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As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 306-307, no. 41
An agunah came to the Tzemach Tzedek in Lubavitch to ask about her missing husband, and the Rebbe sent her to Reb Aizel in Homil, who said he had no way of knowing where her husband was. She stayed in Homil for weeks, coming daily and weeping while Reb Aizel sent her away, until one day she refused to budge. Reb Aizel began shoving his meshares Mottel Gabeitzik, who in turn shoved the woman through all the rooms and out into the street — the Kiev-Petersburg highway that ran past the house — at the exact moment a wagon carrying her husband was passing. She screamed, the wagon halted, and a settlement was concluded.
3 min to tellexcellent to tell
391 wordsRebbe Rayatz
story_000400
score 1.38 ·
person_role=0.00 topic_theme_strength=0.00 occasion_strength=0.00 keyword_fts=0.00 semantic=0.00 farbrengen_value=1.00 length_suitability=0.75
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, p. 392, no. 18
The narrator's zeide, R. Mordechai Yoel, used to say that the Rebbeim disliked hearing about people's wrongdoings and preferred to speak Chassidus; yet at the Simchas Torah farbrengen of 5685 (1924) the Rebbe spoke at length about viduy devarim, and people became baalei teshuvah. A yungerman from Nevel, whose infant had suffocated in its sleep, chased the Rebbe from Leningrad to Moscow and finally to Rostov, apparently in the winter of 5683 (1923). At that yechidus the Rebbe told him that if people knew how good it is to tell everything — literally everything — once in six months or once a year, it would be truly good.
2 min to tellexcellent to tell
315 wordsRebbe Rayatz
story_000517
score 1.30 ·
person_role=0.00 topic_theme_strength=0.00 occasion_strength=0.00 keyword_fts=0.00 semantic=0.00 farbrengen_value=1.00 length_suitability=0.60
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 337-338, no. 36
R. Yosef Lubavitcher, known as Der Fetter Yosele and an uncle of the Tzemach Tzedek, spent Yom Kippur in Chernigov, where R. Nochum Chernigover — a student of Reb Aizel and a chossid of the Mitteler Rebbe — served as rov. Before Kol Nidrei he took his place along a wall and stood there until the following evening. When the customary joyous singing broke out after Neilah, he ran to R. Nochum and protested, "What an unprincipled city you have! After Kol Nidrei they're already singing?!" The narrator's zeide told the story to describe the depth of the chassidim of earlier generations.
2 min to tellexcellent to tell
304 wordsRebbe Rayatz
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score 1.29 ·
person_role=0.00 topic_theme_strength=0.00 occasion_strength=0.00 keyword_fts=0.00 semantic=0.00 farbrengen_value=1.00 length_suitability=0.57
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 447-449, no. 47
After four years in a DP camp, R. Zalman Duchman and his family received United States visas and arrived in New York on Wednesday, 4 Elul 5711 (1951), settling in Crown Heights near the Rebbe. Having lost two sons and narrowly escaped the N.K.V.D., he resolved to devote the rest of his life to Torah, davening and acts of kindness. The day after his arrival he went into yechidus; the Rebbe rose from his place and said, "So, if one is persistent enough, one succeeds!" and spent a long time reminiscing with him about their shared years in Leningrad with the Frierdiker Rebbe, remarking that in America they could finally speak openly and freely. When the Rebbe said, "Nu, Reb Zalman, from Leningrad to New York and we are seeing each other, Boruch Hashem!" R. Zalman answered somberly that the "ticket" had been very expensive.
2 min to tellexcellent to tell
288 wordsR. Zalman Duchman
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score 1.27 ·
person_role=0.00 topic_theme_strength=0.00 occasion_strength=0.00 keyword_fts=0.00 semantic=0.00 farbrengen_value=1.00 length_suitability=0.55
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 437-438, no. 36
The Yevsektzia eventually targeted R. Zalman, assigning a Jewish communist named Sorkin to bring him in for interrogation. Unlike most who were taken in, he was released each evening only to be forced back the next morning for long and painful interrogations day after day. His fingers were placed in a doorway's hinges and the door slammed on his hand repeatedly - for the rest of his life his fingernails did not grow - yet he would not give the interrogators the names and addresses of his fellow teachers of Torah. His daughter Rochel, about seventeen, accompanied him and waited outside, but he told even her nothing, refusing to add to his family's pain; only years later did he mention some of what he had endured.
2 min to tellexcellent to tell
262 wordsR. Zalman Duchman
story_000592
score 1.25 ·
person_role=0.00 topic_theme_strength=0.00 occasion_strength=0.00 keyword_fts=0.00 semantic=0.00 farbrengen_value=1.00 length_suitability=0.50
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, p. 312, no. 51
Reb Aizel explained, with a nigun, that when the Alter Rebbe would say Chassidus the nefesh ha'bahamis would flee, whereas nowadays one can listen to and study Chassidus while the animal soul remains at full strength and untroubled — it resists only davening at length and traveling to the Rebbe. The narrator adds that his zeide (רמ"י) reported hearing from the baalei batim of Sosnitza, where the zeide was a son-in-law, that whenever they needed to travel to the Tzemach Tzedek the greatest obstacles would arise; yet once they overcame them and set out, on the way back from Lubavitch they saw that the obstacles had been utterly nothing.
