Once the Rebbe Rashab went for a walk with his son, Yosef Yitzchak. On that walk the Rebbe Rashab explained a very deep and complicated G-dly topic to his son.
At one point, the Rashab stopped walking. His son, however, was so focused on the G-dly topic that he continued for some distance.
The Rebbe Rashab called his son by name, “Yosef Yitzchak” His son quickly returned to his father. The Rebbe Rashab then explained the difference between human intellect and how it understands G-dliness, and G-dly intellect.
Human intellect, the Rebbe said, starts with understanding and reaches a level of faith in Hashem because of the realization that human intellect is limited. G-dly intellect, on the other hand, starts with faith and internalizes that faith through the intellect.
By Divine Providence, the house in front of which the Rebbe Rashab had stopped would later become the local headquarters of the GPU [the secret police].
At that time his son, now the previous Rebbe, was summoned to that house on several occasions for questioning. During one of those interrogations, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak answered a query by explaining the difference between G-dly intellect and human intellect!
This story encapsulates the idea “a word from a Rebbe can have an effect many years later.”
In a similar story, the Previous Rebbe related that his father, the Rebbe Rashab, once posed a question to his father, the Rebbe Maharash.
The Rebbe Maharash used two different Yiddish terms to describe delivering a Chassidic discourse. Sometimes, he used the term redden Chassidus [“speaking Chassidus”]. Other times, he used the term zuggen Chassidus [“saying Chassidus”]
