His name is Nahum. He came from Soviet Russia to America in the 1970s with his mother, one of those stubborn, resilient Chabadniks from the old Russia. Not long after his Bar Mitzvah, life required him to grow up fast. He started working here and there, doing whatever he could to help put bread on the table.

Nahum doesn’t complain. He doesn’t cry. He simply does what needs to be done.

As a young man, he was always around the Rebbe. Not necessarily in the middle of the conversations or the articles. Just… always nearby. Inside. Outside. Always close to Sivan Svaneti, the red brick house, the Rebbe’s beit midrash, right there in the heart of Lubavitch Brooklyn.

Every few weeks, Nahum would stop by. Sometimes when the Rebbe was handing out dollars or pamphlets. Other times when the Rebbe walked into a gathering or headed down to Mincha.

But life happened. Nahum became a renovation contractor. His days were filled with labor, paint stains, plaster dust, putty smears on his clothes.
And slowly, a quiet voice crept in:
“That’s not how you come before the Rebbe.”
So… he stopped coming.

Then, one day, a friend got married. Nahum dressed up, properly. And since he was already dressed, another friend nudged him, “Come with me to the Rebbe. He’s giving out dollars.”

Thousands were in line that day. When Nahum finally stood before the Rebbe, the Rebbe handed him a dollar… but didn’t let go.

“I reached out to take it… but the Rebbe wouldn’t release it,” Nahum remembers.
The Rebbe stared into his eyes and asked in Yiddish:
“Vu bistu? Where are you?”

Nahum froze. Silent. His eyes dropped. It was like every word of Yiddish he knew disappeared in that moment.
Until the Rebbe’s secretary, Rabbi Leibel Groner, gently leaned in and whispered:
“The Rebbe is asking… where are you?”

Nahum looked up, stumbled for words, and softly replied:
“Ich bin doh… I’m here.”

But the Rebbe still didn’t let go. He held the dollar firmly, locked eyes again, and asked, this time deeper:
“Why aren’t you coming?”

Nahum lowered his voice, almost ashamed:
“I’m always dirty… always in work clothes… always full of dust and paint…”

And the Rebbe… still holding the dollar… looked him straight in the soul and said words that would never leave him:
“Kum vi du bist. Come as you are. But come.”

When Nahum told me this story on Shabbat… something in me cracked open.
I wanted it too.
I wanted the Rebbe to say to me, “Come, you are. But come.”

It’s been almost a year now since I first heard this story. And not a week passes that I don’t hear the Rebbe’s voice in my heart asking:
“Vu bistu? What’s holding you back?”
I hear Nahum’s honest whisper back:
“How can I come… when I feel so weighed down by life, by struggles, by everything?”
And then… the Rebbe’s gentle, unwavering answer:
“Kum vi du bist. Come, you are. But come.”

These words, they live in me now. I think about them more. I cry a little less. I understand more, and I believe more, with every passing day, that the Rebbe wasn’t only speaking to Nahum.

He was speaking to all of us. To me. To you.

Yes, the Rebbe expects us to rise higher. Yes, he expects us to do more, to never settle, to never give up.

But even before all of that…
He stands there, always… with a dollar in his hand, refusing to let go…
Looking into each of us, quietly saying:
“Come, you are… but come.”

Shabbat Shalom,
The Rebbe and Nahum.

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Read the full article from the original source:
Collive – The Rebbe Story That Brought Chassidim to Tears
Source: Collive