0394 - The Rebbe Would Fast Every Monday and Thursday While in Berlin

00:01 Someone told me that 30 years ago he was on a flight to Eretz Yisrael, and next to him was sitting another Yid. The one that told me was not a Lubavitcher, and the one that was sitting next to him was also not a Lubavitcher. But he told me since it's such a long flight, obviously, two Yidden sit next to each other to get into a conversation. So the other person tells him, "I want to tell you something about the Lubavitcher Rebbe." And this is what he said. "My grandfather," this person says, "My grandfather learned in Berlin in the university at the same time as the Rebbe did. And they had something that from time to time, some of the people there, the frumme people, would get together. They would eat together, or they would eat and then later sit together. I don't know exactly. He didn't say exactly what this... How it was, but they would get together by a meal or after a meal, and when they'd come to bench, they would take turns. Each time someone else would be the one to be mezamen, to say, "Rabbosai, mivil benchin," and do the ziman. Every time there was somebody else. From time to time, when it came the turn of the Rebbe, who was then the aidim of the Friediker Rebbe, his turn to bench, so sometimes he would say an excuse that I have a stomach ache, I couldn't eat, I didn't wash, I didn't do this, all kinds of excuses, many times.

01:19 And they figured out that this is whenever his turn came out to be the mezamen on a Monday or on a Thursday, he always found these excuses and would not bench. So they realized that he didn't eat, and they figured it out, and what they saw later, that every Monday and Thursday, he would fast. And this man tells this guy who's telling me the story, he says, "You see, we're talking about the Lubavitcher Rebbe while he was learning in the university, which k'vayachol, it was like a college student, and his avodas Hashem was so great then that every Monday and Thursday he would fast like it says that tzadikim would fast, you know, from time to time or different days, et cetera, et cetera. The Rebbe would fast then.