The Rebbe and My Zaide, His Melamed – Part III

Welcome to our weekly Motzei Shabbos program. This is the third program.

This is a continuation of the Rebbe's youth, and so last week we left off about the wedding — the wedding, and the night of the wedding, where it was in Yekaterinoslav [?]; he didn't go to the wedding — and also about the Melaveh Malka, that my Zaide asked whether he could give Melaveh Malka with a bagel.

Today I want to begin with when my Zaide came to America, and he went to yechidus with the Rebbe, his melamed, his teacher, and he later on, in 1953, went to [the Rebbe]. But before that I want to say, since we're getting closer to the end of the month of Iyar — Iyar is a month of healing.

So we need to take advantage before the end of the month to grab the opportunity of the month, the segula of this month, that we should draw health for the entire year. This is a special Iyar. It's a segula for a refuah. And since hundreds of people are listening to this program, maybe more than hundreds, I want to say whoever needs a refuah should have a refuah sheleimah. And I want to say — everybody should answer a special Amen.

So before I continue the program I want to say about Iyar. The Rebbe asked: why is the month of Iyar an auspicious month for healing more than any other month? Hashem is the Healer all the time. And if a doctor heals, it's not the doctor — the doctor is only a shliach, but it is Hashem doing it. So what does it mean, and why specifically in the month of Iyar, if every month Hashem heals, if a doctor heals? So the Rebbe explained: once a doctor — a patient comes to a doctor and he needs to be cured.

So the patient is sick and the doctor gives him medicine, or a person needs an operation, the doctor gives him an operation, and of course before the doctor takes the knife he says a tefillah, "please help me." So he gives him — he makes an operation, the doctor helps him — but after he cures the patient, sometimes there is a remnant, a scar left, a mashal: for example, when a person has a heart attack and he becomes healthy, there's always a remnant, there's something left, you can see that person had a heart attack. And that's why I think the Rebbe did not bentch Gomel after his heart attack, because in order to bentch Gomel you have to be 100%, and from a heart attack I don't know if it's 100%, there's still something left over — maybe that's why he didn't bentch Gomel. So this is how a doctor does — a doctor cures, but there's still something left over.

But when we say Hashem does it, two things: number one, Hashem makes it so that the person shouldn't become sick in the first place, and even if he becomes sick, he's cured and there's no remnant that he was ever sick. This is the month of Iyar.

Why? That's the difference between a doctor and Hashem. But why Iyar specifically? Because it comes after the month of Nissan. Nissan is a month of miracles, where it says, "Ani Hashem" — He took them out, not through an angel, not through a saraf — and Iyar comes right after the month of Nissan. So the miracles that Hashem did, He did Himself. So the first month after shows that the healing means the person won't become sick in the first place, and even if the person becomes sick later on, he's 100% healthy — you can't even see a scar, you can't even see a remnant. That's what it means, because it comes after a month of miracles.

Now, since it's Shabbos, and I mentioned once that there's a minhag that on Shabbos you say a story of tzadikim, so here — but we're talking about health, so I want to say a short story about the Rebbe. There was a person — he didn't live in Crown Heights, he was not Chabad, but he had a shaychus to Chabad. He came to Crown Heights almost every single Sunday, when they would give out dollars. He never took a dollar, but he liked to make a seder in the line — you know, people shouldn't get out of line, people shouldn't argue there. Maybe people came, he'd ask them to go more to the front, he'd let them in — you know, he liked to make order, that was his thing, that's the type of person he was. But he never took a dollar from the Rebbe.

Once, after Pesach — it was Iyar — somebody asked him, "Why didn't you ever take a dollar from the Rebbe?" He said, "I do my thing and I like what I do, and I think the Rebbe is happy with what I do, but [I don't] take a dollar." [The person] said, "Take a dollar, what can it hurt? Take a dollar, you're here anyway." "Never." So he said, "Okay." He went over to the Rebbe, took a dollar, and the Rebbe gave him a dollar. Then the Rebbe told him, "Here's another dollar for a refuah." He was shocked — he's not sick. I was close to him. He came to my house, his face was red, and he said, "Come, come down to the basement, I need to talk to you." My father-in-law was sitting right here at this table — he didn't want him to hear. He said, "Come to the basement," and I went with him. He said, "The Rebbe told me I'm not sick," and he didn't know what to do, he was nervous.

