Episode 257 - Pesachya "and the Large Candles".

00:01 More stories about the Rebbe Rashab and his chassidim. One of the Rebbe Rashab’s chassidim, a man named Pesachya from the city of Kherson, was once in Lubavitch for Simchas Torah. In the middle of the farbrengen, while the Rebbe was farbrenging with the chassidim and the Temimim, Pesachya was a little tipsy. He said aloud, “The Rebbe always says that he performs no miracles. Let me tell you what happened.” Pesachya went on to tell the chassidim and the Temimim: “Last summer I was with the Rebbe for yechidus. Before I left his room, he said to me, ‘You trade in timber, and sometimes you have to spend several days in a row in the forest. So when Chanukah comes, don’t forget to take Chanukah candles with you. Take large candles.’ And so it was. When Chanukah came, I had to be in the forest. I remembered the Rebbe’s words and took large Chanukah candles with me. I reached the forest, and robbers attacked me. They stole my money and wanted to kill me. I began pleading with them to let me live, but they said that was impossible: if they released me, I would surely tell the police there were robbers there, and they would be caught. So they had to kill me. All my pleas were in vain, and I saw that my end had come. I asked them only to let me daven Maariv and light Chanukah candles before I died, because it was Chanukah for us and we light candles. The robbers graciously allowed me to light them. While I was lighting the candles, the local landowner passed along the edge of the forest. Seeing a light shining in the middle of the forest, he turned off the road to see what was there. He also had a pistol. When he reached us and saw the robbers, he arrested them, and I was saved.” Pesachya told the chassidim this story and concluded, “Isn’t that a miracle?” The Rebbe said, “A story is a story.” And here is another story. The storyteller Rafael Cohen writes that he once traveled by train to Tel Aviv with the rabbi of Kfar Chabad,

03:13 Rabbi Garli—Garlik shlita. During the journey, the rabbi told him three things, which Rafael wrote down. First, he relates that he wrote a letter to the Rebbe shlita and concluded it with a blessing for the Rebbe. The Rebbe told him, “Since Kfar Chabad was founded by my revered father-in-law”—meaning the Frierdiker Rebbe—“the blessing of the mara d’asra,” meaning the rabbi of Kfar Chabad, “is dear to me.” From this, Rabbi Garlik says, you can see the depth of the Rebbe shlita’s bittul before his father-in-law, the Rebbe: a blessing from the rabbi of Kfar Chabad, which the Rebbe himself founded, is important to him. Another interesting story: In the city of Disna there was a teacher named Boruch Yosef Kozliner. Everyone called him Boruch Yosef the teacher. His sons studied at Tomchei Temimim in Lubavitch. In Disna, all the officials, doctors, ministers and military commanders took bribes from Jewish intermediaries and exempted people from military service. This went on for many years. Boruch Yosef was involved in it too, but accepted no payment. He did it only for the Temimim sent to him by the Pidyon Shvuyim society. Once, someone informed on them, and a special delegation was sent from the capital, Petersburg, to Disna to investigate the matter and act as they saw fit. When the members of the delegation arrived in Disna, everyone was gripped by fear, because over all those years there was hardly a household that had not been involved in securing exemptions from military service. The delegation began investigating every detail and arrested many people, both government officials and other residents of the city. Every day, more reports and denunciations reached the delegation. One person informed on this man, another denounced that one, and the delegation investigated each case in detail. Boruch Yosef the teacher was seized with