2 min to tellexcellent to tell
246 wordsRebbe Rayatz
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score 1.24 ·
person_role=0.00 topic_theme_strength=0.00 occasion_strength=0.00 keyword_fts=0.00 semantic=0.00 farbrengen_value=1.00 length_suitability=0.47
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 168-169, no. 52
The narrator's brother Baruch told him in Homil, over a few lechaims, that while he was a student in Tomchei Temimim in Lubavitch the Rebbe Rashab instructed him in yechidus to stay up and learn ("zitzen") for seven nights — from Thursday morning through the following night and the whole next day until evening, without lying down. Each time he feared he might have dozed off, so he repeated the practice. In the end he stayed awake in this fashion for fifteen nights.
2 min to tellexcellent to tell
221 wordsRebbe Rashab
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score 1.21 ·
person_role=0.00 topic_theme_strength=0.00 occasion_strength=0.00 keyword_fts=0.00 semantic=0.00 farbrengen_value=1.00 length_suitability=0.43
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, p. 229, no. 46
Rebbetzin Shterna Sarah related that when the Rebbe Rayatz was still quite young and the family was away on vacation, his father the Rebbe Rashab instructed him to contemplate Chassidus until his head spun and he was on the verge of fainting, and then to come to her room and collapse on the sofa there. This went on for some time. When she came to the Rebbe Rashab and protested at his giving the boy such a difficult avodah, he answered, "Nu, what kind of son do you want?"
2 min to tellexcellent to tell
207 wordsRebbe Rayatz
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score 1.20 ·
person_role=0.00 topic_theme_strength=0.00 occasion_strength=0.00 keyword_fts=0.00 semantic=0.00 farbrengen_value=1.00 length_suitability=0.40
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 101-102, no. 41
R. Groinem the mashpia recounted that an agunah with a mute son of eight or nine came to the Tzemach Tzedek in Lubavitch and persistently pressed him to tell her where her husband was. Once she had the boy tug at the edge of the Rebbe's garment, and the Rebbe told him, "Tell your mother that your father is returning soon" — which the child did. When the Tzemach Tzedek was told what had happened, he answered, "I didn't know that the boy was mute."
1 min to tellexcellent to tell
188 wordsTzemach Tzedek
story_000097
score 1.18 ·
person_role=0.00 topic_theme_strength=0.00 occasion_strength=0.00 keyword_fts=0.00 semantic=0.00 farbrengen_value=1.00 length_suitability=0.35
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 162-163, no. 43
The Rebbe said that when they were in Lubavitch they could not have imagined the darkness of Rostov. For someone whom the darkness does not bother, it brings him no benefit; but one who is disturbed by the darkness and overcomes it reaps its additional light.
1 min to tellexcellent to tell
171 wordsRebbe Rashab
story_000182
score 1.16 ·
person_role=0.00 topic_theme_strength=0.00 occasion_strength=0.00 keyword_fts=0.00 semantic=0.00 farbrengen_value=1.00 length_suitability=0.32
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, p. 301, no. 33
Another account the zeide heard from the Tzemach Tzedek's children: their father told them that late into the night he discussed with Reb Aizel subjects that stand at the loftiest heights. Afterwards he went to rest, but then decided to go look at "the zeide's soldier" — the Alter Rebbe's soldier. He found Reb Aizel standing and studying Gemara like a diligent young scholar who had not learned in a long time.
1 min to tellexcellent to tell
160 wordsRebbe Rayatz
story_000392
score 1.15 ·
person_role=0.00 topic_theme_strength=0.00 occasion_strength=0.00 keyword_fts=0.00 semantic=0.00 farbrengen_value=1.00 length_suitability=0.30
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 74-75, no. 1
The narrator's grandfather, the venerable chossid Reb Mordechai Yoel HaLevi Duchman of Homil, was born on the second of Sivan, apparently in 5596 (1836), and from childhood was a diligent learner and meticulous in mitzvos, tying his nightcap so his head would not become uncovered in his sleep. In Homil chassidim would learn in shul through the night, and he would tell his grandchildren that at fourteen he knew the entire Shas with Gemara and Rashi, naming the geonim who had tested him. He recounted that the Tzemach Tzedek regularly summoned his grandchildren to be tested on what they had learned; when two of them said they had learned only the laws of To'en v'Nit'an, the Tzemach Tzedek responded that they had wandered idly the whole zman — that is a condiment to wisdom, but Torah is Gemara and Rashi.
3 min to tellvery good to tell
357 wordsTzemach Tzedek
story_000057
score 1.14 ·
person_role=0.00 topic_theme_strength=0.00 occasion_strength=0.00 keyword_fts=0.00 semantic=0.00 farbrengen_value=0.80 length_suitability=0.68
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 409-410, no. 41
The narrator's zeide told this story to illustrate both Reb Aizel's qualities and the innocent sincerity of earlier generations. In Homil the Pesach flour ran out entirely, and the only flour to be had came from mills whose wheat had not been washed; Reb Aizel, the rov of Homil, permitted its use. A balabusta came to him and said, 'Rebbe, they told me that you said it was all right to bake matzah for Pesach from chometzdike flour!' — and he answered that chometz on Pesach is forbidden to eat, but one may bake matzah from simple flour. This went on the entire day, and one can imagine how he suffered.
