A Beautiful Rebbe Story, But “Has No Merit”

by CrownHeights.info

A video published Monday night by CrownHeights.info shows a man telling a story of the Rebbe, and how he put on Tefillin in the Rebbe’s room. It’s a beautiful story, but according to Rabbi Chaim Boruch Halberstam, it “has no merit.”

The story, as told by “Howard”, claims that sometime in 1982, he and his father Ben were called as glass technicians to place a film on the Rebbe’s room windows to lower the glare from the sun. While there, he met the Rebbe in his room and was asked if he had put on Tefillin.

While the story is a good one, and he may have visited another room in 770, Rabbi Chaim Boruch Halberstam, who oversees upstairs 770, says that no such film was ever placed on the Rebbe’s Room’s windows.

“There was never a film put on the Rebbe’s windows,” Rabbi Halberstam told CrownHeights.info. “The Rebbe’s windows had shades which were always down.”

The only time that the shades were raised was during Yechidus when one of the shades was raised slightly.

In conversation with CrownHeights.info, Rabbi Halberstam noted that the Rebbe’s windows in the later years included a screen of half-inch bulletproof plexiglass placed in approximately tof shin nun or nun aleph.

Those screens were removed just a few years ago.