208. How The Previous Rebbe Saved A Child’s Life And Made Her Father Do Tshuva

00:16 Shalom Aleichem, kinders. We just had last week, Yud Beis Tammuz, the Chag Hageulah of the Friediker Rebbe from Russian communist prison. I wanna share with you an amazing story which I heard from a Hasid who came out of Russia and, uh, remembers those days. His name was Rabbi Vishetsky, that at the time when the Friediker Rebbe was living in the city of Leningrad. Friediker Rebbe, when he became Rebbe in Tov Reish Peh, uh, was after the Rebbe Rashab passed away, was in Stalag. So he became Rebbe in the city of Rostov. But then because of problems that the, the Russian government there made him problems, so he left and went to Leningrad. And in Leningrad, he lived for two years until he was arrested, and then he was put in prison, and this is the whole story of Yud Beis Tammuz. When he lived in Leningrad, it was very dangerous times because the KGB... You know what the KGB is. This is the secret police of the Russian communist government that used to follow around all the Jews, all the Hasidim, seeing if they go to shul, and if they daven, if they learn, if they do mitzvahs, and, and arresting them and putting them in prison. Some of them never came back. Unfortunately, they went Al Kiddush Hashem. So they would specially follow the Friediker Rebbe and always look around to see if he's doing something which the government doesn't like, and eventually they, they arrested him. So when the Rebbe, Friediker Rebbe lived

02:05 in Leningrad, when it used to be a Yontif or the special Yontif like Yut Tes Kislev, um, um, Chof Daled Teves, there used to be a Farbrengen. But the Farbrengen was in the apartment. In the apartment, the, the, the house where the Friediker Rebbe lived. They couldn't do it in a shul because it was dangerous, 'cause you couldn't get to the... The government would come and check and say, "What are you doing? You weren't allowed to gather in a shul to make a Farbrengen." That would be, you know, that would be considered a bad thing to do. So the Friediker Rebbe would have his Farbrengens in his house. The house could only get 15, 20 people because it was... It's a regular house. They couldn't have, couldn't have so many people. But everybody wanted to be and hear the Sichas and the Maamar of the Friediker Rebbe. So they would, uh, invite the older Hasidim, the important Hasidim, and, and then they would close the door and pe-- other people would stand outside in the hallway on the staircase. No, hoping that maybe they'll be able to go in for a minute and hear something the Friediker Rebbe is saying. One time there was a big Farbrengen in the Rebbe's house, and the Rebbe was in the middle of saying a Maamar, and the room was packed with people, full with people, and they closed the door because they couldn't have more people in there, and there were people standing outside the door on the

03:26 staircase in the hallway packed with people. Suddenly, somebody comes in from the front door, from the house, from the building, downstairs from the street. A man who didn't look like a Hasid, didn't look like a Jew who keeps Torah and mitzvahs, and he's coming in, and he's screaming, and he says, "I need to go to the Rebbe right away. I need to go to the Rebbe right away." And people were... In those days, people were a little bit afraid because the communists, the, the, the, the, the Russian communist police, they would send spies to check on the Friediker Rebbe, what is he saying, what is he doing, so then they could arrest him and accuse him that he's not a good person. He goes against the government. So they weren't sure who he is. Maybe he's just a spy. But he said, "I need to go to the Rebbe right away, and it's very important." And he was making a big commotion, and he was screaming, "I need to go, I need to go." And he ran, ran all the way, pushed himself all the way to the door of the apartment, uh, the apartment of the Friediker Rebbe, and he knocked on the door and knocked and knocked and knocked. Friediker Rebbe was in the middle of saying a Maamar. You know, when you say a Maamar, you don't inter-interrupt a Rebbe. But he knocked so hard that the Friediker Rebbe stopped the Maamar, and he said, "Go open the door. Let the man

