Self-Sacrifice

Once, in the middle of the prayer of Yom Kippur, Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi removed his tallit and went to a house at the edge of Liozna.

There was a woman who had given birth there who had been left alone when everyone went to the synagogue, and he attended to her vital needs--chopping wood, building a fire and heating water in the midst of the holy day, because the woman's life was in danger.

Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak of Lubavitch commented that here we see the self-sacrifice of Rabbi Schneur Zalman, how he pulled himself away from attachment to G-dliness and descended to do a Jew a physical favor.

(Sichat 19 Kislev 5720)