231. What A Farbrengen Can Accomplish

00:15 Shalom Aleichem, kinders. We just had Yuet Shvat, Yahrtzeit of the previous Rebbes. I wanna share with you two stories that I heard from a reliable source about the previous Rebbe. The first story is about, uh, I heard this from, um, a Hasid who just passed away. His name was, uh, Michael Vishetsky. Grew up in Russia. He heard it from his father, the famous legendary Hasid, Reb Moshe Vishetsky, who was a close friend of Reb Mendel Futterfas. They were both in jail at the same time in the Russian prison for Yiddishkeit, for doing Torah mitzvahs, and for spreading Torah mitzvahs. So he heard it from his father, Reb Moshe Vishetsky, the great Hasid. Apparently, he must have been there, or he heard it from someone who was there. The Friediker Rebbe, when he lived in the city of Leningrad in Russia, it was dangerous times. You know, you couldn't just, uh, go to shul and have a farbrengen. Uh, they closed all the shuls. The Friediker Rebbe used to have his farbrengens in his own apartment where he lived in his dining room. So there wasn't a lot of room for a lot of people, so some people were allowed in, and then most people were standing outside in the hallway. So once the Friediker Rebbe was in the middle of a farbrengen, and he was saying a ma'amar, a ma'amar chassidus. Now ma'amar chassidus is very serious when the Rebbe says a ma'amar as opposed to saying a sicha. When he said a sicha, he

01:58 explains a concept in Torah, or he tells a story, or he tells people how to be a, a Hasid. But a ma'amar is a different thing. A ma'amar is when the Rebbe speaks Torah, like which he gets straight from above, from Hashem. This is like, um, Hashem speaking through the mouth of Moshe Rabbeinu. Same thing, great-- The Rabbeim, like, like Moshe Rabbeinu, when Hashem reveals through the tzadik, through the Rebbe, the, the, the deep secrets of Torah. That's when the Rebbe says a ma'amar, everybody stands up, and the Rebbe's eyes are closed, and we can see on the Rebbe's face this is a very different type of, um, speaking and very different type of teaching. Anyway, the previous Rebbe was in the middle of a ma'amar. It's a serious time. Everybody was standing up and, and listening to every word. Suddenly, there's a knock on the door in the middle of the dining room. Somebody's coming into the house, and he goes to the door of the dining room where the Friediker Rebbe was sitting, and he knocks and pounds and pounds and screams, "Let me in. Let me in." So he made a big commotion. So the Friediker Rebbe, in the middle of the ma'amar, heard the noise, and he stopped the ma'amar, and he said to someone, "Go open the door and let the person in." So they opened the door. Who, who co- walked in? It's a man who did not have a beard. He was like-- He didn't look like a

03:30 Hasid, far from a Hasid. It seems like the man was not even observant. He was not religious, didn't know any Torah mitzvahs. He put a crook yarmulke on his head just because he's going to the Friediker Rebbe, so he put on a yarmulke on his head. And they opened the door, they let him in, and he quickly went straight to where the Friediker Rebbe was sitting and stood there behind. He, he knew that the Friediker Rebbe was in the middle of a ma'amar, so he didn't wanna disturb. The Friediker Rebbe went back to saying the ma'amar and finished the ma'amar. It took him a long time. After the Friediker Rebbe finished the ma'amar, the man who didn't speak Yiddish, 'cause he didn't live a Jewish life. He lived amongst Goyim. He was not a-- He, he couldn't speak. He didn't, uh, he didn't live amongst Jews a lot. So he says to the Friediker Rebbe in Russian, "Rebbe, whatever you tell me to do, I will do." And he's like-- He's very emotional, and he's saying, "Rebbe, Rebbe, tell me what to do. I'm ready to do whatever you tell me to do." So what was the story? Why, why was he here? Wh-wh-what did-- Why did he say this to the Friediker Rebbe? So the story was that this man didn't live amongst Hasidim, didn't live amongst Jews. As I said before, he spoke Russian. He had a daughter. His daughter was a little daughter. She got very, very sick. They had to take

