My out of this world experience with the Lubavitcher Rebbe.

This encounter took place in 1986 between a friend of mine and the Rebbe.

“I was getting married that day, I went to the Rebbe's door for his Siddur, as instructed, I knocked. Rabbi Groner  [The Rebbe’s secretary] opened the door and said  "Wait here.”  He left the door ajar about 4 inches.  I heard papers rustling. I was afraid to look in. I heard more papers rustling, I said to myself, maybe it's the Rebbe, but I immediately banished the thought, saying there is no way the Rebbe is here, right by the door, he's probably deep in his office. Again, papers rustling, I said,” have to look."

I leaned in, I couldn't believe what was in my eyes. I was terrified and basically had no idea of what i was seeing.

The Rebbe was in a short sleeve white shirt, wearing his glasses. He was standing in front of a small desk, on it were about 30 stacks of letters, piled at least 3 - 4 feet high, maybe each stack had 60 envelopes high. Nothing was falling, all non-moving, not a millimeter.

The Rebbe was pulling out and pushing in letters with tremendous speed and precision.”

Another similar story.

“In my first yechidus — private audience — with the Rebbe, in 1973 (I was 25), I was ushered in to his office. He looked up and asked, “you’re Gottlieb?” and I answered in the affirmative. There was a stack of maybe 20 or 30 letters in their envelopes on his desk. The procedure was to write in advance, in order to expedite the meeting. He deftly pulled a letter from the middle (not the top) of the stack and put it down in front of him. Without opening the envelope he answered every one of my ten questions in perfect order, except one. In its place he answered a question I hadn’t asked: “...with regard to the question of whether to put on Rabbeinu Tam’s tefillin, it would be a good idea.” My actual question had been about learning and my inclination to learn in a faster shiur. Rabbeinu Tam’s tefillin had never occurred to me,  I’d only been regularly putting on Rashi’s for about a year and this was before the advent of the custom of all bar mitzvah boys taking on Rabbeinu Tam’s immediately. 

In the 4+ decades since then I’ve come upon numerous insights into the profound connection between my original question and his seemingly irrelevant (or rather, oblique) response.

Answering letters was one of the Rebbe's main occupations, the others being praying at the Kever of his father in law, the previous Rebbe, studying and writing Torah novellae, and farbrenging for his Chassidim.  

There were stacks and stacks of letters, but the Rebbe always knew exactly what he was looking for, zeroed in on the letter, removed it and responded to it without upsetting the entire stack.  It was like the letter was speaking to him even before he saw it physically, he knew what to answer and when.  Definitely a Ruach Hakodesh (Holy spirit) thing.

I never observed the process myself, so I cannot give you a first hand account.  But there are several accounts that corroborate the first story,  the Rebbe seemed to know exactly what letter to answer, zero in on it , and pull it out of the stack without upsetting it. What he did with it afterward I don't know, but probably it went into another stack that Rabbi Groner and Rabbi Klein would know that they are the "answered letter."  And then they would communicate the Rebbe's answer to the person who wrote the letter.”