him: “Why do you trou­ble your­self? You can make your own minyan to hear the tekios.”

“The po­suk states: תרועה יודעי העם אשרי – Happy are the peo­ple who know [the sound of] the Teruah⁵ — who know the Teruah, not who blow the Teruah,” he replied.

5. Tehillim 89:16. ↩

My un­cle, R. Yehu­dah Leib Chas­dan — the shochet from Homil (they called him the Se­bezesher shochet) — told me the event he wit­nessed. When he was in Reb­bet­zin Rivkah’s home he heard her dav­en­ing in the next room. When she reached Kriyas Shema he saw on his watch that her med­i­ta­tion on “echad” lasted 20 min­utes.