Care & Foresight
A curious rabbi. A mother of a bar mitzvah son. A young man on the eve of marriage. What brought these people to see the Rebbe?
The Avner Institute presents anecdotes of amazing personal encounters, recorded by the Rebbe’s secretary Rabbi Leibel Groner and Rabbi Shneur Zalman Wilschansky, Rosh Yeshiva of Tomchei Temimim Lubavitch in Morristown, NJ, showing the power of the Rebbe’s blessings to improve or predict every personal matter.
“The Rebbe’s Health”
Rabbi Groner relates:
It was 5706/1946. I was one of the students the Previous Rebbe, the Rebbe Rayatz, sent to Chicago, where there was a rosh yeshiva by the name of Rabbi Mordechai Hershberg (later the Chief Rabbi of Mexico). This man was truly a scholar. In fact, he had been a pupil of the Yeshivas Chachmei Lublin.
We left for Chicago the day after Simchas Torah and enjoyed solid months of learning there. After Pesach, Rabbi Hershberg approached us with the news that he was going to the Rebbe.
“Please give the Rebbe our regards,” we answered.
He spent two weeks in New York. When he returned, Rabbi Herschberg said, “Boys, I want to tell you something, but first we need a chassidishe farbrengen. Bring some mashke [liquor] and I’ll tell you.”
We sat around and him and he began, “I went to the Rebbe and asked, ‘Lubavitcher Rebbe, how do you feel? How’s your health?’
“The Rebbe answered, ‘When I get news that a Jew put on tefillin, that a Jew kept Shabbos, my health improves and this is my health.’
“Then he stared at me directly. ‘If you can tell me that a Jew put on tefillin and kept Shabbos, this is my health. If my yeshiva students learn well, this is my health.’”
“A Double Question”
It was early Adar, 1976. A Lubavitcher woman came to New York for her sister’s wedding. Within her handbag was a note, written jointly with her husband, containing an urgent question.
While all Jewish men begin the practice of wearing tefillin at age thirteen, Lubavitcher men, in addition to the regular tefillin, wear another set – called the Rabbeinu Tam tefillin. Customarily this set was begun to be worn at eighteen. However, when they heard the Rebbe’s view, that there was no need to delay putting on this second set, the woman and her husband wondered: since their son was nearing bar mitzvah, and already learning how to don daily tefillin, should he begin laying the Rabbeinu Tam tefillin immediately?
But there was another topic in the note. A strongly anti-religious neighbor who lived across the street did whatever he could to start up with them. Constantly the hapless couple suffered abuse or any kind of complaint, real or imaginary.
Finally, her husband suggested, “Since you’re hoping to see the Rebbe anyway, why not ask him about this?”
“What can the Rebbe do?” she asked.
“Maybe give our neighbor a blessing that he’ll do teshuva.”
“That’s crazy,” the woman exclaimed. “Why should we even give this man the time of day?”
Nevertheless, she followed her husband’s advice, and included this request in the note.
It was several days before Purim when the woman arrived in New York. As the appointment was set for afterwards, she stayed on after the wedding and enjoyed an additional simcha – dancing at her sister’s wedding, then handing out mishloach manot and eating at the Purim feast.
At the Purim farbrengen, the Rebbe gave over the well-known sicha about wearing Rabbeinu Tam tefillin.
“In answer to many people’s question, whether to put on Rabbeinu Tam tefillin,” he proclaimed, “my opinion is that now both pairs should be worn. In conclusion, since people have asked whether to begin wearing Rabbeinu Tam tefillin, and until now there was no time to answer them – and it’s a shame to lose out on tomorrow morning – the answer is that they should start wearing Rabbeinu Tam tefillin . . . . And so he should hurry and get his own tefillin. There is no need to wait until the wedding, or age eighteen. The sooner the better.”
Hearing the Rebbe’s words, she turned to her mother, who was standing nearby. “The Rebbe already answered my question,” she said.
After the holiday, she approached the Rebbe. Upon her arrival, she was asked to hand over the note, as was the custom. But the woman, feeling there was no longer any point in deep consultation, had tossed it away.
The Rebbe, however, stared at her in anticipation. “Nu?”
The woman, overwhelmed by the Rebbe’s presence, stammered that she had already submitted her note.
“I didn’t get it,” the Rebbe answered. “Maybe you could tell me what you wanted to ask.”
The woman remained there in awkward silence. Initially unable to muster up the courage to answer, she blurted, “The Rebbe already answered my first question in the Purim sicha. I’m afraid . . . I’m not comfortable asking the second question.”
Her voice trailed off. “Really, it was nothing special.”
The Rebbe gazed at her and smiled. “True, I already answered your first question at the farbrengen yesterday. About the second question and the request for a blessing – zol zain a bracha.” He ended by blessing her and her family.
The story had quite a happy ending: the children of this neighbor became ba’alei teshuva and G-d-fearing, observant Jews. This I heard from the lady’s husband.
“There is No Forgetting”
Rabbi Wilschansky relates:
It was the early 1970s. I met a yeshiva student waiting in the small office.
In conversation I learned a little about his extraordinary biography. Apparently his parents hadn’t had children for many years. After going to the Rebbe and receiving a blessing, they had this very young man I was talking to.
More than twenty years had passed since his birth, and now this man was about to get married. Therefore, his parents asked him to go to the Rebbe for a blessing.
This young man was having yechidus the night I met him. After a few minutes he emerged from the Rebbe’s room in utter turmoil. We didn’t have to convince him to tell us what happened. His story just burst forth from him.
“I went in to the Rebbe,” he explained, “with the original letter my parents had received from him. I showed it to the Rebbe and asked for a blessing for my wedding.
“The Rebbe glanced at the letter. After he gave me his blessing, he told me that at the same time that he received my parents’ letter concerning children, he had received a letter from my uncle telling the Rebbe about his parnassa [livelihood] problems.
“‘I didn’t hear from him after that,’ concluded the Rebbe.”
The young man gasped, “You can just imagine how many letters the Rebbe saw in those twenty years. The Rebbe remembered my parents’ letter and also the letter from my uncle about parnassa, sent at the same time!”
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