67. What A Farbrengen Can Do!

00:16 Hello, kinderlech. Here is a story, a beautiful story, about the importance of Hasidim coming together and having a farbrengen with love for each other and wishing each other l'chaim, and how that can have amazing, amazing result. Nissim, great nissim can happen from that kind of a farbrengen. For Hasidim come together, and they wish each other with a great love that Hashem should bless the other one with everything they need, and they say l'chaim, and they farbreng together. That has great power, as Alter Rebbe once said, that even the Malach Michoel cannot accomplish what a farbrengen can do. So here's an amazing story that happened at the time of the Chozeh of Lublin. The Chozeh of Lublin, as you well know, his name was Reb Yankov Yitzchak Horowitz. He was a great tzadik. He was called Chozeh because he saw things. He was able to see things that nobody else was able to see, like, like a-- little bit like a navi. They can see things in the future. They can see things from far away. Like the Baal Shem Tov used to see things that happened very far away, or he could see things that were gonna happen in-- far in the future. So the Chozeh was similar in that way. So once, uh, it was a yontif. It was yontif of Shavuot. And a young man who so badly wanted to come to the Chozeh for yontif, he was afraid his wife and his parents and his in-laws and his wife's parents would not

01:55 let him go because they want him to stay home with his wife and family. But he so badly wanted to go to the Chozeh of Lublin. So he told them that he needs to go somewhere for doctors. Didn't tell them where he's going, and he snuck away from the house, and he went to Lublin. He came there a few days before yontif, and as the minhag was in those days, that if you came to the great tzadik before yontif, you would go and give Shalom Aleichem to the Rebbe. Now, in Chabad, by the, by the Hasidim in Chabad, we didn't give the Rebbe Shalom with the hand, but we go in yechidus. But in tho- by those Rebbes, by those tzadikim, it was the minhag that you actually shook the hand of the Rebbe. And the Rebbe shook his hand and told him, "Please go back home right away. Don't stay here one more day. I want you to go home." This young man was, like, so shocked. He came and tried so hard to come to the Rebbe, and he had to sneak away from his house, and now the Rebbe is telling him, "Go home right away. I don't want you to stay here for yontif." He felt so hurt. He thought that the Rebbe doesn't like him, doesn't want him there. Maybe he's done something wrong. Maybe he's done an aveira, and the Rebbe can see it, and he feels bad. So-- but he didn't have a choice. The Rebbe told him

03:20 clearly, "I w- don't want you to stay here one more day. Just go home right away." So the young man packed his bags and went home. On his way home, he stops in a little krachma. A krachma is like an inn where people can stay overnight and have some food. And he decides to go to sleep there before he goes back home. And he's very depressed. He's very sad. And he's thinking the whole time, "Why is the Rebbe, you know, sending me away? He doesn't like me. He doesn't think that I'm, you know, worthy of being by him for yontif. Well, what's wrong with me, and why is the Rebbe so not nice to me? What is wrong with me?" And he's very depressed, and he's crying, and he's upset. But he has no choices. He gotta go home. So staying overnight and waiting for the morning when he can travel again and go home. Meanwhile, during the night, there were Hasidim, many Hasidim were coming to Lublin to be with the tzadik for yontif, who were passing by, uh, this krachma, this inn, and they also stayed there, and they see this young man sitting there. And they thought that he's going to Lublin because why is he here in the inn? He's probably also traveling from a different town. So they ask him, "When did you leave your house, and when are you going to Lublin?" And he said, "No, no, no. I just came from Lublin. The Rebbe sent me away. He

04:53 told me that I shouldn't stay there even one more day, and I should leave right away and go home. And I'm very sad, and I'm very upset." And he starts crying. "I don't know what's wrong with me, and the Rebbe doesn't want me." The Hasidim said to him, "Listen, you come with us. We're going to Lublin to the Rebbe, and you come with us to the Rebbe. Don't worry what the Rebbe told you." And they sit down. They said, "Let's sing l'chaim." They say l'chaim. "Let's sing some songs. Let's tell some words of-- some stories of tzadikim, and we'll sing l'chaim. We'll be happy. We'll have a little farbrengen." And they have a whole night farbrengen. They farbreng till the morning. They say l'chaim to each other, and they hug each other, and they wish each other broches. Hashem should help each one in whatever they need, whether they need parnasah, they need health. And so they spend the whole night with that yungerman, that young man who was so sad and so down for them because Rebbe sent him away, and they told him, "No, no, no, you're coming with us." And the whole night they farbreng with him, and they gave him broches. And so in the morning they decided, "Okay, let's travel now to Lublin." As they come into Lublin, the Hasidim, as was the minhag in, in Lublin, that you went to the Rebbe first and give him Shalom Aleichem, and the Rebbe would look at you and give you a

06:15 bracha. As they're all going past the Choze of Lublin, this young man who the day before the Choze had sent home also went over to the Choze and shook his hand like as if he just arrived. The Choze looked at him and didn't say a word. It was fine. A day later, Choze sees this younger man and says to him, "Tell me, which tzaddik did you go to? Did you go to some other tzaddik?" He says, "No." He says, "What happened on the way home when I sent you away? What happened before you got home?" He said, "Rebbe, I was in the inn and Hasidim came, and they told me I shouldn't go home. I should come with them back to Lublin, and we sat all night and we farbrenged and we said l'chaim with great love and ahavat Yisroel, and, um, people helped each other." And so the Choze says, "Ah, now I understand. Let me explain to you why I sent you home. I saw that you're going to die. Something was, uh, min hashamayim. There was a decree against you that you're going to die on Yontif, Shavuot. And I didn't want you to die here in Lublin. It would be, it would be very difficult. If you die here in Lublin, they would have to take your body somewhere and it would be very difficult. I wanted you to die at home with your family, where they can take care of you. But now I see that this decree from Shamayim

07:47 was taken away, and I couldn't understand. You must have gone to some great tzaddik that had taken away the gezeirah from you. But now I see it's not a tzaddik, it's Hasidim." He says, "If ten Hasidim get together and they say l'chaim together with great love for each other, this has more an effect on the person than even the bracha of the greatest tzaddik." And this is the le-- the lesson we learn, that we have to go from time to time and be at a farbrengen with other Hasidim. Somebody came to the Tzemach Tzedek and told him that he has a very big problem with parnasah, with health. The Tzemach Tzedek-- Tzemach said to him, "The problem is that whenever there's a farbrengen, you're not going to the farbrengen. You're sitting and learning instead." He says, "No, when you-- when there's a farbrengen between Hasidim who are really farbrenging the way they should, they're learning, they're singing nigunim, and they tell stories and, and they get to give strength to each other with ahavat Yisroel, you should stop learning and join the farbrengen because when you go to farbrengen, there's many, many brachas and nissim that Hashem gives to the person."