157. The Rebbe Sensed Kedusha With His Hand

00:16 Shalom Aleichem, kinderlach. You know that tzadikim, people that have become so refined, so idol, their, their bodies, their physical bodies have become so heilige that, um, they can sense and feel spiritual things, things that are not physical. So I'm gonna share with you two stories that I heard from, um, that I... That comes from the person himself. Once the Rebbe, the Lubavitcher Rebbe was, uh, it was Selichos days. During the Selichos days, as you know, the week before Rosh Hashanah, we get up early in the morning and we say Selichos. So this was in the years maybe in the תשל"ts, many years ago. The Rebbe used to have Yechidus three times a week. Three times a week, people would go into the Rebbe, lines and lines of hundreds of people would wait in line to go in to see the Rebbe. And sometimes Yechidus would last till three, 4:00 in the morning, sometimes even longer, maybe all night. And the Rebbe didn't go to sleep. The Rebbe went home for a little while and came back for Shacharis. So the Rebbe hardly slept. So it was the night of Selichot, the, the day of Selichos, and the Rebbe finished Yechidus one night around 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning and it was decided that the Rebbe will do Selichos then. Instead of coming back for Selichos at 7:00 AM, at 7:00 in the morning when they do Selichos in Seven Seventy, the Rebbe will do Selichos right after Yechidus. It's 3:00 in the morning, it's

02:28 4:00 in the morning. So they needed to make a minyan. 3:00, 4:00 in the morning, everybody's asleep. So the Rebbe's, uh, gaboim, the Rebbe's secretaries went around to look where we can find 10 bochurim who will, uh, make the minyan so the Rebbe could say Selichos before he goes home. One of them was a bochur by the name of Lane. He still lives today in Crown Heights, and he told the story that he remembers. So he was woken up by a friend to say the Rebbe needs a minyan, and so he got out of bed, he washed netilas yadayim, he got dressed and, and immediately ran to Seven Seventy and he was, um... To the tent, there were 10 people, 10 bochurim. 10 people, not 10 bochurim. 10 people with the Rebbe and the Rebbe's secretary, uh, uh, Rav Chodakov. Rav Chodakov and the Rebbe were two, and then there was eight more bochurim. The Rebbe looks around to be sure there's a minyan before we start Selichos, and the Rebbe said, "No, maybe we should bring one more." So Rav Chodakov tells the Rebbe, "We have 10. We don't need more." The Rebbe said, "Yeah, but maybe we should get another one." It was very strange that the Rebbe would ask for an 11th person. You don't need 11 for a minyan. 10 is enough. But for some strange reason, the Rebbe said, "But let's get one more." So they looked for someone, but they remembered that in Seven Seventy there was a bochur

04:01 who was sleeping in the office. So they went and they knocked on the door and they woke him up and they made him wash netilas yadayim and get dressed, and he came into the shul and they started Selichos. Now, in the minyan there was a bochur who was a baal teshuva, who at first when he became religious from, he studied in Hadara Torah, which is a yeshiva for baal teshuva. And at that time, Rabbi Jacobson, uh, Rebbe, Rebbe Saul Jacobson, the famous old Hasid, was the head of the Hadara Torah. This bochur, this baal teshuva became very quickly very learned and he was able to move to Seven Seventy, to the regular yeshiva. He was amongst the people in the minyan. Okay. The story was forgotten. The Rebbe asked for an 11th person. Nobody understood why and that's it. Selichos was over. The Rebbe went home. Everybody went back to sleep, and that's the end. Nobody remembered the story. But a few months later, another story came out. Um, this bochur who was a baal teshuva and then moved to Seven Seventy, uh, w- had to get married. So somebody suggested a possible shidduch for him, and the shidduch was with a family whose parents were also Lubavitchers, not baal teshuvas. So they asked the Rebbe. Always Chassidim ask the Rebbe before they go to a shidduch to decide whether they should even consider this shidduch or not. They ask the Rebbe and the Rebbe would say, "Yes, yes," give a beracha, and they would

05:51 start the shidduch process. This time the Rebbe answered they should check into him more That was a strange answer. The Rebbe doesn't usually answer that. Well, he says if two people think it's, it's fitting, it's the right shidduch, then the Rebbe would give a bracha. But here the Rebbe said, "No, no. Before you start with this shidduch, with this boy, with this bachur, you should check into him, check into the bachur." So they went to Rabbi Jacobson, who's the ... Rabbi Shaul Jacobson, who was the head of the darchei torah, and said to him, "The Rebbe said to check into him, and we don't know what he means." So Rabbi Jacobson thought this is a strange answer. So he d- he called the bachur and he said to him, "Do you know, um, where you come from, who your parents are?" "Yeah, my parents are so-and-so. They're Jewish." So Rabbi Jacobson decided he has to call the parents. The parents were not from. And he asked them to come and visit him in his office. They came, and he- the bachur wasn't there. He told the bachur to go out, and he asked the parents, "Tell, tell me the truth. Is this your son?" And when he asked a question like this, the parents became a little bit, uh, shaky and nervous. And finally, they admitted that he's an adopted child. He wasn't their son. He comes from non-Jewish parents, but they never wanted to tell him. They never told him, and they never did

