Here’s My Story: A Lifetime of Love and Care

Rabbi Noson Gurary

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The Rebbe was normally very serious during private audiences, no matter how old or young his visitor was. When a chasid would hand him the note where he had written his questions or requests, the Rebbe would look down at the note, reading it while underlining the points he wanted to discuss with a pencil. As a yeshivah student, I remember feeling so awestruck in front of the Rebbe that when he did answer those questions, normally with his eyes still lowered, I couldn’t even open my mouth.

And yet, there were many times that I had a totally different experience. I walked into the Rebbe’s room, and he would greet me, “Good evening Reb Noson!”

In those days, chasidim would normally have an audience with the Rebbe around the time of their birthday. Since my birthday is the day after Purim, my annual audience was always during the joyous Hebrew month of Adar. One year, upon welcoming me, the Rebbe quoted the Talmud, “When Adar arrives, we increase in joy!” While I took those audiences – and my relationship with the Rebbe in general – very seriously, he made sure to remind me of the importance of serving G-d with joy.

On one occasion, I asked the Rebbe how I could connect more closely with him – about hiskashrus, to use the chasidic terminology.

The Rebbe told me that “the best and the truest and the happiest hiskashrus is to become a true scholar in both the Talmudic and the mystical parts of the Torah.”

I was fortunate to receive so much love from the Rebbe throughout my life, going all the way back to my childhood.

One of those times was when I was less than five years old, but I remember it like today. It wasn’t long after the Rebbe formally accepted the leadership of Lubavitch, and he was leading a farbrengen on the first floor of 770. I was playing outside, near the front door of the building.

It is customary at a farbrengen for chasidim to wish each other “l’chaim!” and at one point, the Rebbe called for any young children present to do so. Before I knew what was happening, I was picked up, passed through a window – the quickest route into the farbrengen – and plopped down near the Rebbe.

“Say l’chaim!” he said.

Now, although my father was a staunch Lubavitcher chasid, I was also raised with my grandfather, the Kopishnitzer Rebbe, who was the head of a Galician-Polish chasidic community. In Polish chasidic circles, people shake hands when they say l’chaim. And so, when the Rebbe asked me to say l’chaim, I gave him my hand, which made everyone there laugh; not only was this not our custom, but in Lubavitch, shaking hands with the Rebbe was almost considered irreverent. But of course, as soon as I did that, the Rebbe returned my gesture with a very big smile.

The following Shabbat, I was back in 770 with my father, standing in the synagogue after the services had concluded. As the Rebbe was on his way out, he nodded at the chasidim there, wishing each of them “good Shabbos.”

When he saw me, instead of nodding, the Rebbe stretched out his hand to give me a personal “good Shabbos.” By then I had learned the proper etiquette, so I kept my hands behind my back. Once again, the Rebbe gave me a beautiful smile.

One year, when I was still young, my father brought us to the Rebbe to receive matzah before Passover. The Rebbe asked me whether I know the Four Questions that children ask at the Seder – which I did.

“Do you know the answer to the Four Questions?” he continued.

“Yes,” I replied. At his prompting I cited the passage in the Haggadah that follows the Four Questions, where the story of the Exodus from Egypt is told.

“But if you know the answer, why are you asking the questions?” he prodded further, to which I explained that asking the Four Questions is just a pretense to fulfill the mitzvah of recounting the Exodus story on the Seder night. Upon my reply, the Rebbe gave me the matzah and his blessings for the holiday.

During another audience, the Rebbe gifted me a Tanya, the classic work of Chabad Chasidut. He even stood up as he did so, and quoted the epigraph at the beginning of Tanya: “And may those words be fulfilled, ‘For [the Torah] is very close to you, in your mouth and in your heart to observe it.’” To have the Rebbe stand up for me was a special experience.

When I was a little older, seventeen or so, I had a private audience with the Rebbe, and I mentioned that I had been experiencing some pain in my chest. The Rebbe told me to “go to a doctor who would put you at ease; he’ll tell you there is nothing to worry about.”

I did, and of course that was exactly what happened. However, six or seven years later, I began to experience a similar pain, and had another check-up. This time, though, the doctor told me that he had found something of concern, a condition called cardiac myopathy.

Soon after, I was able to bring it up with the Rebbe in an audience: “If I recall correctly, we spoke about this and I told you to go to a doctor who will calm you down,” he said. “If this doctor didn’t calm you down, then that’s not the doctor I sent you to. Go to a doctor who will tell you not to worry!”

So that is what I did – I found a different doctor who told me not to worry about it. All these years, this condition hasn’t interfered with my life at all, thank G-d, and I haven’t even had to take any heart medication. It is as though the Rebbe made sure that there wouldn’t be anything to worry about.

As a world Jewish leader, the Rebbe answered questions from all over the globe. But he was able to remind me that six years earlier, he had told me not to worry. What remained with me from this story is the sense of warmth; the feeling that the Rebbe remembered exactly what he had advised me in the past, and that he knew exactly what I needed to do now: If the doctor isn’t saying the right thing, then he isn’t the right doctor for me.

Years later, when I was working as a Chabad emissary at the University of Buffalo. I brought a group of students and professors to a Shabbat farbrengen led by the Rebbe. The Rebbe was in high spirits, and spoke in a way that was accessible to our group. At one point, he remarked, “The reason G-d makes someone a professor is so that they can use their influence to bring their students closer to Judaism!”

At that same farbrengen, the Rebbe shared a beautiful idea. In Hebrew, the word for “life” is always in the plural: chaim. That’s because, as he put it, “life is only worth living when you’re thinking about someone else.”

Certainly, that was how the Rebbe lived his life – he loved and cared for the physical and spiritual wellbeing of each and every Jew. And for me, the Rebbe was like a spiritual father, as well as a Rebbe. He cared and took an interest in me like a father does, and he demonstrated that interest in so many ways.

Rabbi Noson Gurary established the Chabad House of Buffalo in 1971 and has served in that role for over fifty years. He was also instrumental in establishing Chabad houses on other college campuses in Western New York. He was interviewed in November 2013 and August 2023.