3 min to tellvery good to tell
351 wordsRebbe Rayatz
story_000540
score 1.14 ·
person_role=0.00 topic_theme_strength=0.00 occasion_strength=0.00 keyword_fts=0.00 semantic=0.00 farbrengen_value=0.80 length_suitability=0.68
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 413-414, no. 50
Before his passing, the renowned chossid R. Yaakov Mordechai Bezpalov said that he had slept on a chair for thirty years, and that putting on tefillin even once is more precious than those thirty years of sleeping on a chair. Chassidim commented that in order to feel the preciousness of tefillin the way he felt it, one must first sleep on a chair for thirty years. A note adds that at the end of his life he regretted the self-denial, thinking that had he not weakened himself he might have lived to put on tefillin one more time.
1 min to tellexcellent to tell
137 wordsRebbe Rayatz
story_000549
score 1.14 ·
person_role=0.00 topic_theme_strength=0.00 occasion_strength=0.00 keyword_fts=0.00 semantic=0.00 farbrengen_value=1.00 length_suitability=0.28
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 57-58, no. 39
Reb Aizel told his students that the Alter Rebbe once offered to show him a new path in Chassidus, and he replied that he was not yet finished with the old one. On another occasion the Alter Rebbe invited him, "Aizik, come into the mikveh" — an offer that would have brought him great spiritual benefit — and he answered that he wanted to do the work himself.
1 min to tellexcellent to tell
128 wordsAlter Rebbe
story_000039
score 1.12 ·
person_role=0.00 topic_theme_strength=0.00 occasion_strength=0.00 keyword_fts=0.00 semantic=0.00 farbrengen_value=1.00 length_suitability=0.25
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 240-241, no. 67
A young man told the narrator that he had concluded that transforming oneself as Chassidus demands is too difficult, so a person simply remains as he is. Then at a farbrengen the Rebbe said that a person is not his own master: if his father studied, he must study; if his zeide was a chossid, he must be a chossid.
1 min to tellexcellent to tell
122 wordsRebbe Rayatz
story_000298
score 1.11 ·
person_role=0.00 topic_theme_strength=0.00 occasion_strength=0.00 keyword_fts=0.00 semantic=0.00 farbrengen_value=1.00 length_suitability=0.22
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 349-352, no. 52
As a young man who came to Lubavitch in 5610 (1850) in the days of the Tzemach Tzedek, the narrator's zeide decided that a Rebbe is similar to Hashem and that he wanted to enter without any intermediary. Reb Chaim Ber, the Rebbe's meshares, called him mad and cut off his food allowance, so that for three weeks he lived on two small kichlech a day given him by his study partner, Rebbe Shalom DovBer, son of the Maharil. One night, after Reb Chaim Ber announced that no one was permitted to enter for yechidus, the zeide slipped into the Rebbe's house; as he touched the chamber door the Rebbe came out, he answered with two points, and the Rebbe took his hand and brought him inside for a yechidus 'like none before or after.' When the Rebbe learned that his food allowance had been cut off, he cried 'Oy vey iz mir,' told him he did not need Reb Chaim Ber, and gave him six silver griveniks himself every Thursday morning — through his son the Rebbe Maharash when the zeide came late.
7 min to tellexcellent to tell
926 wordsRebbe Rayatz
story_000469
score 1.11 ·
person_role=0.00 topic_theme_strength=0.00 occasion_strength=0.00 keyword_fts=0.00 semantic=0.00 farbrengen_value=1.00 length_suitability=0.23
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 424-425, no. 13
Half a year after the deaths in his family, on 2 Nissan 5680 (1920), the Rebbe Rashab passed away in Rostov — a difficult period for R. Zalman Duchman, who had been so connected to him. His love for the Rebbe Rashab drove him to make the long and arduous trip to the Ohel for the yahrtzeit every year. Before Beis Nissan he would board the train to Rostov without knowing what lay ahead, even though Communist spies rode the trains watching for "suspicious persons" and anti-Semitic thugs regularly attacked anyone they recognized as Jewish. His burning desire to be by his Rebbe on that day made him ignore those fears.
1 min to tellexcellent to tell
118 wordsR. Zalman Duchman
story_000569
score 1.11 ·
person_role=0.00 topic_theme_strength=0.00 occasion_strength=0.00 keyword_fts=0.00 semantic=0.00 farbrengen_value=1.00 length_suitability=0.22
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 153-154, no. 27
During the First World War R. Zalman Havlin passed through Homil with his brother Lipa of Postov, near Kiev, whom he had gotten released from his regiment for half a year. R. Zalman related that when he asked the Rebbe about his brother's draft notice, the Rebbe told him to think about obtaining a passport; being well versed in such matters, R. Zalman raised other ideas instead. The Rebbe answered, "Listen, Zalman, there's a life at stake. What was said — was said. But when you start reasoning with me this way, I don't know what to say." R. Zalman concluded that after a great deal of hard work he had just about gotten his brother out, and even so he was not completely free.
