Avraham the Physician

Rabbi Avraham the Physician was a disciple of the Maggid of Mezeritch who later became a devoted Chassid of the Alter Rebbe. He is remembered both for a remarkable medical treatment he performed on the Alter Rebbe at the Maggid's direction, and for the healing properties Chassidim attributed to the remnants of the Alter Rebbe's Seder plate.

Life

While the Alter Rebbe was still a student of the Maggid of Mezeritch, he fell gravely ill — worms had entered his brain. The Maggid summoned Avraham the Physician, who found a course of treatment that could work, but discovered it would leave the Alter Rebbe's nose permanently crooked. The Maggid therefore instructed him to wait. For three days Avraham labored to find a perfect remedy that would cause no such disfigurement. He finally compounded a unique ointment and applied it beneath the Alter Rebbe's nose. Within several hours, all two hundred worms emerged from the Alter Rebbe's head and he was healed. Even so, a small scar remained on his nose — and it was this scar that later resolved a dispute over the authenticity of a portrait of the Alter Rebbe.

After the Maggid's passing, Avraham became a devoted Chassid of the Alter Rebbe.

Some years later he settled in Riga, where the following well-known story took place — as told by the Frierdiker Rebbe (the Previous Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn) at the Seder on the night of Passover 5702 (1942):

Among the Alter Rebbe's Chassidim were three physicians. One of them lived in Riga, and the remnants of the Alter Rebbe's third matzah from the Seder — along with the leftover karpas (vegetable) and maror (bitter herb) — were sent to him each year. He would grind them all into a powder and use it as a medicine for the sick.

Once, this physician was called to a patient whom all the other doctors had given up on. He administered this medicine, and the patient recovered. A renowned physician who heard of the recovery asked him the secret of his success with a patient whose heart and lungs had both ceased to function properly.

The Chassid-physician was a man of substance and a man of truth. He told his colleague exactly how he healed and where he obtained the ingredients for the powder. Some time later, that renowned physician provided a testimonial that the Alter Rebbe was an upright and trustworthy man — and this testimony proved crucial at the time of the denunciation that led to the Alter Rebbe's arrest, when documents were sent to the censor in Riga.

Rabbi Avraham the Physician also merited to witness a great miracle on Sukkos 5544 (1783), when several Chassidim who had been ill — among them Moshe Apotciger and Yaakov Yeshaya of Khotimsk — were completely healed through the blessing of the Alter Rebbe.