Parshas Bechukosai

Then, too, on motzaei Yom Kip­pur, 5688, when Menashe (may G-d avenge his blood) — my dear friend, the tomim Menashe, the son of Binyamin Al­thoiz - cleared the dishes from the ta­ble, the Rebbe told him, “ …But you should be­come pro­fi­cient in Tanya.”

Menashe ful­filled the Rebbe’s words and achieved an ex­per­tise in Tanya.

In the time of the First World War, R. Zal­man Havlin² passed through Homil with his brother Lipa from Pos­tov, near Kiev, whom he had got­ten re­leased from his reg­i­ment for a half year. R. Zal­man re­lated that when he asked the Rebbe about his brother’s draft no­tice, the Rebbe replied that he should think about ob­tain­ing a pass­port. Now R. Zal­man was quite well- versed in these mat­ters, and he came up with some other ideas.

“Lis­ten, Zal­man, ” the Rebbe told him, “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. ”

“In short, ” R. Zal­man con­cluded, “af­ter a lot of hard work, I’ve just about man­aged to get him out of there, and he’s still not com­pletely free. ”

2. An early tomim in Lubavitch and later Rosh Yeshivah in a branch of Horoditch. In 5672 (1912) he was sent by the Rebbe Rashab to establish a yeshivah in Chevron. He passed away in Yerushalayim in 5696 (1936). ↩

Shmuel from Kre­menchug (known as “Shmuel the porush” [as­cetic]) re­lated that when the Rebbe was ar­rested, Reb­bet­zin Shterna Sarah opened the aron hakodesh and screamed, “Holy Sifrei Torah! Why are you silent?!”