Farbreng.ing Pre-release
Stories from As I Heard Them (Lesheima Ozen) by Reb Zalman Duchman · © The Duchman Family; please share this sheet as printed
Farbreng.app – Created by Menachem Spielman, l'zechus those who keep the Yiddishkeit of yesteryear alive
← pick another occasion Paper: A4 · Letter
בס״ד
Stories for the week

Parshas Lech Lecha

"Through Tanya One Can Become a Chossid Like Avraham Avinu"

As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 33-34, no. 8

My zeide re­counted in the name of Reb Aizel:

The Al­ter Rebbe once went to his daugh­ter Frei­dka’s home on Shab­bos to re­cite Chas­sidus.7 Her con­sti­tu­tion was weak. Trees sur­rounded the house and the chas­sidim were milling around. Reb Aizel said, “I was also priv­i­leged to be there in her home. The Al­ter Rebbe spoke to his son, the Mit­teler Rebbe, ‘ News­pa­pers? They want news­pa­pers?!’8 And he took hold of the Mit­teler Rebbe’s lapel and said, ‘Why aren’t they learn­ing Tanya? Why aren’t they learn­ing Tanya?! I tell you…I tell you — through Tanya one can be­come a chos­sid like Avra­ham Avinu.”

  1. The Alter Rebbe's daughter Freidka was knowledgeable in Chassidus and her father would often recite Chassidus privately for her. ↩
  2. The Alter Rebbe berated the chassidim's desire for fresh Chassidus instead of applying themselves to the Chassidus they already had. ↩
EmesLeadership

Read in full →

"They Took Away the Pencil"

As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 430-432, no. 24

Continued from the biography of R. Zalman Duchman:

On Gim­mel Tam­muz, when the Rebbe was re­leased from prison for a few hours be­fore con­tin­u­ing to his ex­ile in Kostroma, R. Zal­man was ad­mit­ted en­try to the Rebbe. As he re­lates:

“On Sun­day, the third of Tam­muz — when the Rebbe still hadn’t come — and my brother-in-law R. Yitzchak Minkovitch and I went out­side for a while, Pinya came run­ning to us with the news that the Rebbe had al­ready reached home. We im­me­di­ately ran there, and the Rebbe was sit­ting in the chil­dren’s room.

“One of the daugh­ters en­tered the room and said, ‘Tateh, the yun­geleit want to see you. ’

“‘Have you been learn­ing Chas­sidus dur­ing this time?’ the Rebbe asked us the mo­ment we came in­side.

“‘We’ve been say­ing Tehillim,’ my brother-in-law an­swered.

“The Rebbe replied im­me­di­ately: ‘I wrote the maa­marim of Shavuos un­til they saw me and took away the pen­cil. ’”

A few hours later, the Frierdiker Rebbe gave out the maamorim of Shavuos through our Rebbe, on which he noted that they had been writ­ten in prison.

Mesiras NefeshHiskashrusLeadership

Read in full →

Chopping Through the Ice Before Davening

As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 311-312, no. 50

When we were yun­geleit,” Reb Aizel re­lated, “we stud­ied, stand­ing up, the en­tire night. And in the morn­ing, with­out fur coats (not be­cause we didn’t own them, but be­cause we didn’t want to wear them) — we took axes to chop through the ice and toivel [im­merse]. Only af­ter that would we daven. We can­not ex­pect this from yun­geleit to­day, but learn­ing and dav­en­ing are doable nowa­days, as well. ”

Mesiras NefeshKabbolas OlTemimus (sincerity)

Read in full →