A medical visit to the Rebbe - told by Rabbi Tzvi Telsner, Australia

00:01 At the 770, as you walked in, there are certain things that remain in your mind. Since you lived. And there was one individual who made a very strong impact on everybody who walked in 770. He was not a mashpia, not a moshav shiva, not a mashgia, but he was there for hours on end, davening. And the history of that man, those of you who wanna know, our guest speaker wrote a whole book about him. The man, and most-- I don't know exactly when a mokir he stays, but he gave away his nefesh habamis to medicine. And he was a doctor in Shanghai when everybody ran away from the Second World War, and eventually came to Crown Heights. And I think the Rebbe once turned to Rabbi Chabrei and, and gave him l'chaim and said, "This is what my doctor was, was always ich vil." And he was basically the doctor in the Rebbe's house, the Rebbe's Beis Medrash. Everyone remembers Dr. Zeligson davening, aliyos, for hours on end. His yiras. Now, everything he did was exactly the way it should be. There was kashrus to Rebbe. There's an interesting story which I heard from Emet Zev or Simcha Kunev, or Malach Los Mamish. There was a, uh, I think it was Tammuz. It was after Beis Tammuz. The Rebbe, it seems, caught a cold. And those of you who remember 770 very well, you listen to Chabrei initially. If the Rebbe got a cold, it wasn't for a week and not for two and not

01:30 for three and not for four. Sometimes it used to go on for weeks on end. And that Shabbat, uh, Shabbat after Beis Tammuz, the door was opened, the Rebbe opened Chabrei. The Rebbe opened the door to Chabrei. And I remember that time, the only time I ever saw Rav Meshulam Ha'sholem, when the napkins were finished. There used to be a pile of napkins on the Rebbe's-- right next to the Rebbe's chair. The Rebbe used to give mezuzahs to people. Sometimes he gave by hand. I shouldn't say any... So Reb Shkim Eises, Reb Shkim Eises, these things. I remember one story. So now I take a handkerchief. So he used the napkins, and there was a pile of napkins. There wasn't one, was it two or thirty, forty, and the Rebbe finished the napkins. It was an unbelievable sight. Rav Meshulam went over and put a whole bunch of napkins. And the Rebbe was-- every third word the Rebbe said, the Rebbe was coughing. It was terrible. So that night, one of the maskirim called up the Rebbetzin and said, "Rebbe's not getting better." The Rebbe was gonna go to the Ohel the next day, and those, those times, the Ohel didn't have the air conditioner. It was mamash hot. Those of you who know an American summer, the like of mid-Tammuz, the shits would have platched in that molom iz mir. So they didn't know what to do. So the maskir said to the, the Rebbetzin, "I'll, uh, I'll give you an advice." Come in

02:42 in the morning. The Rebbe, he usually left about eleven o'clock in those years. This must have been either Cheshvan or Tammuz. Come in in the morning, and I will get Dr. Zeligson to stand right behind you. So when you go to the Rebbe, I'll push Dr. Zeligson into the room. So you'll have the Rebbetzin, Dr. Zeligson, and the maskir, and we'll see what we can do. Well, what happened? I remember we were sitting in the morning learning. It was say, day Shiva. And all of a sudden, the Rebbe, the Rebbetzin drove up, which was something which was unheard of. There were times you knew the Rebbetzin was gonna come at night or in the morning. The Rebbetzin would walk into 770. It was unheard of. So we saw that something is funny, something is fishy, something's happening. So what happened, we didn't see because, uh, officially, we were supposed to be learning. Hopefully, we did a little bit of learning. And the door was closed. And then later, the maskir told me what happened. The Rebbetzin did not go into the room without banging and hearing the Rebbe say she should come in. So she banged like-- If I said I had a siman how she banged, every maskir had a different way that he banged, and that's how the Rebbe knew. So she banged on the door, and the Rebbe there had a bell. She pressed the bell. So the Rebbetzin went in, and then the maskir gave a shtup to Dr. Zeligson because

03:58 Dr. Zeligson was a very, very aging man. He didn't, you know. And the maskir went in. There were three together. All of a sudden, the Rebbe picks up his head, and he sees three people there. So he turns around to the maskir and says, "What's the news?" So the Rebbetzin said, "The Rebbe, he's hosting me." So he goes, "I'm, I'm right here." So the Rebbe, the Rebbe said, you know, "Maybe it's the ship or something that's happened." So Dr. Zeligson was a young man. He came to learn. The Rebbe said, "The rapper, you're up." He came, and he listened to the Rebbe. The Rebbe smiled and said, "You're up." He said, "What do you wanna do?" He said, "I'll check the Rebbe. We'll give him medication." So the Rebbe, "Okay." So they took out a stethoscope, and they checked. They had an easy test. The Rebbe, "You have to have antibiotics." So the Rebbe said, "Good. Lay it on the counter. The tissue is there." And that's how it ended. And ten minutes later, we all walked out with his two peklehs, drove to the Ohel, and came back eight hours later.