04:59 her to the hospital, and they put her in ICU in a very emergency because she was very, very sick. And the doctors ba- basically said after a while of trying to help her and cure her and save her, they said they can't do anything for her. Seems like sh-she's hopeless, and she's going to die. When the father heard this, and he was very, very, very shattered and broken, and he started crying hysterically. He's losing his daughter. Somebody was passing by, a Hasid, sees this man crying. Says, "Why are you crying?" He tells him his daughter is extremely sick, and the doctors say she's gonna die. So the man said to him. He said, "You're Jewish, Ivrit. You're a Jew." He says, "Yes, but I don't know anything about Judaism." He says, "There's a holy rabbi living here in Leningrad. Go to him. Tell him what's going on. He's-- He can do nisim. He can do miracles." So the man said, "Okay, what can I lose?" And he puts on a yarmulke and he goes to the previous Rebbe. This was like, um, a week or two before this story with the Mayimer. And he told the Friediker Rebbe, he went to the Friediker Rebbe and he started crying. They let him into the room of the Friediker Rebbe and he started crying, and he said, "Rebbe, I don't know what to do. My daughter is dying. Can you do something? Can you give me a bracha? Can you daven for me?" And the Friediker Rebbe

06:32 says to him, "Don't worry," with a smile, "Don't worry. She'll get well. I promise you she'll get well. She'll be fine." Wow, he couldn't believe the Friediker Rebbe says he's guaranteeing him that the, his daughter will get well, against what all the doctors are saying. He went back to the hospital and his wife was sitting there and she was crying and, and some other friends and members of the family. Everybody was, like, very worried and crying. And he's saying, "No, no, no, she's gonna get better. She's getting better. She'll get better. She'll be fine because I heard from a very holy person that, that he said she'll be fine." And they think you're crazy. What-- You're out of your mind. Look what the doctors are saying. Few days went by, few days went by, and the doctor said, "Oh, it's getting worse and worse." Finally, they're saying this is like it's gonna be, um, she's gonna die soon. It's, it's like, uh, she has maybe a few days to live. And the, and the, and the wife says to her, to her husband, "You see? What are you saying?" He's gonna... She look, the doctor saying she's, uh, getting worse and worse. He says, "Yeah, but that, that holy person, that holy rabbi told me that it's gonna be good." So on the last day, suddenly they see there's a change. She's, um, getting better and better, and she's waking up, and she's looking at everybody. And they, they couldn't believe it. The doctors were,

08:01 like, shocked. Everybody Chassidim were very surprised because he was willing to do anything. If the Friediker Rebbe would have told him, "Put on tefillin, keep Shabbes, keep kosher," he would have done it because he was so excited. He was willing to do anything. But here says no, not a mitzvah. Didn't tell him to do any mitzvahs. Just go to farbrengen. Every time there's a farbrengen you should be there. And that's what he did. There were many farbrengens. Chassidim always had farbrengens in Russia, and he would come. And these farbrengens had such a big effect on him that a few years later, when you saw him, he would have a full beard and a kapote and davened every day. He was like a full Chassid. Now, if the Friediker Rebbe told him to put on tefillin maybe he would have put on tefillin. Uh, who knows? Maybe he would have put on tefillin forever, maybe not. But he told him something else, b- be amongst Chassidim, be at a farbrengen. This shows the power of a farbrengen. Going to a farbrengen amongst Chassidim, what are you talk- you talk about stories, you sing a song. It's not a mitzvah or anything, but it can have a much bigger effect on you, on a person. So it's so important to go amongst Chassidim and to, and to, and to be in a farbrengen where people speak stories of Rebbeim, of tzadikim, sing a nigun, and, and say over a w- a word, uh, something from a sicha,

