The Chassidic Story Project with Barak Hullman - A Chassidic Story Every Week

This week I have two stories for you. The first is about a Jewish innkeeper in Poland whose world falls apart when a fanatical priest turns the whole village against him — and what his childhood friend Jacob Kerpil does when he comes knocking at his door. The second is a very short story about the Bluzhover Rebbe, Rabbi Yisroel Spira, who lit the Chanukah candle in the Bergen-Belsen concentration...

This week I have three stories for you. The first is about a chance encounter on the streets of Tel Aviv with a survivor who learned in the yeshiva of the holy Rabbi of Piaseczno. The second is about the daughter of Reb Chaim of Sanz, and what happened ten minutes before her chuppah. The third is about another daughter of the Sanzer who was brought before a rabbinical court by her own husband. If...

This week I have one long story for you. It's about Reb Adam Baal Shem of Ropshitz — one of the most powerful hidden masters of the generation before the Baal Shem Tov — and what he did when the king of Prague issued harsh decrees against the Jews. If you're enjoying these Chassidic stories, please take a quick moment to buy me a coffee. https://ko-fi.com/barakhullman Thank you! I deeply appreciat...

This week I have three stories for you for Gimel Tamuz, the yahrtzeit of the Lubavitcher Rebbe. The first is about an unexpected encounter between Rabbi Tuvia Bolton and a traffic policeman. The second is about a Jewish soldier in the Korean War and the Lubavitcher Rebbe's tefillin. And the third is about a woman in Meah Shearim who couldn't stop smoking on Shabbos. If you're enjoying these Chassi...

This week I have three stories for you. The first is about Reb Menachem Mendel of Kosov, who stops a wealthy traveler on the road and asks him for money — not for himself, but for reasons the traveler doesn't yet understand. The second is about the Trisker Maggid, whose chassidim knew he never really slept — and about a skeptic who decided to find out the truth for himself. The third is about Rabb...

This week I have three stories for you. The first is about Moishe Dovid, a simple Jew who saves five hundred rubles over years of sacrifice and arrives at the door of the heilige Chernovitzer on a Friday afternoon. The second is about an elderly patient who asks Rabbi Shmuel HaLevi Wosner whether he can still recite the blessing "Who has provided me with all my needs." The third is about Reb Itche...

This week I have three stories for you. The first is about Rabbi Eliezer Gordon, the founder of the Telz Yeshivah, who traveled to London on what appeared to be a fundraising mission. The second is about Michel Weiss, an assimilated French politician who encountered a Chabad mitzvah tank on a Manhattan street corner. The third is about a letter that ended up in unexpected hands. If you're enjoying...

This week I have four stories for you. The first is about a young chassid who abandons his wagon in a forest to spend Shavuos with the Alter Rebbe. The second is about a woman who walks into Rabbi Moshe Feller's Chabad house wanting to convert — and takes Judaism more seriously than the Jewish man she came with. The third is about Miri Gabay, who visited Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach after ten years...

This week I have three stories for you. The first is about an Israeli Air Force officer who had a private audience with the Lubavitcher Rebbe and only understood what happened fifteen years later. The second is about one of the Alter Rebbe's closest disciples and what true humility looks like. The third is about Rav Yehuda Amital, a sick cow, and what Reb Shlomo Carlebach once heard in a honking h...

This week I have three stories for you. The first is about a young scholar living in the court of the Kotzker Rebbe, and a question his father-in-law asked that took him forty years to understand. The second is about the Ohev Yisrael of Apta and what happened to him on a journey to Warsaw that nobody who honored him could have predicted. The third is about a man who was absolutely certain that Eli...

This week I have four stories for you. The first is about Rabbi Tovi Vahava, a Chabad chassid in Bat Yam, who receives an unexpected instruction on the Shabbos before Lag B'Omer. The other three are about the holy Ari — Rabbi Yitzchak Luria — and three moments in Tzfat and Meron that reveal how close the redemption always is, and who among us is truly not as simple as they appear. If you're enjoyi...

This week I have two stories for you. The first is a Baal Shem Tov story about a wealthy chassid sent on an impossible mission and the second about the Belzer Rov's Tish and the Rebbe Maharash. If you're enjoying these Chassidic stories, please take a quick moment to buy me a coffee. https://ko-fi.com/barakhullman Thank you! I deeply appreciate your support! Also available at https://soundcloud.co...