I said to him, "I don't know what to tell you, because I also would be nervous, that's the truth — the Rebbe doesn't just use words." Then I said to him, "You know what, Rabbi Mindel is in my house, he's a smart man, he's the Rav, he's the Frierdiker Rebbe's secretary — ask him, tell him what happened." So he went over to him and told him what the Rebbe said. He started to smile. He said, "It says Hashem brings the cure before the makkah — if there is a makkah, there is a cure. So just in case you were supposed to get sick, maybe, Hashem gave you the cure already. So why, why are you so nervous?" That's what he told him.

Okay, he told him it's a good sign, but he was still nervous. This was Sunday. Wednesday morning they took him to the hospital — he had internal bleeding. He was in the hospital two months. He's cured now, baruch Hashem. He lives in the same house now, he walks around, everything is fine. This happened. So I wanted to share this with you.

Now, I don't know if we have much time for our third program, but I will mention something and save it for the next part, because I said we're going to have three programs. So today I want to mention that when my Zaide came to America, my Zaide wasn't a well person — he had a stroke before he came to America. His hand didn't work, one foot didn't work, and he couldn't see with one eye. He came here, and the Joint sent him to Cleveland. We all moved to Cleveland. Then he moved back to New York afterwards. He was in Russia, he was in Germany, then France, and then they came to America.

When he came here, the Rebbe said that if he needed help with government assistance, he should always say that the Rebbe sent him. Anyway, so he went in — the first time, 1953 — to the Rebbe. He went in to the Rebbe. The Rebbe right away stood up, came to the door. The Rebbe was standing, and the Rebbe said to my Zaide, "Sit down." My Zaide said to the Rebbe, "How can I sit in front of the Rebbe?" He couldn't sit. So then the Rebbe said, "How can I sit in front of my melamed?" So they were both standing for at least an hour and a half. They were talking about a lot of things, and the Rebbe remembered the pages that they had learned together, and they spoke for an hour and a half. He remembered it from years before.

The second time, a year or two later, my Zaide went in to the Rebbe again, but this time the Rebbe said, "Sit down." He had to sit down because he couldn't stand — he didn't feel well.

My Zaide lived in Cleveland, which I have no time to speak about now, maybe another time. My Zaide moved back to New York. He moved over here, on Lincoln Place, downstairs. I remember he was very — I mean, maybe he didn't have to eat in the sukkah, he couldn't walk — there was no wheelchair, I don't know why he didn't have a wheelchair, but there was no wheelchair. One foot didn't work, one hand didn't work, one eye didn't work — it's like [unclear] half his body didn't work.

So he had to go into the sukkah — he had to open the window to go through to the sukkah from his window. He had to jump over, he couldn't jump, so he had to put one foot out. It took a long time, but he struggled — he only ate in the sukkah, never did he eat elsewhere, even though a Rav had said he could eat, let's say, a fruit outside — whenever — but he didn't, he insisted on eating together with me, because he always went through it, it was a big struggle.

I remember, my Zaide, since he was in poor health, couldn't come on Shabbos to the farbrengen, but during the weekdays, not all the time, he went. My uncle Mayer Davsky [?], his son-in-law, helped him, and it took a long time — he took him with a car, and he came to the farbrengen. And I remember once the Rebbe was in the middle of a [sicha/maamar], and the Rebbe saw him from far. As soon as the Rebbe saw him, the Rebbe stopped, and the Rebbe stood up, and he waited for them to bring my Zaide and put him near the table, to come up to the Rebbe. Then he sat down near the Rebbe, and the Rebbe continued. And then he had to leave in the middle of the farbrengen — he couldn't stand the whole time, he couldn't sit the whole time. So in the middle of the farbrengen, the Rebbe stopped again, they helped him out, they helped him to leave, and the Rebbe looked at him the whole time until the end, until the Rebbe couldn't see him anymore.

This — we can all learn from this the lesson of a teacher. He wasn't his teacher at that time — he had been his teacher when the Rebbe was a child, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 years old. So imagine if everybody would have that kind of regard for their teacher, like this. This is called hiskashrus. When we say the word hiskashrus, what does it mean? To do what the Rebbe does — it's like a limb connected to the body, like the soul is within the body. This is called hiskashrus. I mean, to talk about hiskashrus and think about philosophy is nothing — do what the Rebbe does, just like the limb does the same thing the body wants. And this is the lesson we can learn from the Rebbe's beloved [teacher].

Next week we are going to continue our fourth program. Thank you.