R' Shmuel Ber Borisover

06:01 The Friediker Rebbe writes in his However, everybody had a tremendous derech eretz towards the Rebbe the Tzemach Tzedek, and they all feared the Mashpia Rabbi Mordechai. The Mashpia Rabbi Mordechai very much liked me, so he took me to his own private room to learn. He had a small room built in the Cheder Sheni in the Lubavitch Yeshiva, and I learned by him for a year and nine months. Rabbi Shmuel Ber related that when he was in Chasnack, there was once a big hishtadlus amongst the young Galic to travel to Lubavitch. But the Mashpia Rabbi Mordechai refused to give them permission. He said that since the Moshiach on the Mitteler Rebbe, which the Mitteler Rebbe was then in jail, it's not a good time to go to Lubavitch. However, a few weeks later, the news came out that the Mitteler Rebbe is going to travel to the tziyun of his father, the Alter Rebbe in Haditch, and he's going to travel through the cities of Zhelazin and Homel. So a group of ten young Galic and Bocherim, among my friends, decided to quietly, secretly travel to one of these two cities so they could see the Rebbe. And one of the nights in the Chelesh Menachem Av, we left secretly Chasnack, and after a week we arrived at Zhelazin, and we found over there a few hundred guests from the whole area. To our devastation, we found out that the Rebbe is not actually staying in the city of Zhelazin. Rather, he stayed in a inn

07:23 nearby, and he's only going to spend in Zhelazin one day. And because he's tired from the travels, he will not even say Chassidus and not accept anybody to Yechidus. "I had a big zechus," related Rabbi Shmuel Ber, "that the Mashgiach Rabbi Meir Tzvi liked me, so he allowed me to help him out in the different services to the Mitteler Rebbe, bring water, et cetera. And in the evening, I was zoche to hear how the Mitteler Rebbe davened Maariv in his room. And when the Mashgiach Rabbi Meir Tzvi brought a cup of coffee to the Rebbe, I was zoche to see the Rebbe's holy face. The whole entire night I sat and waited maybe I will have another opportunity to see the Rebbe's holy face. Finally, three o'clock in the morning, Rabbi Meir Tzvi opened up the windows of the Rebbe, and at that moment the Rebbe passed through the room where I was standing, and he looked at me with a penetrating look which made me feel two opposite feelings. On one hand, I felt a big fear, at the same time I felt a big draw to the Rebbe. I knew that the Rebbe is going to pass again through this room on his way back, but I didn't have the koach to stand in my place because of the great fear that I had, so I hid behind the door. The next morning after Shacharis, Rabbi Meir Tzvi told me that the Mitteler Rebbe asked about me, who I am, and that he

08:42 told him that I'm from Chasnack and I'm a student of Rabbi Mordechai Hager. And you should know it's possible that the Rebbe will ask you to come into his room." When I heard that, a big fear fell upon me to an extent that I couldn't even think straight, and I was like somebody who forgot everything. The Ibishter Baruch Hashem gave me the right idea to sit down and say Tehillim. And once I started to say Tehillim, springs of tears opened up. Rabbi Meir Tzvi came over to me and he told me that the Rebbe said that I should come into his room. I was petrified, and only with the help of Rabbi Meir Tzvi I was able to walk into the Rebbe's room. Since I was so emotional, I couldn't speak. The only words I was able to utter were, "Ich vil zein a Chassid. I want to be a Chassid." And I started to cry. And the Mitteler Rebbe answered with his holy tongue, "Chabad is a skalah havanah haamakah. When you will toil, you will be a Chassid. The Ibishter should give you a rikus yamim." Rabbi Meir Tzvi, the Mashgiach, told me that I should not tell anybody about the fact that I had a Yechidus because nobody else had permission. During the day that the Rebbe spent in Zhelazin, two thousand Chassidim came from the nearby villages. And since it was Thursday, the Chassidim tried to convince the Rebbe that he should stay over for Shabbos in Zhelazin. But that didn't

