Parshas Kedoshim

My zeide once vis­ited a very poor rel­a­tive of the Tzemach Tzedek in Niezhin.

“Why do you re­main silent?” my zeide asked.

“I sent a pidyon once with a chos­sid trav­el­ing to Lubav­itch, ” he an­swered. “The Tzemach Tzedek took the pidyon, but made no re­sponse. And when the chos­sid pre­pared to re­turn home he asked the Rebbe, ‘How shall I an­swer him?’ The Rebbe replied, ‘Look, there are many poor peo­ple. Ap­par­ently, this is how it’s meant to be. ’”

“Nu,” the man con­cluded, “what more can I do?”

(My zeide’s nar­ra­tive in­cluded their names.)

R. Yis­roel Neveler re­counted what the gvir R. Nos­son Gu­rary had told him.

When R. Nos­son trav­eled with the Rebbe Rashab to the Al­ter Rebbe’s ohel in Ha­ditch, there were sev­eral gvirim and melamdim who were sched­uled to have yechidus. The Rebbe told R. Nos­son to have the melamdim en­ter first and then the gvirim. But R. Nos­son re­versed the or­der and ad­mit­ted the gvirim first — and also told them to leave their con­tri­bu­tions on the ta­ble.

When they came to the train sta­tion later and the Rebbe asked R. Nos­son whether he had money to pur­chase the tick­ets, the lat­ter was quite sur­prised; he knew with cer­tainty that the gvirim had left be­hind money. “Nu,” the Rebbe ex­plained, “when the melamdim came in af­ter­wards, there was money — and I gave them what­ever there was. ”

A young man told me that when he was a stu­dent in Lubav­itch and came to the Rebbe for yechidus, he handed his note to the Rebbe and told him, “I have been fast­ing. ”

“One needn’t fast, ” the Rebbe said. “One needs to re­cite Krias Shema She’al Hami­tah (be­fore re­tir­ing at night). ”