10:36 from a Mayimer. That's one story. The second story is a, a story that, uh, was told by some Rav who has a neighbor in Long Island. This neighbor, his name was Mr. Kramer. Mr. Kramer was... During World War II, he was-- lives in America. He was drafted by the United States Army to go to the war, to go fight in the, in the... with the American Army against the Nazis. Before he went to the Army, he went to the previous Rebbe. This was... Rebbe was already in America. Because now the previous Rebbe came right in the beginning of the war, and he was drafted after the Friediker Rebbe came to America. So he came to Friediker Rebbe and told him that he's going to be drafted and he wants the Friediker Rebbe to tell him what he should do, a mitzvah or something, to protect himself from, Chas ve'Shalom, dying in the, in the war. It's a very dangerous war. Many, many people died. Previous Rebbe tells him, "Make sure to take your tefillin with you and never miss a day of tefillin. Even in the most dangerous times during the war, make sure you find a moment to put on tefillin." Didn't tell him to daven. Told him to put on tefillin, say Shema, and that's it. So he said, Mr. Kramer said, "Okay, I'll do it." He brought tefillin with him, and he ended up in a Army unit where there was, um- No Jews. He was the only Jew, and he was

12:12 a bit uncomfortable telling the people that he's Jewish, so he didn't tell them. They all thought he was, uh, like them, a Goy. How did he put on Tefillin? He did it, like, very secretly. He found that, found a place every time, every day, in a corner where nobody was around, and he put on Tefillin. Sometimes in his room when everybody was out. Once he was putting on Tefillin and the commander of his unit, the army unit, came in and saw him in Tefillin, and he said, "Kramer, what is this?" He says, "Well..." The, the, the commander really didn't know, he never saw Tefillin, never heard of it. He was a Goy. So Kramer says, "Oh." He wasn't gonna tell him the word Tefillin. The, the Goy is not gonna know. He thought maybe he knows the, the translation of it. I- in the dictionary it's called phylacteries. Uh, nobody knows even what that means. So he said, "Oh, Commander, this is, these are phylacteries. I'm a Jew, and I'm supposed to put this on every day." So that's when his secret came out, and everybody found out in the unit that there is a Jew amongst them. There's one single Jew in the entire unit where they were, uh, fighting against the Nazis. Well, at first, the Goyim were not so friendly to him. "Oh, he's a g- a Jew." And many of them had these ideas about Jews, that Jews have horns, and, uh, they were looking for his horns so maybe... Uh,

13:38 and they were doing all kinds of pranks against him. Uh, they would throw an egg at him or something like that. They, they, they would, they would make him, uh, harass him a little bit because he's Jewish. But then one day, they were all in the battlefield, and you know it was a very, very difficult time, very dangerous time, and the bullets were flying. The Nazis were shooting at them, and they were, like, in a hole. They call it a foxhole, like hiding, trying to make sure that the bullets doesn't hit them, and they were trying to shoot back at the Nazis. And Kramer was in, in-- They had many holes. He was in a different hole, and the commander was in another hole. And the commander said to one of the soldiers, the Goyim, he said, "I want you to go out and find Kramer. Bring him here, even though it's dangerous. There are a lot of bullets flying outside. I want you to risk your life and get Kramer here. Tell him to bring his phylacteries. I want him to put them on and pray for us." 'Cause they all felt they were very scared because they're afraid they're gonna die. So this soldier's climbed out, and even though the bullets were flying, he was able to grab Kramer from another foxhole and brought him there, and he brought his phylacteries, his Tefillin, and he davened. After the war, most of them survived. Kramer used to say that throughout his life, every once

15:08 in a while, one of the m- soldiers that used to be in the same unit with him... Now they all moved to different places, United States, and they had their own jobs. But they would call him from time to time, "Hey, Kramer, my wife is in the hospital and she's sick. Can you take your phylacteries and put them on and pray for me? Pray for my wife." Or somebody would call him up and says, "Oh, my child, uh, she's fell and got injured. Please put on your phylacteries and play for him, pray for him." So he realized that at the end, even though sometimes Goyim have, uh, very negative ideas about Jews, but when they see a Jew standing firm, puts on his phylacteries, his Tefillin, and he davens, they begin to respect him. Not only that, they believe that he has special powers to help them as well. So always the advice of the Free Divine Rebbe that he should take his Tefillin with him in the battlefield, and in that zechus, he will survive. Not only did he survive, but all the Goyim began to be inspired by his Tefillin, so much so that every time they needed help, they would call him that he should daven to the for them.