2 min to tellvery good to tell
305 wordsRebbe Rashab
story_000166
score 1.09 ·
person_role=0.00 topic_theme_strength=0.00 occasion_strength=0.00 keyword_fts=0.00 semantic=0.00 farbrengen_value=0.80 length_suitability=0.57
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 433-435, no. 29
R. Zalman Duchman records that on Purim 5695 (1935) in Leningrad, R. Elchanan Morozov said to him and to Pinchas Althoiz a vort on the posuk "The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light" (Yeshayahu 9:1). Morozov asked how people in darkness could be said to see a great light, and answered: one can only go through darkness when earlier one has seen a great light.
1 min to tellexcellent to tell
88 wordsR. Zalman Duchman
story_000585
score 1.09 ·
person_role=0.00 topic_theme_strength=0.00 occasion_strength=0.00 keyword_fts=0.00 semantic=0.00 farbrengen_value=1.00 length_suitability=0.18
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 449-450, no. 50
Though he lived in America for over twenty years, R. Zalman never learned English and continued to live exactly as he had in Lubavitch. He slept from 11 pm until before 3 am and kept a fixed daily study program — Zohar on the parsha, Torah Ohr or Likutei Torah on the parsha, and the daily portion of Tehillim — always completing the full weekly cycle of each, followed by mikvah, more study, and shacharis. In his corner of the original 770 shul he would wait for kaddish, chazoras hashatz and krias haTorah and then daven for hours, on Shabbos until two or three in the afternoon. He devoted much of his day to maamorim and the Rebbe's sichos, attended R. Mentlik's weekly sicha shiur, and in old age enjoyed the bochurim's company, unhesitatingly asking a bochur fifty years his junior to repeat a sicha or learn with him as a chavrusa.
2 min to tellvery good to tell
302 wordsR. Zalman Duchman
story_000606
score 1.09 ·
person_role=0.00 topic_theme_strength=0.00 occasion_strength=0.00 keyword_fts=0.00 semantic=0.00 farbrengen_value=0.80 length_suitability=0.57
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 491-492, no. 13
A family of twelve, chassidim of the Skulener Rebbe, arrived in Toronto; the father fell gravely ill and died, leaving a widow with ten young children. R. Eliyahu collected a large sum for them and established an official fund to support each member of the family, and as each child reached marriageable age he found a spouse, arranged everything the couple needed, and married off all ten as if they were of illustrious status, worrying for them as though they were his own children. After R. Eliyahu's passing, the Skulener Rebbe came to the shiva — arriving in Toronto at 3 A.M. after an airplane delay and asking the family to receive him at that hour — to thank them for the kindness shown to his chassidim.
2 min to tellvery good to tell
282 wordsR. Eliyahu Akiva Lipskar
story_000672
score 1.08 ·
person_role=0.00 topic_theme_strength=0.00 occasion_strength=0.00 keyword_fts=0.00 semantic=0.00 farbrengen_value=0.80 length_suitability=0.55
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 237-238, no. 60
The Rebbe related that when the Rashbatz (Reb Shmuel Betzalel) told him he would begin learning Chassidus with him, he refused, saying he would learn Chassidus only with his father. The Rashbatz protested that he had taught Chassidus to both his father and his grandfather. When his father asked why he would not study with the Rashbatz, he repeated that he wanted to learn only with him; his father objected that he was busy with people and had no time, and he answered, "I'll wait" — and so it was. Later his father told him he was very grateful for his insistence.
2 min to tellvery good to tell
270 wordsRebbe Rayatz
story_000291
score 1.06 ·
person_role=0.00 topic_theme_strength=0.00 occasion_strength=0.00 keyword_fts=0.00 semantic=0.00 farbrengen_value=0.80 length_suitability=0.53
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 395-396, no. 23
R. Yochanan the shochet related that when the Rebbe stopped in Vilna on his way from Russia to Warsaw, a tomim named Yaakov Hochman (Dokshitzer) asked him for a "ruchnius'dike yechidus" — a tikkun. The Rebbe said he could not answer; R. Yaakov said the Rebbe's father used to answer, and when the Rebbe replied that he had presumably already asked him, R. Yaakov said these were newer matters. The Rebbe then gave him a tikkun: to learn one chapter of Tanya in depth for a full week, the same chapter, and thereby become clear in Tanya. R. Yaakov did so and became expert in Tanya; an outstanding oveid, he had intended to travel to America but remained in Riga, HY"D.
2 min to tellvery good to tell
261 wordsRebbe Rayatz
story_000522
score 1.05 ·
person_role=0.00 topic_theme_strength=0.00 occasion_strength=0.00 keyword_fts=0.00 semantic=0.00 farbrengen_value=0.80 length_suitability=0.50
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, p. 468, no. 1
Yisroel HaLevi Duchman was born to Zalman and Chaya Grunya on Shabbos, 8 Tishrei 5689 (1928), and the Frierdiker Rebbe, then in Riga, sent a letter with a bracha for the newborn. He grew up in Leningrad under communist oppression, taught at home by his father together with his brother Dovber Menachem Mendel while the oldest brother Mordechai Yoel was sent to the underground Tomchei Temimim in Kutaisi. When the Nazis besieged Leningrad in Elul 5701 (1941), both brothers were lost — one fell in battle with the Soviet army, the other left the house and never returned — and their father, broken and famished, was hospitalized. The burden of feeding the family fell on eleven-year-old Yisroel, who used charm and ingenuity to obtain scraps of food from a nearby Russian army camp, sustaining his family and others who turned to the Duchmans for help.
