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Stories from As I Heard Them (Lesheima Ozen) by Reb Zalman Duchman. © The Duchman Family; used with permission — share this sheet as produced, do not republish the stories in other formats.

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בס״ד

Farbreng.ing

Stories for

Toldos

Asader LeSeudasa at the Leningrad Kiddush

As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 360-361, no. 5

ַוויטש אָט מען אים גערופן אין ליוב אַזוי ה אַנען ביי דובער שילמ'ס ( אַד איז ער איינגעשט אאין לענינגר ַן איידים פון הרב"ש בנו הבכור של אדמו"ר הצמח צדק. אר' שילם איז געווען ָט גערעדט דעם ענין יצחק אַז עס איז געווען פרשת תולדות, ווייל ער ה אשבת אויפן קידוש, כמדומה ַסדר אָנגעהויבן זינגען אָט ער אאון רבקה, ווי דער פירונג פון קינדער איז זייער נוגע די עלטערן, ה ָך אין עץ חיים. אָגט ער: עס שטייט ד אָן. ז אַ וואונדער געט אּיץ חסידים" פָבן זיך די "ש אלסעודתא. ה

In Leningrad R. Leivik was a guest of DovBer Shilums (that’s how he was called in Lubavitch), who was the son-in-law of Rebbe Baruch Shalom (the Tzemach Tzedek’s eldest son).

At the Shabbos Kiddush — I think it was Parshas Toldos, for he talked about Yitzchak and Rivkah, and how children’s behavior deeply affects their parents — he began to sing Asader LeSeudasa. And when the “shpitz (‘elite’) chassidim” raised their eyebrows, 1 he explained, “It appears in Eitz Chaim.”

Parsha: toldos (4/5): The narrator dates the Kiddush to Parshas Toldos precisely because the talk was about Yitzchak and Rivkah and the effect of children's conduct on their parents — a natural pairing for a Toldos farbrengen.

Also this week

"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.

thematic HiskashrusEmunahSanctity of a tzaddik

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Purim 5687: "I Accept Upon Myself the Four Executions"

As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 256-257, no. 95

At a terrifying Purim farbrengen in 5687 (1927), the Rebbe screamed against the Yevsektzia — 'a rabbi's son, a butcher's son, a villager's son' — declaring he was not frightened of them, and unbuttoned his kapota until his tallis katan showed, calling out that he accepted upon himself the four forms of execution and that when they saw his body aflame they should have no compassion. When the chossid R. Meir Simcha shouted that the Rebbe was needed here, the Rebbe kept repeating that one must be ready to give one's life but must not send the children to their schools. Because informers were known to be present, those there called his mother the Rebbetzin to restrain him; he rose when she came but sent her back to her room to say Tehillim with tears where no one would see, saying that would help, and told her he was not acting on his own initiative but had asked his father. She kept standing and speaking until he fainted and barely revived; everyone was in dread, and the arrest came after Shavuos.

thematic LeadershipMesiras NefeshBittul

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Day After Day at the Yevsektzia

As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 437-438, no. 12

After Shabbos observance was banned in 5689 (1929) and the N.K.V.D. and Yevsektzia began persecuting those spreading Yiddishkeit, R. Zalman Duchman kept his home open for Torah study all day, knowing the building superintendent was reporting on him. Even after the winter 5698 (1938) night in which dozens of chassidim were arrested and ten prominent chassidim were shot — remembered as "The Night of the Ten Martyrs" — he was not deterred. When the Yevsektzia finally targeted him, he was interrogated day after day and released each evening only to return the next morning; his fingers were crushed in a door hinge so that his fingernails never grew again, yet he would not give up the names of his fellow teachers of Torah. His daughter Rochel, about seventeen, waited outside the offices for him each day, and he said nothing of the tortures to her or the rest of his family, mentioning some of it only years later.

thematic Mesiras NefeshPerseveranceCompassion

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