32nd yahrtzeit: 3 Tammuz
BURIED: Queens, NY
A chassid told this story about the Rebbi. “When I was a bachur, I went out with a friend for a few weeks on shlichus to spread Torah and mitzvos in a few cities. I returned to 770 late on Thursday night, at about 2:30 in the morning. I was exhausted from my travels and soon fell asleep on a table.
After sleeping for a little while, I felt a tap on my shoulder. It got stronger, and eventually I opened my eyes. To my surprise, standing before me was Rabbi Chadakov, the Rebbe’s personal secretary. He asked me, “Do you want to do something?” I quickly understood that this was coming from the Rebbe and answered, “Yes.”
“Take a pair of tefillin and travel to Long Beach. Give them to Mr. Louis Sheldar and help him put them on.”
Rabbi Chadakov then instructed me not to arrive before six in the morning, because that would disturb his sleep, but not much later either, because then I might miss him.
I knocked on his door at exactly six o’clock. He was getting ready to leave. When I told him that the Rebbe had sent me to help him put on tefillin, he happily agreed.
He then told me that he had had an appointment with the Rebbe the previous night. The Rebbe asked him if he put on tefillin. He answered that he did not, because he didn’t know how and didn’t own a pair. The Rebbe then asked him if he would put them on if he had a pair and knew how. He replied, “Sure, why not?”
The Rebbe somehow gently got him to describe his daily schedule, and by the very next morning, had already sent him tefillin and someone to teach him how to put them on.
When I told him what the Rebbe had said about not knocking too early or too late, he was amazed by the Rebbe’s sensitivity.
Fun Facts:
Over 50,000 people come to the Ohel, where he is buried, for his yahrtzeit each year.
The Rebbe spent more than 11,000 hours teaching Torah publicly.
Over 400 volumes of his Torah has been published, and 32 years after his passing Chabad-Lubavitch’s printing house is still catching up, with new teachings and writings rolling off the press each year!
I WANNA BE LIKE …
the Lubavitcher Rebbe
Although there were many mindblowing stories about the Rebbe, the story we shared here represents the Rebbe’s practical call to action: Every Yid is a shliach of Hashem, and we must urgently do whatever we can to spread the light of Hashem to any and every Yid!
This article was found in Nekuda Tova Issue 85.