06:01 mortal fear, because he had done a great deal for the Temimim, and he immediately traveled to Lubavitch. It was a day for yechidus: the Rebbe Rashab would receive people for yechidus three times a week in Lubavitch, on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays, while [unclear] would receive people on Wednesdays. When Boruch Yosef arrived in Lubavitch, he approached Nachman the attendant and asked to be admitted for yechidus. Reb Nachman would not even hear of it. Why? What reason was there to let him into yechidus now? He came to the Rebbe only for Rosh Hashanah, and even then he did not always go in for yechidus. When Boruch Yosef saw that Reb Nachman would not let him in, he wrote a note to the Rebbe saying that he had a very urgent matter, but Reb Nachman would not admit him. He sent the note to the Rebbe with someone who was going in for yechidus. The Rebbe read it and told the person who had delivered it, “Please tell Reb Nachman to come in.” When Reb Nachman came, the Rebbe instructed him to admit Reb Boruch Yosef. Reb Boruch Yosef told the Rebbe everything that was happening in Disna and asked where he should flee. It was clear to him that he had to flee. He could not return home, because he would be arrested at once, so he had decided to move to another city. His question to the Rebbe was: Which city? He did not know whether to move to Kremenchug or perhaps to Poltava. The Rebbe Rashab listened, thought for a moment, and asked him two questions. First: “Does anyone know you traveled here?” Boruch Yosef the teacher replied, “No one knows. No one except my wife.” The Rebbe then asked, “Did you do what you did faithfully?” The chossid answered, “Yes, faithfully.” The Rebbe thought for another moment. Then he took his watch from his pocket, looked at it and told Boruch Yosef, “I think you still have time to catch the wagon drivers. But if you miss them, come back here, and they will harness

08:32 my horses for you, so you can catch the train to Disna. Travel safely—travel safely home, and Hakadosh Boruch Hu will help you.” Boruch Yosef the teacher left the yechidus and thought to himself: How can I go home? That is not what I asked the Rebbe. I asked him whether to move to Kremenchug or Poltava. But he did not have much time to dwell on it. He went outside to see whether the wagon drivers had left and caught them at the last moment, just as they were ready to set off. By the next morning he was back home. Now Boruch Yosef sat at home, broken and distraught, expecting them to come and arrest him, for he had heard that more people were being arrested every day. Anyone with any connection to these activities was arrested. He was afraid to leave his house. He feared walking the streets lest someone see him, and so he sat at home, depressed and frightened. Several days passed. His friend, the chossid Reb Yaakov Reuven Melech, whose sons also studied in Lubavitch, came to him and wished him mazel tov: salvation had come, and he hoped no harm would befall him. Reb Yaakov traded in vegetables from his gardens. He also leased gardens, and through his business he regularly visited the homes of the city’s prominent people and senior officials. He now told Boruch Yosef that he had been at the home of a high-ranking officer’s deputy to settle the accounts for vegetables with the deputy’s wife. When he arrived, he heard crying and wailing inside and asked what had happened. The deputy’s wife told him, as one would tell a family friend, that many years earlier her husband had taken bribes and done as he pleased with the papers, all without his superior’s knowledge. When the superior found out, he began taking bribes himself and doing as he pleased with the papers. So in recent years the deputy had been free of any wrongdoing. Now that the delegation from Petersburg had arrived to investigate, they had arrested his superior and many others,

10:58 And her husband remained in the office with the secretary. The two sat there working, sorting all the mail, letters, and papers according to whom they belonged to and which room they should go to. As they worked, there was a letter on the deputy’s chair that he himself had written, denouncing the teacher Baruch Yosef Kozliner. He intended to give it to the members of the delegation when they arrived at the office, about an hour after it opened. But as the secretary sorted the letters, he came upon a letter denouncing the deputy himself. It said: “Why should this gentile go unpunished? Had he not himself done all manner of forbidden things before the minister found out?” It contained clear evidence, incident after incident, offense after offense, all addressed to the members of the delegation. As the secretary read the letter, the deputy himself was sitting across the desk from him. The secretary showed him the denunciation and said, “You’re in danger.” When the deputy read it, he was terribly frightened and begged the secretary to give him the letter rather than hand it to the delegation. At first, the secretary was afraid to conceal it from them, but after much pleading he agreed and handed the paper to the deputy. Just as the deputy slipped it into his pocket, however, the members of the delegation entered the office. Both men were startled, and in his panic the deputy made a grave mistake: instead of handing them the denunciation he had prepared against the teacher Baruch Yosef, he handed them the denunciation against himself. They read it and immediately told him, “You are under arrest.” They arrested him, and he is now here in prison. The secretary immediately understood what had happened and told his wife. That is how Yaakov Reuven heard about it. Knowing how distressed his friend Baruch Yosef was, he hurried over to bring him the good news. And indeed, in the end,

13:16 Baruch Yosef remained unharmed, and everything he owned remained intact.