‘Rebbe, I Don’t Come Because I’m Always Dirty…’

Approaching the Rebbe during dollars after a long absence, the Rebbe asked Nachum gently, “Vu bistu?” Where have you been? Nachum explained that he hadn’t come because he was always dirty. The Rebbe responded: “Kum vi du bist, ober kum,” come as you are, but come.

By Rabbi Zalman Vishedski – Basel, Switzerland

His name is Nachum. He came to America from Soviet Russia in the 1970s, together with his mother. One of those old-time, stubborn Lubavitchers from the Russian underground. Not long after his bar mitzvah, he began working odd jobs to help his mother put bread on the table. He didn’t complain, didn’t make noise—he simply did what had to be done.

He was a Chabad chossid through and through, and he stayed close to the Rebbe. “I wasn’t so focused on the content of the maamorim or sichos,” he once said, “but I was always there. Inside or outside—I was always near Seven Seventy,” the iconic red-brick building known as the Rebbe’s beis medrash in Brooklyn.

Every few weeks, he would pass by the Rebbe—whether during dollars, when the Rebbe distributed a kuntres, or even just when the Rebbe entered a farbrengen or came down for Mincha. Over time, Nachum became a contractor. His work took up most of his day, and his clothing reflected it—spattered with paint, plaster, and dust. “You don’t come to the Rebbe like that,” he explained, “so I basically stopped coming to Seven Seventy.”

But then one day, a friend got married. Nachum put on nice clothes for the chasunah, and figured that since he was already dressed, he might as well go by the Rebbe for dollars.

Thousands stood in line. When Nachum reached the Rebbe, the Rebbe extended a dollar—but didn’t let go. “I came to walk past, but the Rebbe held on and didn’t give it to me,” Nachum recounted. “Instead, he looked me straight in the eyes and asked in Yiddish: ‘Vu bistu?’ Where have you been?”

“I froze. I lowered my eyes like I forgot all the Yiddish I knew. Rabbi Leibel Groner, the Rebbe’s secretary, repeated the question: ‘The Rebbe is asking, where are you?’ I looked up and said, ‘Ich bin do’—I’m here.”

But the Rebbe still didn’t let go of the dollar. Still holding it, still looking into his eyes, the Rebbe asked again: ‘Farvos kumst du nisht?’ Why don’t you come?

“It hit me. He was right. I hadn’t come in a long while. So I told the Rebbe the honest truth: ‘Ich bin aleh mol shmutzik’, I’m always dirty.” Referring, of course, to the dusty work clothes of a contractor.

Still holding the dollar, the Rebbe looked at him and said: ‘Kum vi du bist, ober kum,’ Come as you are, but come!”

When Nachum told me this story on Shabbos Chof Av, less than a year ago, I was overcome. I wept. I wanted that too. I wanted the Rebbe to say those words to me: “Kum vi du bist.”

Almost a year has passed, and there isn’t a week that I don’t think about the Rebbe’s “Vu bistu?” About Nachum’s “Ich bin aleh mol shmutzik”, and again about the Rebbe’s “Kum vi du bist, ober kum.”

But the more I think about it, the less I cry. Because slowly, I’m beginning to understand—and to truly believe—that the Rebbe is saying it to all of us. He’s saying it to me too.

Yes, he demands that we grow. Yes, he expects us to rise higher, to do more, to never stop and never settle. But before all that—he’s still standing there, dollar in hand, not letting go, and saying:

“Kum vi du bist, ober kum.”
“Come as you are—but come.”