This week I have three stories for you. The first is a classic story by Reb Shlomo Carlebach about a simple Jew that was so holy, the second about our intentions when we prepare for Shabbos and the third about the Toldos Yaakov Yosef and a question on his sefer. If you're enjoying these Chassidic stories, please take a quick moment to buy me a coffee. https://ko-fi.com/barakhullman Thank you! I de...

This week I have two stories for you. The first is about a Holocaust survivor who leaves the synagogue every Yom Tov during the blessing of the Priests and the reason he finally shares with his rabbi. The second is about a devoted chassid who travels to his Rebbe every Pesach, and the year he arrives to find himself left off the Rebbe's Seder list but learns that the Rebbe doesn't make mistakes. I...

This week I have three stories for you. The first is about a Chabad rabbi in Ukraine who drives to a remote village to photograph gravestones and stumbles into something he never expected. The second is about Reb Moshe Leib of Sassov and a man at an inn who everyone has written off as lost. The third is about three boys at a bus stop late at night with no ride home. If you're enjoying these Chassi...

This week I have three stories for you. The first is about a melamed that searches for the Rebbe who he met in Heaven, the second about a ruble that the Tzemach Tzedek lent to a melamed that no one would take and the third an unexpected scene of drunk goyim in the presence of a Tzadik. If you're enjoying these Chassidic stories, please take a quick moment to buy me a coffee. https://ko-fi.com/bara...

The Deeper the Darkness The Greater the Joy by The Chassidic Story Project with Barak Hullman

This week I have two stories for you. The first is about an unexpected encounter with the Chofetz Chaim and the profound blessing he receives. The second is about Rabbi Simcha of Bubraka, a brilliant scholar who didn't believe in Chassidic Rebbes but his mother did. Then at the end I added some Purim stories from previous years. If you're enjoying these Chassidic stories, please take a quick momen...

This week I have two stories for you. The first is about a young Jewish man in Leon France who was determined to marry the love of his life and the second about a Jew that came to the Sfas Emes for a blessing to get out of the Czar's army. If you're enjoying these Chassidic stories, please take a quick moment to buy me a coffee. https://ko-fi.com/barakhullman Thank you! I deeply appreciate your su...

This week I have three stories for you. The first takes place at a tisch of the first Belzer Rebbe, where a single piece of fruit changes everything. The second follows a chassid of Rabbi Mordechai of Chernobyl who sets out on a long business journey carrying two etrogim — one for his Rebbe, one for the holy Ruzhiner. And the third is a story of the Baal Shem Tov, told on a wedding day, when a deb...

This week I have three stories for you. The first about a blessing the Rebbe Rayatz gave and how it found its way home, the second about the Lubavitcher Rebbe's concern for Jewish prisoners on Chanukah and the last a meeting of Ambassador Yehuda Avner and the Lubavitcher Rebbe. If you're enjoying these Chassidic stories, please take a quick moment to buy me a coffee. https://ko-fi.com/barakhullman...

This week I have three stories for you. The first about the Hazzan family being asked to send their religious children to school on Shabbos in the Soviet Union, the second about lumber merchants who need the Shinover Rebbe to pray for rain and the third about a stubborn Israeli policeman who encountered Baba Sali. If you're enjoying these Chassidic stories, please take a quick moment to buy me a c...

This week I have three stories for you. The first about the Alter Rebbe when he was a young many giving advice to a simple innkeeper, the second about Baba Sali building a mikvah in the Sahara Desert during the summer and the last about Reb Mendel Futerfas in the Gulag. If you're enjoying these Chassidic stories, please take a quick moment to buy me a coffee. https://ko-fi.com/barakhullman Thank y...

This week I have two Baal Shem Tov stories for you. The first is about the Baal Shem Tov forced to spend Shabbos with a miserable, angry misnaged and the second about the "World of Joking Around" helping to make a shidduch. If you're enjoying these Chassidic stories, please take a quick moment to buy me a coffee. https://ko-fi.com/barakhullman Thank you! I deeply appreciate your support! Also avai...

This week I have three stories for you. The first is the power of a good friend, the second how the Lubavitcher Rebbe saw what others could not and the last a meeting between a simple water carrier, a Torah scholar and the Baal Shem Tov. If you're enjoying these Chassidic stories, please take a quick moment to buy me a coffee. https://ko-fi.com/barakhullman Thank you! I deeply appreciate your supp...