07:26 a giyur. That means al pi halacha he's still a goy. Then they called in the boy and told the boy, "You know, you're, you're not Jewish." The boy heard this. He left the yeshiva and started living like a goy. He says, "If I'm not Jewish, I'm not Jewish." But then Rabbi Lane, who was in the minyan with the selichos, and he remembered how the Rebbe looked around the room and said he wants one more person for the minyan. And that bachur, who turned out to be a goy, was in the minyan, and the Rebbe didn't say why. He just said, "We need one more person." And then he understood. This is that the Rebbe sensed. A tzaddik can feel something which nobody else can feel. One second thing, which i- is the same type of story, but shows the sensitivity of a great tzaddik, that he can feel when something spiritual is either missing or lacking. The Rebbe would come in every time, every Shabbos when he came into the shul to daven. The Rebbe would daven with a minyan only on Shabbos or on Yom Tov or on very special days, but all the-- normally the Rebbe would daven in his room. When the Rebbe would come to shul on Shabbos and on Yom Tov, he would walk down the stairs to go to the big shul. Then he would walk from the back of the shul all the way to the front to his place. His place was on the right side of

09:01 the Aron Kodesh, all the way in the front. And the Rebbe would always go, he would always touch the mezuzah when he came into every door. He would touch with his hand the mezuzah. The Rebbe wouldn't kiss his hand. The Rebbe only touched with his hand the mezuzah, and he would move on. He would not do anything else, only touch the mezuzah. Same thing he would do when he got to the front of the shul in front of the Aron Kodesh. Before going to his place, he would touch the Aron Kodesh. Now, many people, they go and they kiss the Aron, the, the, the paroches of the Aron Kodesh. The Rebbe only touched the Aron Kodesh, wouldn't kiss his hand, but just touched it and then he would go to his place, was on the right side of the Aron Kodesh. This is always, the Rebbe always did the same thing. One year, Simchas Torah, the Rebbe on the night of Simchas Torah told people that he, he, he thinks that everybody should go hakafos with the Sifrei Torah. I mean, there is maybe 20, 30 Sifrei Torah in the, in the Aron Kodesh, and there are thousands of people in the shul. But the Rebbe wanted people that after he finishes hakafos, people should make more hakafos and give everybody a chance to dance with the Torah. So after the Rebbe's hakafos was finished, people took out Sifrei Torah and then, and give everybody a chance to, to s- to, to dance with the,

10:23 with, uh, with the Sifrei Torah. So at the end, the next morning, the shul was, a big part of the shul was empty because people danced all night Simchas Torah. But the Rebbe came in on time. Ten o'clock in the morning he came in, and he did what he always did, went downstairs from upstairs, from his room, went downstairs, and the entrance downstairs was the back of the shul, put his hand on the mezuzah like he always did, walked all across the shul till the front, from the back to the front, and went to the paroches like he always did and touched the paroches. And then he went to the right side of the Aron where his place was and stood there and waiting for them to start to daven. Suddenly, the Rebbe turned to his left and sees a, a bachur, a young bachur. His name was Nissen Mengel. Today, he's an old man, an old Hasid, a big Hasid, a Rav. But there at that time, he was a young bachur. And the Rebbe said to him, pointing to the Aron, "Are there any Sifrei Torah in the Aron?" It was a very surprising question. Why wouldn't there be? See, a Sifrei Torah are always in the Aron. He says, "No, no." He wants to know were there was Sifrei Torah there. Now, he was a young bachur, so he called over the gabbai, and the gabbai said, "Of course, there's Sifrei Torah there. There's always Sifrei Torah there." The Rebbe said, pointed

11:55 again. No, he wants to know for sure. They open up the Aron, and the Aron was empty. What happened was that people, when they heard the Rebbe wanted everybody to dance with the Sifrei Torah, they took the Sifrei Torah, and instead of dancing downstairs, many of them went dancing upstairs. And they forgot to bring the Sifrei Torah back down to put in the Aron, which was very unusual. But the Rebbe, when he touched the paroches, sensed that there's something missing in this, in this Aron. The kedusha of the Sifrei Torah, the Rebbe was sensitive to that, and he knew there's something missing. The Sifrei Torah must not be there. So that shows that what the Alter Rebbe says, the great tzaddikim, kol evreihem, their physical body is so sensitive to kedusha that they can feel with their, with their physical body whether something is holy or not holy. They say this about a lot of other tzaddikim, but these are two stories with the Rebbe which I know from the first, the person, from Rabbi Mengel and Rabbi Lane. They themselves witnessed this story.