The Rebbe’s Request From a Hospital in Israel

Welcome to our weekly program, The Inside Story of Chabad in America, through the Mindel archives. This program is a continuation of the last two programs - we're in the middle now. I only have ten, fifteen minutes to speak, so I had to split this into a few programs.

Last week, two weeks ago, we spoke about stories of other Rebbes that we've brought - what they said. I told the story that the Rebbe said about the submarine, and about the Gerrer [Rebbe], and we spoke about the fact that he was also in touch with other Rebbes - which people didn't think the Rebbe was in touch with.

Now I'm going to continue from the farbrengen. So last week we spoke also about the Belzer - that the Rebbe was with the Belzer Rebbe. I once heard from Yale [?], and I might say it's interesting, that the Belzer - the previous Belzer Rebbe - he was in Poland, he was [unclear]. So after the Rebbe got married, there was an uncle who said, "let's go and visit the Belzer Rebbe." The Rebbe didn't want to go, but he said, "okay, I'll go with you, but don't say - don't tell them - that I agreed." Anyway, they came to the Belzer, and the Belzer Rebbe gave him his hand - he gave him the sholem [greeting] - he was holding his hand, and he turned to the uncle and said, "who is this young man?" He wasn't supposed to ask, but he did ask, because - he said - "he has a warm hand, I couldn't take my hand off of him." So this is a story with the Belzer.

The Belzer is also known for this: the first Belzer Rebbe was blind. He met the Rebbe Maharash; they were close, and he told him the secret of shirayim - a thousand words in a minute. The Rebbe also made a remark - they say a lot of miracles about him.

This is what I was telling people at the farbrengen - the Rebbe [unclear - something about a driver/chauffeur and how the Rebbe was interested in this person's health]. So all this I spoke about - how the Rebbe was involved with other people. But they were amazed at the farbrengen: the Rebbe, they said, is a gaon, he holds Chassidus and Kabbalah, and when he spoke he didn't look in any paper, and he spoke for hours and hours, and it reached all over, and he never had to stop in the middle - he never did. And on the other hand, the Rebbe put on a Purim-shpiel with notes, the storyteller, tales for children - they never saw anything like it. Usually a gaon is [aloof], but at the same time he was busy with plain, simple people, and he didn't make a fuss of himself, and every letter he received, he answered right away.

So on one hand the Rebbe was a gaon, and it's a phenomenal dimension - this is what they felt, the greatness of [the Previous Rebbe]. So when they told me that, I opened up and read to them what the Previous Rebbe himself had said - and this we said a few weeks ago - about the greatness: that Avraham was learning Torah at the same time - yes, at the highest level - and at the same time he would also be dealing, at the same time, with plain, simple people. And this I told them: we see on the Rebbe that the Rebbe has the same thing - on one hand he learned Torah at the highest level, and on the other hand [he dealt] with plain, simple people.

And we'll continue a few more things about the Rebbe - he never leaned back; when he sat, he never leaned back.

So this is how we got to discussing that a group of [unclear] came to the Rebbe - they came as representatives, sent as a delegation to see the Rebbe, and this is what I want to share with you today, if I have time - if not, it'll have to be next week. But before I tell you about the delegation, what happened here is amazing, and it was an amazing story.

Before that, I want to tell you this: in the 1980s there was an Agudas HaRabbonim conference. Now, during the conference, there was a famous [speaker] - his name was Rabbi Williger [?]. I know him very well - he was Hungarian [?], he was a Munkatcher chossid and he was a Klausenberger chossid. He came many times before, bringing [reports] many times, when he spoke about the project that the Klausenberger Rebbe established - that is, the Laniado Hospital in Netanya - which is very near and dear to his heart. He always spoke about that hospital. He says, "I am enthusiastic about this" - now I'm saying the word "enthusiastic" on purpose, because there's a reason I'm saying this word - where he got that word "enthusiastic" from - this was a word of [the Rebbe's]. But I'll tell you - maybe this week, maybe next week.

