Parshas Vayikra

Reb Aizel re­lated that when he ar­rived in Li­ozna — af­ter al­ready study­ing the Tal­mud in its en­tirety, with all the com­men­taries, for the sev­enth time — they nick­named him “The Ziebele.”⁷ And he was deeply em­bar­rassed.

7. In Yiddish: “the little seven.” ↩

One Yom Kip­pur, the Al­ter Rebbe called the Mit­teler Rebbe to his room and told him, “There are pos­i­tive Heav­enly forces re­gard­ing your judg­ment for the com­ing year, but there are also many neg­a­tive forces. ”

The Mit­teler Rebbe left the room and went straight to the chas­sidim. “This is an aus­pi­cious time, ” he told them. “Go to my fa­ther and ask him to say Chas­sidus. ”

My zeide re­peated in the name of Reb Aizel what the Mit­teler Rebbe had told him:

The Rebbe dreamt that neshomos from long ago came to him, and said he should ask his fa­ther to say Chas­sidus, for to­day his fa­ther has come to fully com­pre­hend the wis­dom of his teacher.⁹

Now, it is well-known that the Mit­teler Rebbe’s bit­tul was of a kind that no chos­sid ever pos­sessed even in po­ten­tial. Con­se­quently he would write a note, rather than ver­bal­ize his re­quest, and bring it to the Al­ter Rebbe — as he did on this oc­ca­sion.

It is also well-known that when the Al­ter Rebbe was in a state of hi­s­pailus (in­tense emo­tional arousal) he would rub his nose — and now he said, with a ni­gun: I fully com­pre­hended my teacher’s wis­dom at the very mo­ment of hear­ing it.

(My zeide brought con­fir­ma­tion for this from Tanya, in Sec­tion 27 of Ig­geres HaKodesh: “My ear has heard, and un­der­stood it” — mean­ing that im­me­di­ately upon hear­ing it, he un­der­stood it.)

9. Avodah Zara 5b; Rashi on Devarim 29:6. ↩