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As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 471-472, no. 8
On Erev Pesach afternoon the Rebbe personally distributed a piece of matzah to each member of the community, and R. Yisroel would take a piece not only for himself but also for the Yiddish writer Chaim Grade, traveling the several hours to Grade's home so he would have the Rebbe's matzah for the Seder. Grade would send back greetings to the Rebbe together with a poem or short story as a gift, which R. Yisroel would deliver on the second night of Pesach, and the Rebbe would press him for details of the interaction. One year R. Yisroel was unsure whether to collect matzah and decided not to; regretting it, he came on the second night and explained that he should not lose out now that Grade had passed away, and the Rebbe replied that he had wondered the previous day why he had not come. From then on R. Yisroel received matzah every year, and after his passing his son R. Sholom inherited the merit, receiving a whole matzah "far der gantzer colel" — for Colel Chabad.
2 min to tellvery good to tell
249 wordsR. Yisroel Duchman
story_000642
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, 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. 463-464, no. 74
In a letter of 5 Av 5722 (1962) the Rebbe set out the importance of Colel Chabad and the benefits of supporting it, and the letter became the basis of R. Zalman Duchman's fundraising: he would simply learn and discuss its points and the listener would be inspired to give. Not long after receiving it, R. Zalman read the letter at a bris and, reporting everything to the Rebbe as a devout chossid, mentioned the talk; the Rebbe commented on that point, "With the sources?" Chof-Daled Teves of the following year, 5723 (1963), marked 150 years since the Alter Rebbe's histalkus, which the Rebbe emphasized greatly in many letters and sichos, and in one pointed letter that year he asked whether the Colel Chabad letter was being used to its utmost for the organization, since it was "the Alter Rebbe's organization."
2 min to tellvery good to tell
207 wordsR. Zalman Duchman
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score 1.00 ·
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=0.40
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 423-424, no. 10
In the summer of 5673 (1913) R. Zalman Duchman traveled with his zeide to Petersburg for a cousin's wedding, and his father R. Ber Mendel visited the Rebbe Rashab at the dacha in Zalsha in the summer of 5674 (1914) on behalf of Colel Chabad. That same summer his brother Boruch fell ill with tuberculosis and Zalman accompanied him to Kiev for surgery, sending the Rebbe a request for a bracha; Boruch recovered miraculously. For Rosh Hashanah 5675 (1914) the brothers traveled to Lubavitch, where the influx of World War I refugees made yechidus impossible until the Rebbetzin let them in through a back door, and when Zalman introduced his brother the Rebbe immediately recalled that a bracha had been requested four months earlier for his leg. In the summer of 5675 (1915) R. Zalman was in Pinsk, lodging with R. Yisroel Yitzchak Lubinsky, the chossid known for davening every word of the ketores in Yiddish translation.
2 min to tellgood to tell
198 wordsR. Zalman Duchman
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score 0.79 ·
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=0.38
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