0178 - R' Alter Lieberman Change Tefilin

00:01 In the beginning of the that we lived already in Miami, obviously, and my in-laws still lived in New York. But once we got a call that my schver, my father-in-law, became very sick, and they took him to the hospital. And he was there, and the matzah was very bad. So my brothers-in-law wrote to the Rebbe, and the Rebbe said they should check over the tefillin. So they checked over the tefillin even though he had just got new tefillin, but they checked over the tefillin and everything was fine. And a few days passed, and the matzah didn't get any better. They wrote to the Rebbe again, and the Rebbe answered again they should be beydik the tefillin. And again, they gave the tefillin to be beydik, and again it came back that it was okay. And this happened even the third time. The matzah didn't change, and we didn't know what to do. One Friday when I was in Miami, my wife was in New York, she calls me before the invention, "The matzah is very bad now. He is basically bleeding internally, and the medicine that they usually use for that to stop is not working on him. And they don't know what to do, and he's just pushing bleeding. And the he's pushing. His are going out, and his mamish are very, very passive." So I said to her that I didn't say this the whole time, but when they checked the tefillin and tefillin was good, maybe the Rebbe had something else in

01:14 mind because my schver was originally a Peilisher, actually a direct eynikl from the Divrei Chaim. A ur eynikl, that means his mother's mother was a daughter of the Divrei Chaim, pretty close, so he was basically a Peilisher, but he became a Lubavitcher. But his tefillin, he still had tefillin that were according to the Peilisher nusach, not with all the Lubavitcher proteim in it. So I said that I think that maybe when the Rebbe meant to check the tefillin, he didn't say it outright, but what he meant was that he should change, upgrade it to a Nusach Chabad. Heyes, he is a Lubavitcher, so it would be right of him to have a Lubavitcher tefillin. Now he didn't change because he kept his minhag avoseinu beyadenu, but I, I said, "I don't know if it's true, but could be this is what the Rebbe meant because it's apeleh. A few times the Rebbe said to check the tefillin, and the tefillin were kosher." So she said she's gonna go and speak to him. And I hung up the phone. It was mamish close to the invention, and I didn't know what happened. Whole Shabbos I was nervous. Who knows what's going on there in New York because the matzah was, was terrible. Right after Shabbos, when I called, this is what my wife told me. As soon as she hung up the phone with me, she went into the ICU and saw him. He was already not unconscious. His mind was conscious, but he was so

02:27 schwach. He was laying there, and the doctors didn't know what to do. So she walked over to him, and she whispered to him. He said my name that I said that maybe the Rebbe meant that he should change his tefillin to Chabad tefillin. So she's asking him, "Are you maskim to do that?" And he shook with his head, and he said, "Yes." He didn't say... I don't know if he said it was words yet, but he shook with his head that he's, it's maskim. Within three minutes, five minutes, one of the doctors a new medicine. Not a new, actually an old medicine. The medicine that they used in the Second World War to stop bleeding, which already was not used anymore. They had new medicines, but the new medicines didn't work, so they said, "Let's try the old medicine." And they tried the old medicine, and the medicine worked, and the bleeding actually stopped. So after Shabbos, we wrote to the Rebbe this whole thing. Wrote to the Rebbe that he took upon himself to change his tefillin to Chabad tefillin, and that this helped and, and, and, and he got-- he's getting better. So the Rebbe answered these words, and the words that they wrote that he took upon himself to change the tefillin to Chabad tefillin, the Rebbe wrote like this, and for sure that also the Rabbi Naton's tefillin he should change to Chabad. And the Rebbe in parentheses wrote that Rabbi Naton's tefillin is which is because it's always that this

03:47 brought as a that In addition, that tefillin b'chalal is a segula for and the Rebbe quotes but, uh, Rabbi Naton's tefillin is even more. So here the Rebbe acknowledged that this was the segula. I don't know if this what he meant, but it seems like this he acknowledged that this is what he meant, that it should be changed to Nusach Chabad, and that's why the Rebbe added that what it should be done is not only the Rashas tefillin should be changed to the Nusach Chabad, but also the Rabbi Naton's tefillin. And from then on, itaki, he got better. Lived many years after that.