WHAT DOES THE NAVI KNOW?

Thoughts, memories, and miracle stories about the Rebbe, as told by R’ Shneur Zalman Gurary a”h who received special kiruvim from the Previous Rebbe and the Rebbe, and was appointed by the Rebbe to the hanhala of Agudas Chassidei Chabad HaOlamis.

HOW IS HE?

Every year, during a certain auspicious time, I would go to the Rebbe for a bracha. For many years, I would ask for a bracha for a certain person who requested that I ask the Rebbe on his behalf. Every year, the Rebbe would bless him too. One year, when I asked for a bracha for him, the Rebbe told me that when one gives a pidyon for someone else, he needs to know how that person is. Since I did not know how this man was, the Rebbe did not bless him.

WRITING BEFORE IMMERSION

It once happened that someone asked me to send merchandise with him to another country so he could sell it and make a profit, but I refused. Afterward, they told me that the Rebbe wanted to know why I hadn’t agreed to send the merchandise with him when this could have helped the man with parnasa. I wrote to the Rebbe that I did not trust the man and therefore was hesitant to send anything with him.

The Rebbe wrote me that before I write him anything else on the matter, I should tell him whether I wrote the first letter before I had immersed in a mikva.

Indeed, I had written the letter before I had gone to the mikva…

A NISAYON HAS TO BE REMOVED ON ONE’S OWN

A certain matter was causing me tremendous agmas nefesh (anguish). The Rebbe kept telling me there was no reason for the agmas nefesh, but it didn’t help. I asked the Rebbe to remove the agmas nefesh from me.

The Rebbe said that the matter I was nervous about was not a problem but a nisayon (test), and a test is something that a person needs to remove on his own and can’t be removed by someone else.

SIGNED AND SEALED

Around 5710, the government demanded that I pay taxes they claimed I owed. It amounted to a large sum of money. I lost in the first court case and I appealed. After the appeal, the government offered a compromise that I pay a smaller amount. That was also a large sum but less than the previous amount. I didn’t know what to do, whether to insist on paying nothing or to agree, because if I didn’t sign to the compromise I might have to pay the full amount.

I asked the Rebbe who told me to open a Chumash and look at the first Rashi I saw. I took a Chumash B’Reishis and opened it to the beginning of Parshas Lech Lecha. I looked at Rashi on the page, but did not see an answer to my question.

I went back to the Rebbe and said I didn’t see anything. The Rebbe opened the Chumash and showed me that Rashi writes, “u’becha chosmin” which indicated I should sign, and that’s what I did.

WHAT DO YOU NEED IT FOR?

I was once offered a real estate deal that didn’t require any investment or work on my part. It was just easy profit with no risk. I wrote to the Rebbe about it and the Rebbe responded by asking me what connection I had with real estate, what did I understand about it, and why did I need additional pizur ha’nefesh (distraction) when I had enough already.

I went to the fellow and told him the answer I received from the Rebbe, and I said he should do as he pleased. At first, he said he wouldn’t do the deal, but his partner convinced him that the answer referred only to me and not to him.

He told me afterward that he regretted getting involved in this deal, since he had great agmas nefesh from it and problems.

CUTTING TREES

I was once involved in building a sukka for the Rebbe. I had to make sure that people could sit in the sukka without any halachic problems and so I cut some branches from the trees in front of 770. The Rebbe questioned me regarding cutting the branches.

I wrote to the Rebbe that in Shulchan Aruch it says that only fruit trees can’t be cut but other trees can be cut.

The Rebbe told me that when you are involved in communal matters, you need yishuv ha’daas (lit. settled mind, i.e. to employ careful consideration). As for this matter, it says in the Chinuch that it is forbidden to cut trees because it causes great anguish to the people of the town. Likewise, by my cutting the branches, I had caused anguish to the residents of the house.

THE REAL MIRACLE

This story happened in the early years of the Rebbe’s nesius, in 5712 or 5713. A friend with whom I had done business told me that his daughter had a pus-filled cyst on her neck and he asked me to ask the Rebbe for a bracha.

We went to the Rebbe. My friend related that the doctors had told him that his daughter needed an operation. The Rebbe told him that it was the end of Kislev and they wouldn’t be able to do the operation until the months of Teves-Shvat, but the operation should not be done then. It should be postponed until Adar.

Then the Rebbe asked where his daughter went to school and the man mentioned a certain school. The Rebbe said that in years gone-by, education for girls didn’t matter that much. But nowadays, chinuch of girls is very important. Everybody knows, said the Rebbe, that I greatly desire strengthening Jewish education, which is why I suggest that you take your daughter out of that school and put her into Beis Yaakov, which is better for Yiras Shamayim.

The Rebbe commented how strange it was that people asked him about operations and doctors and not about the chinuch they gave their children. Chinuch was no less important and was perhaps more important than physical health. Especially, noted the Rebbe, when my field is chinuch and not medicine, why do they ask me about medicine and not about chinuch?

