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Weekly Chasidic Story #740 (s5772-19 / 7 Shvat 5772) Steady HandsThe elderly Jew said he would accept a cup of free coffee at the Chabad counter in the airport, but only if it would be full to the brim. Connections: 1) Weekly Reading - 1&11-12; 2) Yud Shvat - when the Rebbe officially assumed leadership of Chabad in 5711 (1951).
Steady Hands
The perplexed chasidim standing behind the counter did as he said; they filled the cup, with his constant encouragement, to the point that the slightest quiver would cause it to spill. Then to their amazement the old fellow lifted the cup without spilling a drop and drank it. When he finished he smiled proudly and said, "I did that to show you how great your Rebbe is!" "I'm not a Chabad chasid," he explained "My name is Rabbi Baker and years ago I was the Rabbi of a large shul in New York.City. We had a mikva for women and everything. But then, like so many shuls in the U.S.A, the older people either died or moved away and the neighborhood filled with gentiles. The board of directors of the shul began hinting that they would like to sell out and make a nice profit, but I strongly opposed it. "First of all, it is forbidden to sell a Synagogue and, not only that, men kept coming to shul and women kept using the mikva. Furthermore, an interesting thing was happening. The lady that was in charge of the mikva told me that almost every evening the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Shneerson, would call her up, ask her how she was feeling and encourage her work. "This continued for several months. Then, one evening while I was in the middle of teaching a class in Talmud in the shul, she burst into the room and shouted almost hysterically that someone had put a large lock on the mikva door. "I understood that it must have been the directors trying to discourage women from coming but I didn't know what to do. I am not the strongest of people and I held myself to be an honorable Rabbi.. certainly not one to go fighting battles. "Well, I don't know how I did it but I ran to my car, somehow found a metal saw (to this day I don't know how it got there) ran to the lock and began sawing away in public. A bunch of people even stopped to look but I didn't care. About a half hour later the door was open and the women were able to enter. "The next day the mikva lady told me that the Rebbe called her the previous night after the incident, and when she told him what I had done, he said, 'Blessed be the hands that sawed off that lock.' "That is what I wanted to show you," the elderly Rabbi concluded.
"Today I am over ninety one years old, yet you see that my hands are steady
as a youth's. Clearly it is because of the Rebbe's blessing." [Adapted by Yerachmiel Tilles from the rendition of Rabbi Tuvia Bolton, the popular teacher, musician, recording artist and storyteller, in his weekly email for the yeshiva which he heads, Ohr Tmimim (ohrtmimim.org/torah )]. Connections: 1) Weekly Reading - 1&11-12; 2) Yud Shvat - when the Rebbe officially assumed leadership of Chabad in 5711 (1951). Biographical note:
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Yerachmiel
Tilles is co-founder and associate director of Ascent-of-Safed, and chief editor
of this website (and of KabbalaOnline.org). He has hundreds of published stories
to his credit, and many have been translated into other languages. He tells
them live at Ascent nearly every Saturday night.