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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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Yud-Tes Kislev

19 Kislev

Rosh Hashanah of Chassidus — liberation of the Alter Rebbe (1798); yahrzeit of the Maggid of Mezritch (1772)

Yud-Tes Kislev in Liozna, Told by Reb Yossele

As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 38-39, no. 14

בשעת דער זיידע ר' מרדכי יואל נ"ע איז געווען אַ זיצער ביי אדמו"ר צמח צדק זי"ע, "האָט זיי געזוכט ניקאָליי" (ד.ה. מען האָט זיי געוואָלט נעמען פאַר סאָלדאַטן). האָט זיי דער רבי אַוועקגעשיקט פון ליובאַוויטש, עטלעכע אין קאַליסק און עטלעכע אין ליאָזנע. דער זיידע איז געווען אין ליאָזנע. איז אים אויסגעקומען צו זיין דאָרט י"ט כסלו. דער סדר אין ליאָזנע איז אַזוי געווען: מ'האָט געבראַכט גרויסע שילייעס מיט משקה און זעק מיט לעבער, און דאָרטן איז געווען אַ זקן ר' יאָסעלע, וואָס ער איז נאָך געווען בעת מ'האָט דעם אַלטן רבי'ן אַרעסטירט. איז ער געזעסן בראש השולחן און דערציילט די מעשה פון אָנהויב ביזן סוף. אַז עס איז געקומען וואָס מ'האָט דער רבנית הצדקנית געגעבן אַ פּאַטש איז ביי איר אַרויסגעפאַלן האָט ער זיך צעוויינט. דערנאָך האָט ר' יוסף דערציילט, אַז דעם אַנדער י"ט כסלו, ד.ה. דעם ערשטן אין ליאָזנע, איז זיך צענויפגעפאָרן אַ גרויסער עולם. געווען איז יענער י"ט כסלו אַ וואַרעמער. האָט מען געמאַכט אויפן הויף שאַלאַשן און אדמו"ר הזקן זי"ע איז אַליין אַרומגעגאַנגען און געבעטן מ'זאָל עסן און טרינקען און זיין פריילעך, ווייל מיין יום טוב איז העכער כו', ער איז געווען אויף רוחניות און אויף גשמיות און דער אויבערשטער האָט געהאָלפן, בעט ער אַז מ'זאָל זיין פריילעך.

During the time my zeide was learning in the Tzemach Tzedek’s study hall, “Czar Nikolai was looking for them” (for forcible conscription into the army). The Rebbe sent them away from Lubavitch — some to Kalisk, some to Liozna. My zeide wound up in Liozna, and was there for Yud-Tes Kislev.

What were the arrangements in Liozna? People brought large bottles of mashkeh and sacks filled with liver. Reb Yossele, a venerable chossid who was around when the Alter Rebbe was arrested, sat at the head of the table and related the events from beginning to end. When he came to the part where the soldiers struck the Alter Rebbe’s wife, knocking out two of her teeth, he wept.

Reb Yossele then related that the next Yud-Tes Kislev — the first to be celebrated in Liozna — an immense group of chassidim gathered together. Yud-Tes Kislev was warm then, and they set up a large tent in the front courtyard. The Alter Rebbe himself walked around asking people to eat and drink, to celebrate. He said, “My Yom- Tov is especially great since the arrest concerned spiritual and physical matters, and Hashem has helped. Rejoice!”

Occasion: yud_tes_kislev (5/5): The story takes place on Yud-Tes Kislev in Liozna and describes both the retelling of the arrest and the second Yud-Tes Kislev, the first ever celebrated there.

Also this occasion

Sh'u Yedeichem Kodesh: Mochin and Midos

As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 273-274, no. 116

In the middle of the seudah the Rebbe said that Chassidus should really be spoken but it was not an appropriate time — and then, saying so anyway, began. He related that the first Chassidus the Alter Rebbe said upon leaving the Tainy Soviet was on the verse "Sh'u yedeichem kodesh," because the Alter Rebbe and the Mitteler Rebbe held seemingly different perspectives: the Alter Rebbe considered lev (heart) most important, the Mitteler Rebbe mochin (mind). When the Alter Rebbe came from Petersburg he told the Mitteler Rebbe, "You are correct, only that we must ensure that mochin illuminate the midos" — explaining the verse as mochin being kodesh and midos being "your hands," which must be lifted so that mochin illuminate them. The narrator adds that this is what he remembers, that a few words may be missing, but that he has not added a single letter.

Emes

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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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