Dr. Avrohom Seligson - Part II

00:00 The hemsach to the earlier installment regarding my father, we're continuing now with installment number two, and we'll discuss additional short stories. My father once told me that while sitting at The Rebbe's farbrengen, someone not from Chabad observed the Rebbe coughing very much and asked, "Who is the Rebbe's doctor, and why doesn't he do anything about it as to tell the Rebbe what to do?" My father responded, "I am the doctor, and we don't tell the Rebbe what to do." There were occasions when the Rebbe had a strong cough. My father knew what the problem was, and he would prescribe a medication that the Rebbe should have ready at any time he wished. It would then be filled in the pharmacy and brought to the Rebbe. The Rebbe some- once said, "Where can I find a doctor like Dr. Zelikson? As soon as he hears my husband, the Rebbe, coughing, he prescribes a medication." The Rebbe always wished that there should be privacy maintained around him and especially relating to his health. It was once after my father visited the Rebbe at his home, and the Rebbe was about to return to Seven-Seventy. The Rebbe told my father that he should not come in the same time to Seven-Seventy. People should not figure as that you are coming from visiting me. Another aspect in the relationship between my father and the Rebbe was in the ingan of learning. In the beginning of the Nesi'os years, or maybe earlier, there were occasions that my father would speak

02:15 in learning with the Rebbe at the entrance of the Rebbe's room. My father had a very big gishmak in the Rebbe's farbrengens and felt this is the yiras shamayim that a person receives in avodas Hashem. I heard once from a junge man who had high fever, and he asked my father if he should go to shul. My father responded as follows, "With such a high fever? To go to shul?" The junge man then asked, "What about going to the farbrengen, to the Rebbe's farbrengen?" My father told him how not to go to the farbrengen. This reminds me two stories that come to mind. The Rebbe once asked a person after Shabbos why he wasn't at the farbrengen, and the person answered that he had fever. The Rebbe asked how did he know? The Hasid said that he measured. The Rebbe continued, "Who asked you to measure?" On another occasion, the Rebbe, when he was informed that a Hasid was laid up with a cold at home, the Rebbe answered, "Instead of laying with a cold in bed, he should have come here to warm up amongst Hasidim." To clarify something inaccurate in an article about my father which was published in a weekly magazine last week, my father had two methods how he cured people, as some of his patients related from their experiences. When a patient would come to my father, my father would at times ask if he was sent by the Rebbe. It happened once or more times that after the visit,

04:13 the patient would tell my father that he was sent by the Rebbe. My father was not pleased with this because when one came from the Rebbe, he had a different manner how he cured the person, simply in higher than a natural manner. Once a patient came with an ongoing problem after seeing many doctors to no avail. My father asked him if he was sent by the Rebbe. When the patient told him that he was not sent by the Rebbe, my father examined him and immediately told him that the issue is not as the other doctors diagnosed it, but it is a completely different problem, and he cured him. On Mitzoiam Kippur, a patient came to my father for a health issue. My father told him, "Tonight, I am not giving medications. I'm giving lekach." This story happened many times with various people from whom I personally heard this fact. The Rebbe once asked my father in public, "From what will he have parnasah, a livelihood, in the upcoming redemption if everyone will be well then?" And the Rebbe answered, "They will come to you, and you will, after examining them, tell them that they are fully healthy."