04:44 who is knocking come in. Let him come in." And so they, um, opened the door and let him in, and the Friediker Rebbe continued to say the Maamar. He went back to the Maamar, kept saying the Maamar. That man that came in, he barely had a little yarmulke on his head. Uh, nobody knew who he was. Ran, ran, and he pushed himself all the way till he stood next to the Friediker Rebbe behind him. And the Friediker Rebbe kept saying the Maamar till he finished the Maamar. When he finished, when Friediker Rebbe finished the Maamar, this man who c- just came in, nobody knew who he was, bent over to the Friediker Rebbe and said to the Friediker Rebbe, "Rebbe, whatever you tell me to do, I'll do. Tell me what I should do. I'm a Jew, and I wanna do what you tell me to do." So everybody expected the Friediker Rebbe to tell him, "Well, you should start putting on tefillin, keep Shabbos, keep kosher." No. Friediker Rebbe said, Rebbe said to him, "You know what? There's one thing I want you to do. Whenever Hasidim get together at a Farbrengen, I want you to participate and go to the Farbrengen. Wherever Jews get together, Hasidim get together for a Farbrengen, they sing Nigunim, and they tell stories, and they, they, they give, you know, encouragement to each other and they say l'chaim, you should be there. I want you to be f- That's all I want from you, not more. Didn't ask

06:11 him to put on tefillin, Shabbos on it. Nobody knew. It was, was a strange thing. Who is this man? And the man left. He says, "Okay, Rebbe, I'll do this, I'll do this." And he left. So when he was going outside, people caught him and said to him, "What's going on here? Wh- wh- wh- why are you... What's this story with you? Why are you going over to the Rebbe? What did the Rebbe tell you?" They wanted to know what was going on, and he told them like this: "A week ago, I have a little girl, a daughter. She's three years old. She got very, very sick, and the doctors... We took her to the hospital, and the doctor said that she's so sick, they can't help her. She's gonna die in a few days. There's nothing they can do. My wife and I were very, very upset, and we were crying. And a friend of mine saw me, and he said to me, 'Why are you crying?' I told him, 'My daughter is in the hospital. She's dying. She's gonna die.' So he tell to me, 'Listen, there is a very holy person, a tzadik, a Rebbe.' I know you don't know what that means because you've never seen a Rebbe before, but I'm telling you, go to him and tell him your problem. He's a holy person. He can daven for you, and something can ma- a miracle can happen." So he said, "Show me where I go." So he went there. He

07:27 made an appointment, went to see the Friediker Rebbe. Friediker Rebbe listened to him and says, "Listen, don't worry. It will all be good. She'll be well. She'll recover. The doctors don't know. Don't worry about it. Everything will be fine." Went back to the hospital, and the situation got worse and worse. And the doctor said, "Okay, this is... We're giving up." And he said, "No, no, no, no. I know it's gonna be good because I heard from a holy person that it's gonna be good." But they are laughing at him. "Are you crazy? Holy people. He doesn't... He never even saw the child. I mean, was he a doctor or something? What does he know?" So he, um, said, "No, no, no. I, I trust and believe that..." And lo and behold, within 12 hours later, the doctors came into the room, and they saw the child, and they said, "She's actually out of danger. She's gonna get better and better. Looks like she's getting better." And she recovered. When this father saw this, he saw mamash a nes in front of his eyes, an unbelievable nes. He's never done anything Jewish. He's never kept mitzvahs, never went to shul. But he saw a mamash, a miracle from Hashem. What did he do? It was sh- it was the middle of, uh, the farbrengen. He, he ran, ran, ran to the Friediker Rebbe's house. He didn't know there was a farbrengen. Didn't know the Friediker Rebbe was saying a ma'amar. He just knew the Friediker Rebbe

08:47 lives there. He wanted to go tell him in excitement that I'm willing to do anything, whatever you tell me, because you, you made a miracle for me. You saved my daughter, so I wanna tell you that whatever you tell me to do, I will do. And he says that was the story, that he went up there to the Friediker Rebbe's apartment, and he stood behind the Rebbe by the ma'amar. And then when he told the Rebbe, the Rebbe says, "Just, I just want you to come to farbrengens. Whenever Jews, Hasidim get together, I want you to be there." And guess what? This Jew became a full baal teshuva and a Chabad Hasid, a complete Chabad Hasid with time. He came to all the farbrengens, and they sang Nigunim, and they told stories, and he learned so much about Yiddishkeit. He, he wanted to put, start putting on tefillin, and has wanted to start keeping kosher. He wanted to start keeping Shabbos, and he became a different person. That's the story.