By Dovid Zaklikowski for COLlive and Hasidic Archives
Rabbi Shlomo Chaim Kesselman, Mashpia of the Lubavitch yeshivah in Lod, Israel, used to spend hours preparing for a Chasidic gathering. Only after going over his ideas numerous times and contemplating deeply would he would gather his students and speak. His words, emanating from his heart, entered theirs in a seamless flow.
By 1964, these gatherings had become legendary, with guests from outside the yeshivah regularly coming to eavesdrop on the proceedings.
One Shabbos that year, Rabbi Kesselman went to visit his daughter Yehudis Lison in Kfar Chabad, which was at the time, a small village of 150 Chabad families in central Israel.
News of his presence in the village spread like wildfire, and on Shabbos afternoon, when everyone had finished their meals, a crowd gathered at the Lison home. Soon there were dozens waiting to hear the mentor speak.
A gracious host, Mrs. Lison worried that she would not be able to supply these impromptu guests with enough food and drink. She began to run from neighbor to neighbor, asking them for contributions. Rabbi Kesselman watched her frenzied activity with a bemused smile.
“You need not be worried,” he told her. “This was a surprise. Just as G-d does not demand from anyone what they cannot do, no one is asking for what you do not have.”
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What he said, as told by R’ Sholom Feldman is:
דאס וואס דו האסט, גיט אלץ. און דאס וואס דו האסט ניט, מאנט מען נישט פון דיר