Parshas Chukas–Balak

R. Zal­man’s ex­cep­tional kind­ness and self­less­ness is aptly por­trayed in the fol­low­ing story, as re­counted by his daugh­ter:

It was the day af­ter Sim­chas Torah and my fa­ther had lain down to rest. He was ex­hausted af­ter spend­ing the last two days on his feet, and with­out much sleep. Just then there was a knock on the door. A lo­cal rabbi came with an ur­gent re­quest: There was a Jew who was be­ing ex­pelled from the coun­try be­cause of the lack of nec­es­sary pa­pers. If a re­spected man like R. Zal­man would tes­tify in court on the man’s be­half, the man could per­haps be al­lowed to re­main. R. Zal­man’s wife tried to rea­son that her hus­band was ex­hausted and he needed the rest, though R. Zal­man heard the con­ver­sa­tion from his room. He im­me­di­ately got dressed and went with the rabbi. For many hours they trav­elled and waited in the court in Man­hat­tan, and they suc­cess­fully spared one Jew from suf­fer­ing.

Reb Aizel said at a far­bren­gen:

“If the Rebbe or­dered us to walk through fire we would do so. Do you think my in­ten­tion is that we’d merit a mirac­u­lous res­cue?! — No! To be burned!”

I heard from R. Nochum of Radomishl:

Once in the days of the Tzemach Tzedek, one of the Rebbe’s lit­tle grand­sons was hold­ing an ap­ple and cry­ing. “Why are you cry­ing?” the chas­sidim asked.

“I want an ap­ple!” he an­swered.

“You can eat that one, ” they told him.

“My zeide has said, ” replied the child, “that what one wants, he must n o t d o.”