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Stories from As I Heard Them (Lesheima Ozen) by Reb Zalman Duchman. © The Duchman Family; used with permission — share this sheet as produced, do not republish the stories in other formats.

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בס״ד

Farbreng.ing

Stories for

Chai Elul

18 Elul

Birthdays of the Baal Shem Tov (1698) and the Alter Rebbe (1745)

The Sukkah Certified by Matat

As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 343-344, no. 43

ָל ביי דעם בעש"ט אין אַמ אדי מעשה פון סוכה של בעש"ט פלעגט דער זיידע דערציילן באריכות, ווי ָט אָבן זיך צענויפגעקליבן די תלמידים און קוקן אויף דער סוכה, ווי זי איז פול מיט שאלות. ה אסוכה ה

ָנגעליינט אויפן אָט זיך אַרמעט און ה אּ פַ שטיקל אָט געבעטן אָס דער בעש"ט מרגיש געווען, און ה אד ַרמעט פון אונטערן טישטוך, אּ פַרויסגענומען דעם אָט ער אָך ה אַרמעט מיט גרויס דביקות. דערנ אּ פ ָנגעשריבן: סוכה של הבעל שם טוב כשרה, נאום מט"ט. אערשט אויף אים איז

My zeide recounted the story of the Baal Shem Tov’s sukkah in great detail.

The Baal Shem Tov’s students once gathered together in his sukkah and, looking around, noticed many questionable features. Sensing their thoughts he asked for a piece of parchment and, leaning on it, fell into deep contemplation. When he removed it from beneath the tablecloth, the parchment was inscribed with the words: “The sukkah of the Baal Shem Tov is kosher — signed Matat.”25

The Baal Shem Tov

Also this occasion

The Tailors the Alter Rebbe Saw Coming

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.

The Alter Rebbe Sanctity of a tzaddikCompassionHashgacha Pratis

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I Could Ascend Like Eliyahu

As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, p. 371, no. 7

Reb Groinem, the mashpia in Lubavitch, related words of the Baal Shem Tov: "I could ascend in a Heavenly whirlwind like Eliyahu the prophet, but I want to carry out the Torah in full — and there it states: For dust you are, and to dust you will return." The Baal Shem Tov thus chose to remain within the natural order and die a natural death rather than depart as Eliyahu did.

The Baal Shem Tov BittulKabbolas OlEmes

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The Dowry and the Villager's Wagons

As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 79-80, no. 6

The Alter Rebbe asked the Tzemach Tzedek where his dowry money was; told it had been given to a wealthy man in Vitebsk to invest, he asked whether the Tzemach Tzedek would take it back and place it in the chest of contributions for the Rabbi Meir Baal HaNess fund. The Tzemach Tzedek remained silent, and shortly afterward the wealthy man went bankrupt and the money was lost. When the Tzemach Tzedek's wife came in tears to her grandfather, the Alter Rebbe said, "Should my own children not listen to me?" — and told how the Maggid had once sent him and a companion on a mission, where a Jew living fifty verst from the nearest town, hearing them wonder aloud how a Jew could never hear Borchu or Kedushah, had his wagons loaded to move to town before they had even finished davenen, once he learned they were the Rebbe's students.

The Alter Rebbe Kabbolas OlHiskashrusInfluence of one Jew

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The Candle Told Me

As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 366-368, no. 2

The scholarly author of Meir Nesivim came to the Baal Shem Tov and challenged him to say what he was thinking; the Baal Shem Tov answered that he was meditating on the Divine Name, and added that he was doing so with its vowel markings. Asked how he knew — "Did the candle on your table tell you?" — the Baal Shem Tov replied that yes, the candle told him, and that a fellow candle had also reported something the scholar had done in front of candles that should not be done before them. Deeply shaken, the man admitted it was true, explaining that the candle had appeared to burn out and then flared up again.

The Baal Shem Tov Sanctity of a tzaddikEmes

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