So he was reporting at that [conference] that the Rebbe encouraged him to work very much with the Laniado Hospital in Netanya. He also said that the Rebbe gave him a very nice check, a donation, and he said that the Rebbe suggested that the hospital should not be called "a house of the sick," but it should be called Machon Refuah [?]. And Rabbi Williger mentioned that the Rebbe did not write a date on that check, and he said why: because, as he thought, the date is "a goy's date" - it's not the [Jewish] date. Now, we are in Tashpa"b - [today's year is] different, but that's why the Rebbe didn't want to write [a secular date].

So I just want to tell you - [Rabbi] Oliver [?], whose [unclear], also [heard this story]. He saw Rabbi Williger, and Rabbi Williger told him that the Rebbe didn't write a date, and he told him why. So [this other Rav] said that's not the [real] reason, because he knows that - for a few people - Rabbi Mindel [would come in]. And [he told a story about] when Rabbi Mindel went in to the Rebbe - this was January 1st, New Year's. He walked in to the Rebbe, and the Rebbe said, "Happy New Year." He was taken aback - "Happy New Year? That's not New Year," he said to him. [The Rebbe answered something about] this day, Hashem [unclear].

Now, talking about Rabbi Mindel going in to the Rebbe - you know, the Rebbe - I don't know how to put it - didn't have too many "friends," what I mean by that is the Rebbe was very much his own person, everything he did, he did himself. He spoke as [a confidant] with Rabbi Mindel - he asked him, "should I put in a shmuel [a traditional Yiddish/Jewish name element] before I arrive in America or not?" In other words, the Rebbe didn't have many people like Rabbi Mindel. Of course, they were probably among the only ones close to the Rebbe - which I know is written down, the write-ups after good meetings - there are good accounts of the meetings. About the Sputnik, when the Tanya [translation] came out, the Rebbe spoke to him about a few things, I've asked certain things [about this], so he was like a close person to the Rebbe, so the Rebbe spoke to him.

We once mentioned that when the [English] Tanya came out, the Rebbe said to him that the whole world stood [amazed], with the Sputnik, with the first translation [of Tanya] into English coming out. He tells Rabbi Mindel - we spoke once, the Rebbe told him, I might say, about a wonderful incident - somebody came in, I think - I'm not sure - he was raising money and he couldn't, he had to go back home, he was away from home a few months and he didn't make much [money]. The Rebbe told him, "you should become a maggid, you should start giving speeches." He says, "I never spoke in public." The Rebbe says, "you should be like a bee, not like a spider." He didn't know what that meant - [Rabbi Mindel] was telling this [story].

[The Rebbe] says: it says that anything that comes from a non-kosher animal is not kosher - why is it that honey, which comes from a bee, is kosher, even though a bee itself is not kosher? What's the difference between a bee and a spider? A spider makes a web - the web comes from inside the spider - what does the web do? Nothing - it just catches flies, it doesn't accomplish anything. A bee - honey doesn't come from the bee itself; if honey came from the bee, honey would be non-kosher. The bee goes around collecting [nectar], and it becomes honey.

So instead, [the Rebbe] told him: if you go around and give speeches - not from your own [ideas], but you say what you learned - [a little] from Moshe, from this one, from that one - and then you go around and tell it over to people, then you'll make a living, you'll be repeating over [Torah] from others, and that will be fine. And he said even the Baal HaTanya says so in the Tanya. So, in other words - there's a lot of things that Rabbi Mindel [related], maybe I'll share them with you in the future - things [about] when he came to [the Rebbe for] dictation. So this is one of the things he told over, about when [the Rebbe] said to him, "Happy New Year."

Now I will tell you about [Rabbi] Goldman [?]. He was a son-in-law of [a certain Rav], he was a grandson of the Rebbe [and of the] Klausenberger. But seeing [that] - he was a [unclear], and the chief [unclear] - they came in to the Rebbe, and the Rebbe, in this conversation, started to say: when you give something over, you have to be accurate, exactly. And the Rebbe liked that - that when you give over a story, it should be accurate. And this is a lesson we can learn - that whenever we speak, speak the story the way it is; read the Rebbe's letter the way it is; don't give your own opinions or explanations - you can do that, but that's on your own; but when you do give over a letter, give it over the way it says.

And this is how - the first thing I did - the delegation walked in, that I told you about, and I have no time now. Im yirtzeh Hashem, next week I'll tell you the whole [story], which is amazing. Thank you.