A Shabbat Story: When the Rebbe Overruled the Doctors

One of the great Torah giants of the last generation was the holy tzaddik, Rabbi Yekutiel Yehuda Halberstam known as the Rebbe of Sanz-Klausenburg. Before the Holocaust, he led the Klausenburg chassidic community. He miraculously survived the camps, though he tragically lost his wife and eleven children.

Even before he left the horrors of the camps, he began to care for other survivors, establishing displaced persons camps and providing for their needs with astonishing self-sacrifice. He later lived in Union City, New Jersey, and eventually settled in the Holy Land, founding the Sanz community in Netanya. His unwavering connection to Hashem, his brilliance in Torah, and his endless acts of kindness and leadership despite all he had suffered turned his physically small frame into a spiritual giant. His memory remains a guiding light.

His close student, Rabbi Ben Tzion Reich, shared the following story.

One Motzei Shabbat (Saturday night after Shabbat), shortly after Shabbat ended, a prominent supporter of the Sanz community urgently contacted the Rebbe’s home. A close relative of his needed emergency surgery to save his life at a hospital in Brooklyn, and he was begging for the Rebbe’s blessing and guidance.

At that time, the Rebbe was still in his beis midrash (study hall), leading the third Shabbat meal (seudah shlishit) with deep emotion, singing zemirot (Shabbat songs) as he always did, filled with attachment to Hashem.

Since the situation was life-threatening, there was no time to wait. In the middle of the meal, I approached the Rebbe and explained what was happening. The Rebbe replied without hesitation that the patient must be transferred immediately to Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan.

When I explained this to the wealthy man, he asked me to go back to the Rebbe with more information: the doctor had warned that moving the patient would pose a serious danger to his life, and he could not take responsibility for the consequences.

I returned and told the Rebbe what the doctor had said. Again, the Rebbe answered firmly, “Transfer the patient immediately,” and instructed me to personally go with them and help in any way I could.

I didn’t ask any more questions. Very quickly, the patient was on the way to Mount Sinai. I also made my way there and, on the drive, called Dr. Dinaza, the Rebbe’s personal physician. I told him everything, and he immediately stepped in to help. He made sure the operating room at Mount Sinai would be ready and called in a senior doctor to meet the patient upon arrival.

It’s important to understand: the doctor at the Brooklyn hospital had strongly insisted that the patient should not be moved under any circumstances. He even called Dr. Dinaza himself to stress how serious the condition was. I remember Dr. Dinaza’s response clearly: “Maybe you’re right but if the Rebbe said so, there’s nothing to discuss.”

When they arrived at Mount Sinai, the specialist examined the patient, and to everyone’s surprise, he came out and said, “I don’t know what that other doctor saw, but there’s nothing wrong with this patient at all!”

Maybe the first doctor really did see something but once the Rebbe ruled otherwise, there was simply nothing left to see.

Not long afterward, that same wealthy supporter, who was involved in the diamond trade, suffered a huge financial blow. A large, extremely valuable diamond suddenly split into pieces shattering like powder and became almost worthless. He had lost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Heartbroken, he came to the Rebbe and poured out his pain.

When he finished, the Rebbe looked at him warmly and said, “There are people whose suffering is paid out through their body, and others whose payment comes through their money.”

In other words: the relative who was healed may have been spared from death, but that salvation came with a price. And that price was a financial one, not a physical one.

May the memory of the Rebbe, Rabbi Yekutiel Yehuda Halberstam protect us all.

Special thanks to Rabbi Shalom Shtamer for generously sharing the details of this remarkable story.