2 min to tellvery good to tell
261 wordsR. Yisroel Duchman
story_000635
score 1.05 ·
person_role=0.00 topic_theme_strength=0.00 occasion_strength=0.00 keyword_fts=0.00 semantic=0.00 farbrengen_value=0.80 length_suitability=0.50
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 324-325, no. 11
The narrator describes his zeide Mordechai Yoel's daily order: he went to sleep at 12:30 or 12:45 a.m. and rose at 3:30 or 3:45 a.m. His father related that until the age of 50 or 55 the zeide never lay down to sleep at all, but only dozed lightly while sitting at the table. The narrator remembers a slightly scorched Gemara Beitzah in the house — his father explained that the zeide had been sitting and learning, dozed off, and the candle singed the volume.
2 min to tellvery good to tell
247 wordsRebbe Rayatz
story_000428
score 1.04 ·
person_role=0.00 topic_theme_strength=0.00 occasion_strength=0.00 keyword_fts=0.00 semantic=0.00 farbrengen_value=0.80 length_suitability=0.47
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, p. 406, no. 38
The narrator's nephew Shalom Maizel, who spent much time with the Rogatchover Gaon, R. Yosef Rosen, in Petersburg, once asked him how much a person must learn and know before the Gaon would still call him an ignoramus; the Gaon answered, 'A great, great amount.' The Gaon also told him that people say the Shaagas Aryeh learned Shas 600 times, and that while he himself did not remember how many times he had learned Shas, he knew that during two years in Warsaw supported by his father-in-law he reviewed Shas eighteen hours a day, no less than eighteen blatt an hour.
2 min to tellvery good to tell
250 wordsRebbe Rayatz
story_000537
score 1.04 ·
person_role=0.00 topic_theme_strength=0.00 occasion_strength=0.00 keyword_fts=0.00 semantic=0.00 farbrengen_value=0.80 length_suitability=0.47
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, p. 43, no. 21
The chossid Mordechai Yoel related in the name of the caretaker of the Alter Rebbe's ohel that the Mitteler Rebbe once came out of the ohel and said, "Areleh was here, and they didn't let him in — and Father is very upset!" The background: when Reb Areleh Strasseler came to visit the ohel, the Mitteler Rebbe's chassidim in Haditch refused him the key, so he set a ladder against an upper window of the ohel and cried out, "Ay, Rebbe! Ay, Rebbe!"
2 min to tellvery good to tell
233 wordsAlter Rebbe
story_000021
score 1.02 ·
person_role=0.00 topic_theme_strength=0.00 occasion_strength=0.00 keyword_fts=0.00 semantic=0.00 farbrengen_value=0.80 length_suitability=0.45
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 489-490, no. 10
R. Eliyahu farbrenged with every layer of the community — schoolboys, yeshiva students, middle-aged men and the elderly — always knowing which story or saying suited his listeners, and his Shabbos afternoon farbrengens in shul often lasted until sunset. He was a pillar of the community: he assisted the Chabad institutions in Toronto, those who had escaped Soviet oppression, Colel Chabad in Eretz Yisroel and Lishkas Ezras Achim, and he was among the Rashag's foremost local aides when the Rashag came on behalf of the central Yeshivas Tomchei Temimim in New York. Past retirement age he trained educators in a teacher's seminary, guided youngsters at camp as though he were one of them, and was among the first to open a Kollel Tiferes Zekainim - Levi Yitzchok when the Rebbe proposed it. Well-versed in nigleh and Chassidus, he gave Tanya shiurim to professors and doctors and, for twenty consecutive years, to the community's leading businessmen, and he publicly repeated the Rebbe's maamarim and sichos, all alongside an intense personal learning regimen acquired despite years of hardship and suffering.
3 min to tellgood to tell
440 wordsR. Eliyahu Akiva Lipskar
story_000669
score 1.02 ·
person_role=0.00 topic_theme_strength=0.00 occasion_strength=0.00 keyword_fts=0.00 semantic=0.00 farbrengen_value=0.60 length_suitability=0.85
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 209-210, no. 18
The narrator recalls that it was, he thinks, on Yud-Tes Kislev 5685 (1924) that the Rebbe described a Jew from Tsaritsin living in a city where people do not go to sleep early, who nevertheless rises every day at 2 a.m., takes up the Siddur, and contemplates what his zeide stood for, what his father stood for, and what he himself stands for. When the narrator repeated this at a farbrengen in Homil on Pesach 5685, R. Shlomo Tomarkin of Karyokovka told him, "Don't you understand? By 'Tsaritsin' he meant the royal family."
