Parshas Nitzavim–Vayeilech

They once wanted to ap­point Reb Aizel to be a rebbe in Ret­z­itza. He was about to sit down in the car­riage to leave, when he re­minded him­self that the Al­ter Rebbe had once told him, “Aizik, do my chil­dren a fa­vor” — and he turned down the of­fer.

The Al­ter Rebbe once said about teshu­vah, “True teshu­vah is akin to what the goy in Vitebsk felt.”

What was the story?

A river runs through Vitebsk, di­vid­ing it into two. There was no bridge in those days and peo­ple went across the wa­ter in a small boat, a lodke. A pow­er­ful wind was blow­ing one day and the peo­ple stand­ing be­side the river told the fel­low: Don’t go. It’s too dan­ger­ous. But he paid them no heed, set off in his boat and drowned.

“In the very mo­ment when he saw he was go­ing to drown, ” the Al­ter Rebbe com­mented, “how dis­traught was he for not hav­ing lis­tened to his friends, and for set­ting off in­stead. That is true teshu­vah.”

The Rebbe told Chaim Am­stislovsky, “You be­came who you are from a tzad­dik’s glance!”

Af­ter the Rebbe left for Riga, Reb Chaim of­ten re­lated what hap­pened:

Reb Chaim — a good-sized lad, tall, hand­some and rich — was walk­ing along the street in Pet­ro­grad when R. Yitzchak Yoel Rafaelovitch, the Kre­menchug rov’s son, grabbed him and said that the Lubav­itcher Rebbe [the Rebbe Rashab ] is in town. “I want to meet him, ” said Reb Chaim. “He is not meet­ing with any­one, ” R. Yitzchak Yoel an­swered.

To be brief, through great ef­fort he was ad­mit­ted to yechidus — and was so shaken that he didn’t know whether it was day or night. He only re­mem­bered how the Rebbe Rashab told him: “May you be suc­cess­ful wher­ever you turn. ”

“And just the day be­fore that, ” Reb Chaim said, “I was stand­ing be­fore Com­rade Sol­dier Min­is­ter Bi­ly­ovsky, and I spoke with­out a trace of fear. But here — I was nonex­is­tent (bot­tel gevoren)!”