Weekly Chasidic Story #749 (s5772-27 / 12 Nissan 5772)

Erasing the Past

One of the university students exclaimed in amazment and skepticism to the Lubavitcher Rebbe, "Does that mean the Rebbe never makes a mistake?"

Connection: Seasonal -- Passover

 

Erasing the Past


Many years ago, a group of university students came to the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn in order to visit the Lubavitcher Rebbe. While they were in the waiting room, someone told them that the Rebbe channels divine inspiration and the spirit of G-d speaks from his throat.

The youths were both amazed and skeptical. One of them exclaimed, "Does that mean the Rebbe never makes a mistake?"

Later, after they had already entered the Rebbe's room, one of them asked the Rebbe pointblank, in quite a clever fashion: "If the Rebbe never makes a mistake, why does he have an eraser on his pencil?"

The Rebbe, unphased, quietly answered, "A Rebbe does not err, but today he is greater than yesterday and today he adds to what was written yesterday. In other words, it's not in order to erase a mistake, but to erase what was correct yesterday. Today he is of a different, higher stature."

* * *

This was clearly the case with the Rebbe when he edited his discourses for publication. Whenever one was brought to him, the Rebbe worked on the editing for several hours, sometimes four or more. Afterwards he phoned the secretaries to come and take the pages to the editors and from there to the printer.

Sometimes, after going in, the secretaries waited in the room for another three quarters of an hour as the Rebbe continued to add and correct. On one such occasion, the Rebbe told them, "Take this to the printer now because otherwise I will never finish."

After all the corrections were made, the discourse was submitted a second time. The Rebbe would make more corrections, because once again he was adding fresh new insights.
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Source: As reported by one of the Rebbe's secretaries, Rabbi Binyomin Klein, and first posted by The Avner Institute Rebbebook@Gmail.com

Connection. Yud-Alef Nissan (this year: April 3) is the 110th anniversary of the Lubavitcher Rebbe's birth.

Biographical note:
Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the Lubavitcher Rebbe (11 Nissan 1902 - 3 Tammuz 1994), became the seventh Rebbe of the Chabad dynasty after his father-in-law, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, passed away in Brooklyn on 10 Shvat 1950. He is widely acknowledged as the greatest Jewish leader of the second half of the 20th century. Although a dominant scholar in both the revealed and hidden aspects of Torah and fluent in many languages and scientific subjects, the Rebbe is best known for his extraordinary love and concern for every Jew on the planet. His emissaries around the globe dedicated to strengthening Judaism number in the thousands. Hundreds of volumes of his teachings have been printed, as well as dozens of English renditions.


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