2 min to tellvery good to tell
226 wordsRebbe Rayatz
story_000249
score 1.01 ·
person_role=0.00 topic_theme_strength=0.00 occasion_strength=0.00 keyword_fts=0.00 semantic=0.00 farbrengen_value=0.80 length_suitability=0.43
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 440-441, no. 40
Eliyahu Akiva Lipskar, a young tomim born in Poltava in 5678 (1918) to the local rav R. Chaim Tzvi — who, though not a Chabad chossid, sent his children to Tomchei Temimim as their only hope of remaining upstanding Jews — lost his father at age twelve, when he was arrested for teaching Torah and died from the suffering. Eli went into business successfully as a bochur and donated large sums to the underground operations of R. Nissan Nemenov, R. Bentzion Shemtov and R. Avraham Mayor. Drafted into the Russian army at the outbreak of World War II, he was injured and released for treatment; as an injured soldier he was permitted a helper, and R. Zalman's oldest child and only daughter, who had nursing experience, accompanied him away from the front at Leningrad. The two reached Tashkent, joined the Lubavitch community there and married; when both contracted typhus and were quarantined, a caring chossid, R. Yisroel Konson, sustained them with nourishing food and saved them from death.
2 min to tellvery good to tell
227 wordsR. Zalman Duchman
story_000596
score 1.01 ·
person_role=0.00 topic_theme_strength=0.00 occasion_strength=0.00 keyword_fts=0.00 semantic=0.00 farbrengen_value=0.80 length_suitability=0.43
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 484-485, no. 4
In Tashkent R. Eliyahu was a zealous activist: he established chadarim where children were taught Torah, did many deeds of kindness, and helped the public with communal needs. R. Aharon Chazan recounts in his book Neged Hazerem that it was R. Eliyahu who recommended he take a position in the secret cheder network — R. Aharon founded the chadarim and found teachers while R. Eliyahu raised the money to pay them. After his release from the Red Army R. Eliyahu went into business and, despite the danger, profited, using most of the money to support the Chabad underground that secretly maintained yeshivos and chadarim, and to help families whose breadwinner had no work or who were denied ration coupons for refusing to work on Shabbos. Living in Moscow while many religious Jews remained in Tashkent, and with money transfers nearly impossible, he served as a conduit for smuggled goods but dealt only with merchants willing to send some of the wares to the secret yeshivos — all the while in great personal danger.
2 min to tellvery good to tell
224 wordsR. Eliyahu Akiva Lipskar
story_000663
score 1.01 ·
person_role=0.00 topic_theme_strength=0.00 occasion_strength=0.00 keyword_fts=0.00 semantic=0.00 farbrengen_value=0.80 length_suitability=0.43
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, p. 45, no. 24
Until he reached the age of seventy, Reb Aizel traveled every year to the Alter Rebbe's ohel in Haditch and the Mitteler Rebbe's ohel in Nezhin; after seventy he said he had taken leave of them and told them he would not be coming again. The narrator's zeide related that when he asked Reb Aizel about traveling to the Alter Rebbe's ohel, Reb Aizel told him that traveling to a Rebbe one knew is not the same as traveling to a Rebbe one did not know — but even the latter makes one's avodah easier.
2 min to tellvery good to tell
196 wordsAlter Rebbe
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score 0.99 ·
person_role=0.00 topic_theme_strength=0.00 occasion_strength=0.00 keyword_fts=0.00 semantic=0.00 farbrengen_value=0.80 length_suitability=0.38
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 121-122, no. 6
R. Yisroel Neveler related in the name of R. Monye Monissohn that the Rebbe Maharash once instructed him to learn a maamar four hundred times, with the result that wherever he went the maamar stood before his eyes. The narrator adds that he himself saw, in the summer of 5667 or 5668 (1907 or 1908), the Rebbe Rashab come out to the front courtyard in his silk hat and long coat to see R. Monye Monissohn off.
1 min to tellvery good to tell
182 wordsRebbe Maharash
story_000124
score 0.98 ·
person_role=0.00 topic_theme_strength=0.00 occasion_strength=0.00 keyword_fts=0.00 semantic=0.00 farbrengen_value=0.80 length_suitability=0.35
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 193-194, no. 88
Even after the Rebbe Rayatz left Russia (settling in Riga in 1927), a shliach was sent every year from Leningrad. The shliach was generally chosen by lottery, but because of the hardships of the times R. Michel Dvorkin would usually travel, and afterward Shimon Ber, the Karyokovker Rav's son, would go. Shimon Ber was once arrested; since punishments were not yet severe in those days he was given a 'minus six' verdict barring him from six major cities, and he chose to spend the three years in Haditch.
1 min to tellvery good to tell
188 wordsRebbe Rashab
story_000227
score 0.98 ·
person_role=0.00 topic_theme_strength=0.00 occasion_strength=0.00 keyword_fts=0.00 semantic=0.00 farbrengen_value=0.80 length_suitability=0.35
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 340-341, no. 39
While R. Yitzchak was living in Baba, a village near Sosnitza, he chose the narrator's zeide as a son-in-law. On one visit a gentile village woman who knew his wife Rochel greeted the zeide with a hug and the words "Ay, Rochel's husband!"; he fled and wanted nothing but a divorce. The Tzemach Tzedek held that Reb Aizel, the zeide's teacher, should order him not to divorce, but Reb Aizel answered that the Rebbe of the generation was the one whose place it was to give orders. R. Yitzchak traveled back and forth over the matter, once slamming Reb Aizel's door in Homil and being asked "Itche, why are you slamming doors?!", and he suffered from malaria for a year; in the end the Tzemach Tzedek ordered the zeide to make peace, and the zeide's firstborn son was named after Reb Aizel.
