After running Or Temimim Baal Teshuva Program for a while, Rabbi Shneur Zalman Gafni went into yechidus and expressed concern about his ability to daven at length. While the students should be his priority, the Rebbe guided him on how to daven during the week and on Shabbos.

In the Catskill Mountains, during the 5700s, Reb Hershel Fogelman encountered a mekubal who looked at his palms and told him his past. When Reb Hershel told our Rebbe what had happened, the Rebbe had a different idea of what he should have done.

Standing next to her father in the hallway of 770, little Rivka Zajac of Brazil saw a chossid who was inebriated from the pre-hakafos farbrengen. “Tatte er iz shikker,” she told her father, but the Rebbe heard the comment and corrected her.

At a Purim farbrengen in 5723, 150 years since the Alter Rebbe’s histalkus, the Rebbe called for an urgent increase in publishing Chassidus. In a conversation with Harav Chadakov, the Rebbe said that he had gone out of his limits, and he expected the chassidim to do the same.

When Yaakov Hanoka, one of the first Lubavitch Balei Teshuva in the US, was going to spend a Shabbos with friends at Penn University, he told the Rebbe that he didn’t feel worthy to serve as an example. The Rebbe’s answer didn’t leave him with much choice.

When a committee from the Tzanz-Klausenburg Hospital in Netanya visited the Rebbe, the Rebbe told them not to pay attention to what other people were saying about them. And on another occasion, the Rebbe encouraged them to change the name to a ‘Center for Healing,’ which they did.

The beginning of Tanya’s Perek Mem Alef was recommended not only for Yiras Shomayim, but also for bitachon and calm. When Tzfas shliach R’ Aharon Leizer Tzeitlin felt downhearted from financial woes, the Rebbe advised him to memorize and remember its message in his heart.

It was a mere four months after the landmark Yud Shevat 5711. During a farbrengen, the Rebbe spoke of the brachos that the Frierdiker Rebbe had given, saying that they would all certainly be fulfilled. But then the Rebbe turned to the crowd and asked that they bentch him.

Seeing hundreds in line to see the Rebbe on Sunday, Reb Tzvi Meir Shteimentz used the opportunity to talk to them about Yiddishkiet. When he reported to the Rebbe and apologized for bothering him, the Rebbe responded with astonishment.

When Reb Uriel Tzimmer asked the Rebbe if the Chabad opposition to Zionism had changed, the Rebbe asserted it hadn’t, and proceeded to explain why he didn’t speak about it. But, the Rebbe told him, there will come a time when it will be addressed.

When Gershon, a young man asked the Rebbe for direction in Chassidus study, the Rebbe directed him to a practicing Mashpia at the yeshiva in New York who could set out a curriculum for him. But the Rebbe had another piece of advice: Chassidus must be learned with persistence – na’aseh before nishma.

After the heart attack in 5738, the Rebbe began farbrenging on Motzaei Shabbos instead of Shabbos afternoon so he wouldn’t have to strain himself to speak. When chassidim asked that the Rebbe keep that arrangement, the Rebbe commented that they didn’t appreciate what Shabbos meant to him.

Some years after Reb Shneur Zalman Gafni opened an English-speaking program in the Kfar Chabad yeshiva, the hanhala wanted it out. But the Rebbe insisted that it remain part of Tomchei Temimim so that they have a real yeshiva experience.

At Yeshivas Torah Voda’as, Reb Meir Plotkin befriended an alumnus of the Chabad school in Montreal who the Rebbe succeeded in keeping in yeshiva instead of college. But one day the dormitory phone rang with Rabbi Chadakov on the line with a question from the Rebbe.

As the Yud Tes Kislev farbrengen drew to a close, the Rebbe said a short sicha on the urgency to learn Chassidus so that a working person’s “spare hours should be flooded and drenched” and they “become proficient in Torah Or, Likkutei Torah, obviously Tanya, Hemsheichim and Maamorim.”

When twenty-two-year-old Reb Berel Lipskier told the Rebbe that despite following the guidance from his mashpia Reb Yoel Kahan for thinking Chassidus he wasn’t being drawn in, the Rebbe gave him two pieces of advice.

To contemplate a Chassidus idea is by definition not a methodical activity. Often, when bochurim asked the Rebbe’s advice in this area, the Rebbe emphasized this.

At the Friday night seuda of the first International Kinus Hashluchim, one of the shluchim declared, “Eved avrohom anochi,” that a shliach must only subjugate himself to Avrohom of the generation. Surprisingly, at the next day’s farbrengen, the Rebbe clarified that this was not enough.

When elder chossid Reb Berke Chein aged, he could no longer collect maamad funds as before. When some chassidim suggested handing it over to someone more capable, the Rebbe rejected the idea since it could hurt his feelings.

While encouraging all to be involved in spreading the mitzva of lighting Shabbos candles, yet bochurim, the Rebbe told Reb Zusha Wilmovsky, shouldn’t be directly active in influencing women.