10:01 help. At two in the afternoon Thursday, the Rebbe left Zhelazin and a command came out from the Rebbe that nobody except for those who were supposed to travel with him should travel with him. When the Rebbe traveled away, I went to look for my nine other friends that came with me from Chasnack. I finally found them, and they were devastated about the fact that they didn't get to hear Chassidus from the Rebbe, and we returned to Chasnack. When we came back to Chasnack on Monday, when nobody was in the Beth Midrash besides for me and my Mashpia Rabbi Mordechai, Rabbi Mordechai turned to me and he said, "I feel that you smell of a ruach taharah. Tell me what happened." So I told him about the whole Yechidus by the Mitteler Rebbe. Rabbi Shmuel Ber married his first cousin in Chasnack, and for the next five years he lived by his father-in-law in Chasnack. In the year of taf kuf tzedek beis, when the Tzemach Tzedek was in Minsk for a visit, a Chossid, Rabbi Mordechai, the Mashpia, with a, with many young Galic traveled to Minsk to greet him, and he took Rabbi Shmuel Ber with him. And that's the first time Rabbi Shmuel Ber saw the face of the Tzemach Tzedek. In the year of taf kuf tzedek daled, Rabbi Shmuel Ber traveled for the first time in his life to the city of Lubavitch, but for a personal reason he couldn't stay there for more than two weeks. And then he didn't

11:19 travel all the way until elul taf kuf tzedek vav, meaning for the next two and a half years. But then he actually stayed there for a half a year until Nissan taf kuf tzedek zayin. At that time, he was only thirty years old, pretty young, but he was already from the most chosheve Chassidim, and even the sons of the Tzemach Tzedek themselves honored him, and the Tzemach Tzedek himself was very much mechabed him. Rabbi Chanoch Hendel related that in the year of kaf reish gimel, Rabbi Shmuel Ber was already considered to be from the most chosheve Chassidim, and we see that from the fact that when the Tzemach Tzedek came back from Peterburg that year, there was a bunch of Chassidim standing to greet him, and Rabbi Shmuel Ber was standing in the first row where all the ziakhne Chassidim were standing. Reb Philip Gerber once related in a farbrengen. The daughter of Rabbi Shmuel Ber, Basia Ber, was a simcha of staler kaf reish yud daled in Lubavitch. The house of the Tzemach Tzedek was in the place where later on was the big zal of Tomchei Temimim. In the courtyard was another house. That was the house of the Rebbe Maharash. The Chossid of Shmuel Ber fell asleep in the minyan that was right next to the room of the Tzemach Tzedek. Suddenly he woke up and he heard that the Tzemach Tzedek walked to the house of the Rebbe Maharash, and he told him that he should go with him because the

12:43 Zeide, the Alter Rebbe, promised me to learn with me a Mishnah in Maseches Sukkah the way they learn it in Gan Eden Atachtai. Both of them walked into the room of the Tzemach Tzedek, and Shmuel Ber listened from the outside, and he heard the beginning of the Mishnah and its explanation, and then he fell asleep. The next day, the Tzemach Tzedek told him, "When you listen to that which you need not to listen to, you get a patsh, keys which are amaratzim." The Chossid of Shmuel Ber didn't say this story to anybody for his whole life. However, before he passed away, he told it to the Rebbe Rashab. At a different sicha, the Frierdiker Rebbe related that Shmuel Ber of Lubavitch was once in Lubavitch, and the rooms of the Tzemach Tzedek and of the Rebbe Maharash were next to each other, and there was just a hallway between them. Shmuel Ber hid in the hallway and thought he will be able to follow them and see what they're doing. And he saw how the Tzemach Tzedek went to the Rebbe Maharash, and he called him, and he heard that they started to learn Shulchan Aruch Choshen Mishpat. And Shmuel Ber then fell asleep and didn't hear the rest. Later, they closed the door of the hallway, and he couldn't leave. Later on, the Rebbe Maharash came out, and he told him, "From theft, you don't become wealthy. A ganav pays double. When you listen to that which you need not to listen to, your

14:07 ears get cut off." Shmuel Ber then had a devastating Simchas Torah until on Motzei Simchas Torah, the Rebbe gave him shirayim from the Havdalah, and he had from that giluyim for the whole entire year. We'll finish with a Gezhmake a heart-taking nigun. I don't know any specific name to it or who composed it.