3 min to tellgood to tell
390 wordsRebbe Rayatz
story_000456
score 0.97 ·
person_role=0.00 topic_theme_strength=0.00 occasion_strength=0.00 keyword_fts=0.00 semantic=0.00 farbrengen_value=0.60 length_suitability=0.75
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 377-380, no. 15
On Purim 5695 (1935) in Leningrad, R. Elchanan Morozov told the narrator and his friend Pinchas Althoiz a vort on the posuk "The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light." He asked how people in darkness could be described as seeing a great light. His answer: one is only able to walk through darkness at all because earlier they had seen a great light.
1 min to tellvery good to tell
153 wordsRebbe Rayatz
story_000499
score 0.95 ·
person_role=0.00 topic_theme_strength=0.00 occasion_strength=0.00 keyword_fts=0.00 semantic=0.00 farbrengen_value=0.80 length_suitability=0.30
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, p. 363, no. 9
When he left Leningrad the narrator and others accompanied him to the platform for Moscow-bound trains — people were not as fearful then. A young student was there as well, and R. Leivik told him, "Remember: vechazakta vehayisa l'ish — Strengthen yourself, become a man!" The narrator adds that although the young man later went through a spiritual decline, today he is doing well in a distant country.
1 min to tellvery good to tell
139 wordsRebbe Rayatz
story_000483
score 0.94 ·
person_role=0.00 topic_theme_strength=0.00 occasion_strength=0.00 keyword_fts=0.00 semantic=0.00 farbrengen_value=0.80 length_suitability=0.28
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, p. 119, no. 3
R. Michoel Neveler, the venerable mashpia of Tomchei Temimim, discussing the subject of Chassidus, recounted what the Rebbe Rashab had told him: that once, before Rosh Hashanah, maamarim had to be prepared and he had nothing to say. He took his father's maamar Shir HaMaalos and worked on it intensely — and then there was plenty to say.
1 min to tellvery good to tell
129 wordsRebbe Maharash
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score 0.93 ·
person_role=0.00 topic_theme_strength=0.00 occasion_strength=0.00 keyword_fts=0.00 semantic=0.00 farbrengen_value=0.80 length_suitability=0.25
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, p. 413, no. 49
R. Zev Wolf Orlov was a chossid in Homil with whom the narrator's zeide began studying when the Tzemach Tzedek's Derech Mitzvosecha was printed. Before he passed away he remarked that for twenty-five years he had studied the weekly portion of Likkutei Torah each week, but that he would have preferred to learn Likkutei Torah once in his lifetime and become truly proficient in it.
1 min to tellvery good to tell
136 wordsRebbe Rayatz
story_000548
score 0.93 ·
person_role=0.00 topic_theme_strength=0.00 occasion_strength=0.00 keyword_fts=0.00 semantic=0.00 farbrengen_value=0.80 length_suitability=0.25
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 471-472, no. 7
Every Rosh Hashanah after arriving in the US, the Rebbe walked with crowds of chassidim from 770 to the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens to say tashlich at a pond. On Rosh Hashanah 5717 (1956) a torrential downpour did not stop the walk, and the group arrived drenched to find the gate locked. The Rebbe decided to scale the enclosure; R. Yisroel, who was always at the Rebbe's side, offered to help. The Rebbe declined the help but handed R. Yisroel his siddur to hold while he climbed the wall.
1 min to tellvery good to tell
123 wordsR. Yisroel Duchman
story_000641
score 0.91 ·
person_role=0.00 topic_theme_strength=0.00 occasion_strength=0.00 keyword_fts=0.00 semantic=0.00 farbrengen_value=0.80 length_suitability=0.22
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 423-424, no. 8
After several years learning in Tomchei Temimim in Lubavitch, Zalman returned to Homil, but always thirsted to be in Lubavitch and traveled there at least once a year for Rosh Hashanah, and whenever else he could. In the summer of 5674 (1914) the railroad introduced a cheaper class of travel, so he seized the opportunity and hurried to Lubavitch for Shavuos. Fearing that he would be stopped from going, he left secretly and told his brother to inform everyone only after he was gone.
1 min to tellvery good to tell
105 wordsR. Zalman Duchman
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score 0.90 ·
person_role=0.00 topic_theme_strength=0.00 occasion_strength=0.00 keyword_fts=0.00 semantic=0.00 farbrengen_value=0.80 length_suitability=0.20
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 442-443, no. 42
In the summer of 5703 (1943), R. Zalman Duchman, Chaya Grunya and fourteen-year-old Yisroel reached Tashkent, where Chabad chassidim fleeing the German advance had been gathering since 5701 (1941) alongside the large Bukharian Jewish community. Amid homelessness, bread lines, filth and typhus, the extended family of chassidim held together and helped one another, and because the authorities' attention was fixed on the front they were able to organize minyanim, chadorim, yeshivos and mikvaos without fear. The Duchmans moved into their daughter and son-in-law's one-bedroom apartment divided by a curtain; Yisroel learned Chumash, Gemara and Tanya with the chossid R. Yisroel Nevler (Levin) and committed thirty perokim of Tanya to memory before transferring to a more advanced yeshivah in Samarkand. R. Zalman's son-in-law R. Eli Lipskar organized four chadorim serving over eighty children, from siddur reading through Gemara.
