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As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 48-49, no. 26
Chaim Meir, the caretaker of the Alter Rebbe's ohel, told the narrator's zeide that two young men once asked to enter the ohel and wept there at length. They explained that they had been tailors working in the villages of the Kursk region who abandoned Yiddishkeit, eating treif and worse; on their way home they stopped at a non-Jew's house near Piena and asked for sausage, whereupon he locked them in and announced he would take their money and kill them, allowing them only time to pray and recite Vidduy. After a full day of weeping he returned their money, explaining that a great tzaddik who had stayed with him and passed away there had instructed him to bring to teshuvah two Jews who would come asking to eat treif.
4 min to tellexcellent to tell
560 wordsAlter Rebbe
story_000026
score 1.46 ·
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=0.93
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 315-316, no. 56
R. Betzalel Azaritzer, a shadar for the Tzemach Tzedek, was a guest of Reb Aizel and challenged him over his lack of concern about a sirchah. Reb Aizel answered that as rov of the city he does not consider himself higher than the one who asked the shailah, and so will eat what he himself rules kosher; when R. Betzalel persisted, he said, "Tzaleh, listen to me, I'm already an alter Yid, over the hill — you won't succeed in making me any frumer!" When word of the exchange reached the Tzemach Tzedek, he asked R. Betzalel, "Why are you starting up with the zeide's soldier?!"
2 min to tellexcellent to tell
297 wordsRebbe Rayatz
story_000415
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. 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. 247-248, no. 81
Alter Dvinsker, a Tomchei Temimim student, was to be hired as a shochet in a shtetl, but the community first wanted the Rebbe's approval. He came to Moscow for yechidus at the end of 5682 (1922), and the Rebbe told him not to be a shochet, explaining with the posuk "For man sees what is visible to the eyes" that the second half — "While G-d sees into the heart" — has been given to us, and advised him to learn photography for the time being. He did so and earned a good living, but when photography became unprofitable around 5695 (1935) he became a shochet in Horodok, and when the persecution of Yiddishkeit intensified he was arrested in 5698 (1938).
2 min to tellvery good to tell
314 wordsRebbe Rayatz
story_000312
score 1.10 ·
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=0.60
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 470-471, no. 6
R. Yisroel first took a job in a butcher store and later opened his own poultry business; in yechidus, when the Rebbe asked him for good news, he reported opening his own butcher shop and asked the Rebbe to be his partner, and the Rebbe gave him a $50 bill. In his characteristic way he told the Rebbe, "If you're giving the money to be a partner, $50 is nothing, and if you're giving it as a segulah, then one dollar is also enough." He rose at four a.m. daily for his delivery route, but used his warmth and humor with his Williamsburg customers to move them to give to charitable causes and to change their view of the Rebbe and Lubavitch; his wife Rochel worked in a factory so that he could give his time to the Rebbe and to helping others, and their children nonetheless felt their parents were devoted to them.
2 min to tellvery good to tell
237 wordsR. Yisroel Duchman
story_000640
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, p. 241, no. 68
On Yud-Tes Kislev 5685 (1924) the Rebbe looked at R. Leivik, the shamash of the Znamenskaya shul, and quoted "He called forth the shamash and he radiated light." He then spelled out what a shamash's work is: in the morning, when people come and it is still too dark and early to daven, he brings them a Tehillim; it is also his work to see that the children of the baalei-batim learn; and a shamash must know where a housewife buys her meat and similar matters.
2 min to tellvery good to tell
206 wordsRebbe Rayatz
story_000299
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. 468-469, no. 3
The Rubashkin family of Nevel were known for exceptional hachnosas orchim; Shalom Rubashkin would buy a whole cow before Pesach and distribute the meat to yeshivah students, and his son R. Getzel and his wife Rosa continued that tradition. R. Getzel, deeply bonded to the Rebbe, stood through entire farbrengens even at an advanced age; when the sofer who wrote his new megillah remarked that it was nicer than the Rebbe's, R. Getzel brought it to the Rebbe as a gift, and the Rebbe insisted on paying a token eighteen dollars and used that megillah every year afterward. Separately, R. Yisroel, whose parents had moved to New York, joined a group of Lubavitcher shochtim in Ireland preparing meat for sale in Europe and Eretz Yisroel, and his first child, Sholom, was born there.
1 min to tellvery good to tell
169 wordsR. Yisroel Duchman
story_000637
score 0.96 ·
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=0.32
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, p. 394, no. 22
The oven in Tomchei Temimim in Lubavitch had a built-in vat for boiling tea water, and because it never emptied completely some water always remained in it overnight. A number of students stopped drinking from it out of concern for water left overnight in a metal vessel, and the Rebbe, who served as the yeshivah's active director, discreetly asked for a list of those unusually meticulous students.
1 min to tellvery good to tell
147 wordsRebbe Rayatz
story_000521
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. 157, no. 34
R. Yitzchak "Itche" Masmid ate milchike cake while traveling on a train, and afterwards a doubt arose in his mind as to whether a full six hours had elapsed since he had eaten meat. When he arrived in Lubavitch he told the Rebbe what had happened. The Rebbe answered him, "Itche, ay, Itche — you don't know how much one must think before taking a bite of food into one's mouth."
1 min to tellvery good to tell
126 wordsRebbe Rashab
story_000173
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. 162, no. 42
R. Zavil Zeidenfeld would always recount this story with overwhelming hispa'alus: R. Yaakov Korinitzer told him in Rostov that days before the Rebbe's last Purim, the Rebbe gave him instructions about checking the wheat to be ground for shemurah matzah. The Rebbe concluded, "The term tzav (command) always refers to the present moment — and to future generations."
1 min to tellvery good to tell
122 wordsRebbe Rashab
story_000181
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, p. 95, no. 31
Der Zeide (רמ"י) related that the chometz sold by the Tzemach Tzedek's household included fully baked challah. When Pesach ended he saw Chaim Ber, the Rebbe's attendant, carrying a bowl of soup and the challah into the Rebbe's room. Chaim Ber told him: "You chassidim can think whatever you like, but I know the Rebbe is an elderly Jew who has eaten nothing the whole week, and everything is prepared accordingly."
1 min to tellgood to tell
162 wordsTzemach Tzedek
story_000087
score 0.75 ·
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=0.30
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 468-469, no. 4
When the Rebbe's brother R. Yisroel Aryeh Leib passed away in England on 13 Iyar 5712 (1952), the Rebbe instructed that the body be brought to Eretz Yisroel and buried in Tzfas, and gave specific instructions about the burial, wanting R. Bentzion Shem Tov to supervise. R. Bentzion was at that time in Dublin visiting the shochtim and staying at R. Yisroel's home, so the Rebbe conveyed several of the instructions through R. Yisroel. This was R. Yisroel's first communication with the Rebbe.
1 min to telltells with work
88 wordsR. Yisroel Duchman
story_000638
score 0.49 ·
person_role=0.00 topic_theme_strength=0.00 occasion_strength=0.00 keyword_fts=0.00 semantic=0.00 farbrengen_value=0.40 length_suitability=0.18
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