Sunday, April 14, 2013

A Rebbe Story at the Foot of the Kotel

At the floor of the Kotel, to the left, you see 
one of the largest stones that make up the 
wall.  It is said to weigh 570 tons! It is 
shaped like an upside-down "L". All stones 
were chiseled with perfection. Cement was 
never used.
During my recent trip to Israel, we participated in a tour along the "Minharot" (underground tunnels) at the base of the Kotel. In a prayer break, near an opening in the Western Wall that faced the Kodesh Kadashim, the tour guide took me aside and said, "Do you want to hear a personal story of The Rebbe?"

"My father", he said, "is a Ger Tzedek. He married my mom and they had no children for 6 years. They decided to go to New York and ask for a blessing from the Rebbe.

"They managed to get an appointment to go in and see the Rebbe. [This was when the Rebbe still made time to see people personally in his holy chamber, before he began distributing dollars in the "dollar line".]

"But when the Rebbe's secretary saw the many pages of questions my father prepared to ask the Rebbe, he told my father to rewrite the letter and make it much shorter. When my father returned the secretary again stopped my father and told him to further contract the size of his script. It was still too big.

"My father again rewrote the letter and this time my parents were allowed entry to the Rebbe's room.

"My father was a 'chevraman'. He knew that it was improper to record inside the Rebbe's room, so he hid his pocket recorder in his pocket and made sure to turn it on well before they entered the Rebbe's room.

"During the private meeting, the Rebbe answered ALL my father's questions, including those that were written down BEFORE my father contracted the size of the original letters!

"When my father left the Rebbe's room, and was able to remove the recorder, he noticed that all that transpired before and after the meeting with the Rebbe HAD been recorded - but nothing was recorded by the machine DURING the meeting!

"My parents then had 6 children, and I am the 2nd child."

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