2 min to tellgood to tell
317 wordsR. Zalman Duchman
story_000598
score 0.90 ·
person_role=0.00 topic_theme_strength=0.00 occasion_strength=0.00 keyword_fts=0.00 semantic=0.00 farbrengen_value=0.60 length_suitability=0.60
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 301-302, no. 34
The zeide, R. M. Y., quoted Reb Aizel: for someone who studies the entire day, what can his iskafya (self-subjugation) be? Reviewing what he has already learned. And that is indeed what Reb Aizel did — studying pages of Gemara and then reviewing them.
1 min to tellvery good to tell
97 wordsRebbe Rayatz
story_000393
score 0.89 ·
person_role=0.00 topic_theme_strength=0.00 occasion_strength=0.00 keyword_fts=0.00 semantic=0.00 farbrengen_value=0.80 length_suitability=0.18
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 435-436, no. 34
R. Zalman Duchman tells of R. Leivik's departure from Leningrad: they accompanied him — people were not as fearful then — to the platform for Moscow-bound trains. A young student was also there, and R. Leivik told him, 'Remember: v'chazakta v'hayisa l'ish — Strengthen yourself, become a man!' Though the young man later went through a spiritual decline, today he is doing well in a distant country. As the train was about to depart, R. Michoel Dvorkin burst into a joyous dance with them.
1 min to tellvery good to tell
96 wordsR. Zalman Duchman
story_000590
score 0.89 ·
person_role=0.00 topic_theme_strength=0.00 occasion_strength=0.00 keyword_fts=0.00 semantic=0.00 farbrengen_value=0.80 length_suitability=0.18
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, p. 99, no. 37
R. Groinem, the mashpia in Lubavitch, related that the Tzemach Tzedek studied Chovos HaLevavos for twenty minutes every day before Mincha. The pages of Shaar HaKniyah, the Gate of Humility, were blackened from use — evidence that he had gone over that section countless times.
1 min to tellvery good to tell
82 wordsTzemach Tzedek
story_000093
score 0.88 ·
person_role=0.00 topic_theme_strength=0.00 occasion_strength=0.00 keyword_fts=0.00 semantic=0.00 farbrengen_value=0.80 length_suitability=0.15
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, p. 195, no. 90
The Rebbe Rashab spoke to the narrator's brother-in-law, R. Yitzchak Minkowitz, shortly after his wedding. He told him that being an ehrlicher Yid while still a yeshivah bochur is no great feat; remaining an ehrlicher Yid once one is a married yungerman is the real accomplishment.
1 min to tellvery good to tell
75 wordsRebbe Rashab
story_000229
score 0.88 ·
person_role=0.00 topic_theme_strength=0.00 occasion_strength=0.00 keyword_fts=0.00 semantic=0.00 farbrengen_value=0.80 length_suitability=0.15
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, p. 303, no. 36
Reb Aizel related that when he arrived in Liozna he had already studied the entire Talmud with all the commentaries seven times, and so they nicknamed him "der Ziebele." He was deeply embarrassed by it.
1 min to tellvery good to tell
76 wordsRebbe Rayatz
story_000395
score 0.88 ·
person_role=0.00 topic_theme_strength=0.00 occasion_strength=0.00 keyword_fts=0.00 semantic=0.00 farbrengen_value=0.80 length_suitability=0.15
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, p. 253, no. 91
R. Michoel Dvorkin related that in Petersburg, where Jews could not live without special documentation, the police disqualified the Rebbe Rashab's papers. R. Shmuel Michel Treinin turned to R. Chaim Maseiov, who had connections in that district, and R. Chaim's efforts succeeded in getting the papers back to the Rebbe. R. Chaim — a chossid of the Tzemach Tzedek — said, "Boruch Hashem, to see the Rebbe's grandchild appearing this way!", whereupon the Rebbe took him by the hand into another room of the hotel and showed him his son, the Rebbe Rayatz.
2 min to tellgood to tell
274 wordsRebbe Rayatz
story_000322
score 0.86 ·
person_role=0.00 topic_theme_strength=0.00 occasion_strength=0.00 keyword_fts=0.00 semantic=0.00 farbrengen_value=0.60 length_suitability=0.53
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, p. 482, no. 1
R. Eliyahu Akiva Lipskar was born in 5678 (1918) in Poltava to R. Chaim Tzvi and Bas Sheva Lipskar. His father, a rov in Poltava who was not originally a chossid, nevertheless sent his sons to learn in Lubavitch, insisting this was the only enduring path for children to remain faithful Jews, and ignored friends who ridiculed him. In 5687 (1927) KGB agents surprised him at home and tortured him, demanding the names of supporters of the clandestine yeshivos; he disclosed nothing and shortly afterward died. His mother, Bas Sheva née Yaffe, a descendant of the Levush, passed away when R. Eliyahu was seventeen.
2 min to tellgood to tell
267 wordsR. Eliyahu Akiva Lipskar
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score 0.86 ·
person_role=0.00 topic_theme_strength=0.00 occasion_strength=0.00 keyword_fts=0.00 semantic=0.00 farbrengen_value=0.60 length_suitability=0.53
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