The Ribnitzer Rebbe never sought the mantle of leadership. He didn't need hundreds of mispallelim in his minyan; a simple minyan of ten was perfectly fine for him. He was completely content being surrounded by the most ordinary, simple Yidden.

Rebbetzin Sarah’ke once related that back in Communist Russia, where gathering a minyan was no simple feat, she would often wonder how the Rebbe would manage. "At four o'clock in the afternoon, I would ask him, 'Chaim Zanvil, where are you going to find ten Yidden for a minyan now?' He would simply answer that there were still Yidden who hadn't davened yet today."

"You should have seen the minyan he put together," the Rebbetzin recalled. "I used to tell him, 'Chaim Zanvil, these are Yidden who have never davened a day in their lives!' To which he would reply, 'Nu, so they'll daven now.'"

Reb Hershel Weber shared his own memories of how he was drawn to the Rebbe. "My kesher with the heilege Ribnitzer began when I was struggling with parnassah and desperately needed a yeshuah," he related. "People told me about an eltere Yid who had one foot in this world and one foot in the upper worlds. I started spending time in his Beis Medrash, and we eventually became close. I spent many Shabbosim by the Rebbe and became good friends with his gabbaim as well."