בס״ד
Farbreng.ing
Stories for
Shelach
What Forgetfulness Really Means
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, p. 106, no. 48
דער רבי דער צ"צ האָט געזאָגט אַ מאמר דא"ח וועגן ציצית. האָט ער גערעדט וועגן דעם ענין וואָס ציצית איז דאָך דער ענין פון זכירה, דער היפך פון זכירה איז דאָך שכחה. האָט ער אַזוי געזאָגט: שכחה, שכחה, וואָס רופט מען שכחה, שכחה איז מ'פאַרגעסט אויף ג-ט.
The Tzemach Tzedek said a maamar about tzitzis and explained that tzitzis represent memory, and the opposite of memory is forgetfulness.
“Forgetfulness, forgetfulness, ” he said. “What does forgetfulness mean? Forgetfulness is forgetting Hashem. ”
Parsha: shelach (4/5): The maamar is on tzitzis, the mitzvah given at the end of Parshas Shelach, whose stated purpose is 'ur'isem oso uzchartem' — that seeing the tzitzis produces remembering.
Also this week
"Is This the One Whose Leg Hurt?"
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 140-141, no. 12
In the summer of 5674 (1914) the narrator's brother fell ill with tuberculosis of the bone and was taken from Homil to Kiev for surgery, then a second and a third operation, after which he was very weak. The narrator wrote a pidyon and sent it to the Rebbe's summer dacha in Zalsha; an opening formed at the site, the phlegm drained, and the doctor, Kostritzky, said he had never seen such a thing. The narrator brought his brother to Lubavitch for Rosh Hashanah 5675, but with the war having begun on Tisha B'Av and the crowds immense they could not obtain yechidus, and lacking money to stay through Sukkos they had to leave on motzaei Yom Kippur; the Rebbetzin let him wait in the small room outside the yechidus room, and when the Rebbe finally emerged very late and the narrator said "This is my brother," the Rebbe asked, "This is the one whose leg hurt?"
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Sanctity of a tzaddikBitachonHashgacha Pratis
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Stalietov Will Never Think to Ask That
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 119-120, no. 4
In the summer of 5675 (1915), lodging in Pinsk with R. Yisroel Yitzchak Lubinsky, the narrator heard this from him. The Rebbe Maharash would always say that a matter should be heard as it seems and answered as it seems — in a general manner. When the authorities in Semyanovka, Chernigov province, discovered untaxed alcohol being taken from the factory, a major trial was set for thirteen defendants with R. Yisroel Yitzchak as a witness, and the well-known investigator Stalietov was coming from Petersburg; R. Yisroel Yitzchak went to the Rebbe Maharash in Lubavitch and, because many Yidden faced prison, asked the Rebbe to hear out his prepared answers, ending with one question he did not know how to answer. The Rebbe told him that he is a Yid with a good head who is not sunk in physical desires, while Stalietov is a goy without such a mind and caught up in desires, so it would never occur to him to ask such questions — and so it was: the trial ended favorably.
thematic
BitachonSanctity of a tzaddikAhavas Yisrael
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"I Think About Him More Than He Thinks About Me"
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 476-478, no. 9
R. Yisroel Duchman worked to train his children in hiskashrus, and several of his most significant exchanges with the Rebbe concerned them. When his young son Yossi swallowed an open safety pin lodged dangerously in his esophagus, the Rebbe opposed the planned surgery and instead instructed the head of the emergency room by phone to remove it with a magnet lowered down the boy's throat; the surgeon who had refused to speak with the Rebbe afterward told the Duchmans it was possible only because of "your holy Rebbe." The Rebbe later sent Yossi a blessing with the message, "I think about him more than he thinks about me," and gave shmurah matzah for his son Boruch in Miami. In 5736 the Rebbe declined a matzah request for his son Sholom, a shliach in Eretz Yisroel — "He's my shliach... I don't need an intermediary" — yet in 5737 asked R. Yisroel why he had not requested one, and gave it.
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HiskashrusEmunahSanctity of a tzaddik
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