A few weeks passed and I met another friend of mine on Eastern Parkway who was in touch with the first friend. This friend took me to Manhattan in his car and as we traveled, he told me that the sick girl’s condition had deteriorated and her father was going out of his mind with worry. He mentioned that many people (including a rav) were annoyed that the Rebbe had gotten involved in a medical matter and had said to postpone the operation till Adar.

I saw the Rebbe that same night because I felt the matter concerned the Rebbe’s honor. I told the Rebbe the situation and what people said.

The Rebbe asked me whether my friend had taken his daughter out of the school she had been in and put her into Beis Yaakov and told me he should immediately register her in Beis Yaakov.

When I left the Rebbe’s room, I thought: How can I ask my friend to register his daughter in Beis Yaakov under the present circumstances? But since this was a matter of pikuach nefesh, I had to do as the Rebbe said.

I asked him whether he had registered her and when he said no, I urged him to do so immediately. Right after he registered her, all the pus came out and the doctors said she didn’t need an operation.

When I told the Rebbe about the miracle, he said that the miracle wasn’t that the man took his daughter out of the other school and put her in Beis Yaakov, but that I had gotten up the nerve to ask him to do it.

Thanks to this miracle, all the sons and daughters of this friend were saved, because they received a proper Jewish chinuch and established beautiful Jewish homes.

OBEYING THE REBBE ALL THE WAY

As I mentioned earlier, the Rebbe told me not to get involved in real estate. I began investing in the stock market in wheat companies. This was with the Rebbe’s consent, of course.

At first, all went well, but after a while, prices started to drop. I wanted to sell my positions but the Rebbe told me not to sell (this story has other details which I can’t write).

It reached a point where none of my money remained and I borrowed money in order to hold on to my options contract. After a while, I couldn’t take it anymore and I went to the Rebbe and said I wasn’t holding up and I had to sell the positions, especially when the people I had borrowed money from were not Chassidim.

The Rebbe told me that if I couldn’t handle it he permitted me to sell the shares but first, I had to stop all my stock market activity, and second, I had to give him a list of names of all the people who had lost money and the amount of money I had lost, and he would pay it all.

Immediately afterward, I had an unusual business opportunity and I made back everything I lost and what the others lost.

After I withdrew from the wheat company, the price of wheat went way up. If I had listened to the Rebbe, I would have been very wealthy, but in my foolishness, I didn’t have bitachon in the Rebbe’s words.

When you listen to the Rebbe till the end, supernatural things occur!

A LEAP YEAR VERSUS A REGULAR YEAR

In the division of the daily Tanya, the daily portion is different in a leap year than in a regular year. On Shavuos though, no matter whether it’s a leap year or a regular year, the first chapter of Shaar Ha’Yichud V’Ha’Emuna is learned, but then the shiurim change until the end of the year.

I asked the Rebbe why this was so; seemingly, from Shavuos and on, it should be identical because there is no difference in the months and days from that point on between a leap year and a regular year.

The Rebbe told me that according to some prayer book versions, in a leap year you say the words “u’l’kapporas pesha” in Musaf throughout the months of the year (even after the extra month has passed). This is proof that there is a difference between the days and months in a leap year and those in a regular year.

WHAT DOES THE PROPHET KNOW?

We know that Sarah Imeinu died when she heard the news about the Akeida. I once asked the Rebbe: surely they told her the truth, that Hashem had commanded Avrohom to bring Yitzchok as a korban, and therefore, Sarah ought to have been happy to carry out G-d’s will, for it says in Igeres HaKodesh (siman 21) that the Akeida itself wasn’t considered such a big test, especially when Hashem personally told him to take his son, etc. Many people gave up their lives even when Hashem did not speak to them. It’s just that Avrohom did it with astonishing alacrity to show his joy and willingness to carry out G-d’s will. So why did the Akeida cause her death?

The Rebbe told me that this is the difference between the head and the heart (in other words, there is a difference between intellectually understanding something and feeling something in your heart, and it was emotions of her heart from the news of the Akeida that caused her death).

I asked, but Sarah was a prophetess and she ought to have known that Yitzchok wasn’t actually slaughtered. The Rebbe said: Who says that a navi knows everything?

I asked again, but Rashi in Chumash (VaYeira 20:8) writes about Avrohom Avinu, “that he was a navi and he knew that she hadn’t been touched,” from which we see that a navi knows everything. And it also says in Igeres HaKodesh (siman 22) that all of a person’s material matters are apprehended with prophecy.

The Rebbe said: A navi is told only that which they, up Above, want him to know.

A TALENT FOR ESPIONAGE

In Parshas Shlach, when the names of the people Moshe sent are listed, the Gemara says that the names reflect their deeds, but Rashi doesn’t quote that in his commentary. From this we understand, that according to Rashi, these were their actual names.

The Rebbe told me that Rashi explains the simple meaning of the text and according to the simple meaning, these were their names.

I asked: Who were they? They couldn’t be the N’siim, because these are not the names listed earlier as the N’siim, so who were they?

The Rebbe said: Moshe Rabbeinu needed spies and so he sent people with a talent for espionage.