By Dovid Zaklikowski
Photo Algemeiner Journal
It made international headlines when the Rebbe suffered a heart attack during the holiday of Simchat Torah in 1977.
“The 75-year-old leader of the world Lubavitch movement was participating in the services in the Lubavitch synagogue when he turned pale, complained of feeling tired and sat down,” the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported. “The usual Simchat Torah celebration, attended by thousands of Lubavitch members and visiting Jews, was cancelled yesterday.”
Doctors predicted that the Rebbe would not return to complete health. “The Rebbe’s blood pressure dropped,” Dr. Ira Weiss would later recall. “The Rebbe operated at such a high energy output… we could not expect him to function at such a level anymore.”
But the Rebbe had no intention of slowing down. Two nights after the heart attack he delivered a 21-minute radio address from his study, though his doctors had asked that he limit it to a few minutes.
The cardiologists who converged on Lubavitch world headquarters to care for the Rebbe marveled at his stamina and wisdom. At one point, a routine medical procedure evoked a deep insight:
“What causes the blood to be drawn?” the Rebbe asked. “Is it the needle, or the void in the syringe?”
The doctors explained that the void in the syringe draws the blood out.
“I once told someone who told me he felt empty,” the Rebbe related, “that something void has the power to draw holiness in much quicker. Therefore he is a much more suitable vessel for good.”
The Rebbe asked that this exchange be related to those gathered in the synagogue below.
An excerpt from Learning on the Job: Jewish Career Lessons
Pic is from 13 tishrei. There is video from shachris the day of the heart attack
This cannot be “the day before the massive heart attack”, since the last Farbrengen was 9 days earlier