Rabbi Meir Shlomo Yanofsky was the Rebbe’s maternal grandfather. He lived in Nikolayev, (known in Ukraine as Mykolayev) a southern Ukraine city then part of Russia/Soviet Union. Nikolayev is a famous beloved city in Chabad lore thanks to the many classic beautiful Chassidic melodies that came from there and for it being the birthplace of our Rebbe, R’ Menachem Mendel Schneersohn in 1902. But this is a story about his grandfather, in the late 19th or early 20th century.
R’ Meir Shlomo came down with a life-threatening illness, either typhus or tuberculosis, for which (back then) there wasn’t proper medical treatment for it aside for quarantine with limited care. Somehow his friend, R’ Asher Grossman, also known as R’ Asher Nikolayver, found his friend’s place of isolation, and the window outside the bed where he lie between life and death. R’ Asher would come each day, stand outside the window, and read aloud a piece of Tanya called “L’Haskilcha Bina” to his friend, day after day. He did not know if his friend could hear him, or what his reaction was, but he kept at it. And thankfully R’ Meir Shlomo improved and recovered!
Later on, back to full health, R’ Meir Shlomo told R’ Asher, “your saying the Tanya outside my window saved my life!”
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Look, it might have been the Tanya itself that was life-saving. The piece R’ Asher was quoting from is a powerful letter of the Alter Rebbe about facing life’s hardest challenges with courage and faith and a deep sense of trust. Or maybe it had nothing to do with the specific passage, but the fact that it was a daily dose of Torah and spiritual connection even under such circumstances.
Or on a human level, it might have been simply that sense of connection. A friend who did not forget him. New studies have shown the increasing extent of loneliness in our world today (even among young people with large numbers of social-media friends and followers). Medical studies have drawn correlation lines between loneliness and higher mortality rates. Loneliness has been dubbed an epidemic in (even or because of) our increasingly digitally connected world. Simply knowing that someone cares, that someone comes, the reaching out itself can be of tremendous life-sustaining value!
The person doesn’t have to be in typhus/tuberculosis quarantine for us to be a R’ Asher Grossman type of friend. It may not be a life or death situation. It’s not always that extreme. But reaching out and small gestures can make a huge difference in the life of another.