Ushpizin #2 Yitzchok Avinu and the Mezritcher Maggid: The Power of Inner Work | Rabbi Chaim Zilber

00:00 Speaker 1 Gut moed, gut moed.

00:02 Speaker 2 Moed.

00:03 Speaker 1 Okay, so we’re moving on to our next guests. We started with the Baal Shem Tov and Avraham Avinu—Avraham Avinu and the Baal Shem Tov—and now we’re moving on

00:11 Speaker 2 to Yitzchak Avinu and the Maggid, our teacher the Maggid of Mezritch. Unlike Avraham Avinu and the Baal Shem Tov, we find that the Maggid of Mezritch had an approach that was, in a sense, the opposite of the Baal Shem Tov’s. The Baal Shem Tov traveled from place to place; that was the way he carried out his holy work: spreading faith, awakening Jews, awakening the soul, and reaching every place. With the Maggid, this is sometimes described in terms of chessed and gevurah: the Baal Shem Tov was chessed, while the Maggid was more gevurah. The Maggid stayed in Mezritch, and his students and chassidim came to him. His approach was similar to Yitzchak Avinu’s. How do we see that with Yitzchak Avinu? As we know, Yitzchak was an unblemished offering, and he was forbidden to leave the Land of Israel. When there was a famine, Avraham went down to Gerar and to Egypt. Yitzchak was forbidden to leave the Land of Israel because he was an unblemished offering. The phrase the Rebbe used to describe what Yitzchak and the Maggid had in common is a verse from Koheles: “Do not leave your place.” There is an avodah of not leaving your place. That, too, is a particular kind of avodah—for certain people, at certain times. Don’t leave your place.

01:36 Speaker 1 So that’s Yitzchak—that’s Yitzchak and the Maggid,

01:38 Speaker 2 the Maggid of Mezritch.

01:40 Speaker 1 With the Maggid, chassidim came to him instead. Right? He was in Mezritch?

01:43 Speaker 2 They came to him, and the work was more inward. In other words, just as Yitzchak was gevurah, we see that the Maggid demanded inner work. The Baal Shem Tov, on the other hand, drew ordinary people close; that was his guiding principle. He sought to find the soul specifically in the simplest people, and he focused on telling stories, on awakening what surrounds the soul. The Maggid’s approach was more inward. He demanded more of them: that they work and reach certain levels. Inner work. That’s why it’s considered more gevurah—because it demands more of people.

02:23 Speaker 1 So what do we learn from these guests in our sukkah?

02:27 Speaker 2 We need to know that although our avodah is to go out to every corner of the world—as the Rebbe put it, to reach even Times Square, that major hub in Manhattan, with a lulav and tefillin—we mustn’t forget that we also have inner work to do on ourselves. During Sukkos, you also need to sit in the sukkah, pick up a sefer—Maayanei Hayeshuah, perhaps, or a sefer on halachah, a Gemara, whatever each person is studying—and really work on yourself too. The Rebbe said many times that if a shliach truly wants to influence others, he first has to influence himself and his family, to genuinely invest in what’s going on inside. And I think that’s how we express the Maggid’s approach: he demanded that the chassidim themselves be worthy of the title “chossid.”

03:27 Speaker 1 So, inner work. The emphasis now is on inner work: sitting in the sukkah, spending those days in the sukkah, taking on something small, specifically for yourself.

03:35 Speaker 2 Yes. It’s worth noting that many people ask: we know that toward the end of his life, the Maggid didn’t live in Mezritch; he’s buried in Anipoli, too. So how did he get there? After all, he didn’t leave his place. Well, there’s a story.

03:46 Speaker 1 Right, there are three graves there, I think, at the resting place, right? Rabbi Yehuda Leib—

03:49 Speaker 2 Exactly. The Maggid is in the middle, Rabbi Yehuda Leib HaKohen on one side, and Rabbi Zusha of Anipoli on the other. If we have time, we’ll tell the story in a minute.

03:58 Speaker 1 Yes.

03:58 Speaker 2 About a year before the Maggid’s passing, there was an epidemic in the region that is now Ukraine. It was raging in Mezritch, particularly affecting older people and children. The mayor of Anipoli was very worried that the epidemic would spread to Anipoli and infect its residents, so he imposed a lockdown: no one was allowed to bring a guest into Anipoli. Anipoli was completely closed off. Rabbi Zusha went into the shul and said, “What will happen to the Rebbe?” The Rebbe was at high risk because of his advanced age. He said, “Who here is willing to risk his life to bring the Rebbe to Anipoli?” They knew that anyone who brought in a guest faced a death sentence. That was how strict the lockdown was. A wagon driver there said, “Rebbe, I’m willing.” So he told him, “Fill your wagon with straw and hay. Drive to Mezritch and come back with the wagon full of straw and hay, but hide the Rebbe inside it.” And that’s what he did. The Maggid of Mezritch arrived in Anipoli, and before long word spread through the town that the Rebbe had arrived. Right away, a non-Jew informed on them, and word reached the mayor: the chassidim had brought their Rebbe here from Mezritch, from the affected area. The mayor immediately summoned—Rabbi Zusha said, “I take responsibility.” He went to the mayor’s house on his own initiative. The mayor said to him, “You brought a guest into town? Do you know what your punishment is?” Rabbi Zusha said, “You’re worried the epidemic will reach here? I promise you that for an entire year, no one will die in Anipoli.” “Well,” said the mayor, “if that’s the case, I agree. You’re free to go home, with honor. But as soon as the first person dies here, you’ll be next.” And the story goes—it’s printed in the writings of Yeshaya the shochet [unclear], one of the Polish sefarim—that for an entire year, not

06:05 Speaker 2 a single person in Anipoli died. The person who related this, Rabbi Yerucham Landsman, told it in Mishpacha magazine about twenty years ago. He says he went to Anipoli and checked. There isn’t a gra—The first person to pass away was the Maggid, at the end of that year. He checked and found that from 19 Kislev 5532 until 5533, there isn’t a single grave in Anipoli, neither among the non-Jews nor among the Jews. Right after that, there are many, many, many people who passed away in the period following the end of the year.

06:31 Speaker 3 They were given one whole year.

06:32 Speaker 2 It really was a year without a death.

06:34 Speaker 3 Wow.

06:36 Speaker 2 And that, quite simply, is the reason why—

06:37 Speaker 3 Why he moved.

06:38 Speaker 2 Why the Maggid moved, and why his resting place is there in Anipoli.

06:44 Speaker 3 Okay.

06:44 Speaker 2 So there we have a story for the holiday.

06:46 Speaker 3 Okay, gut—gut, gut moed.

06:48 Speaker 2 Gut moed.

06:49 Speaker 3 L’chaim, l’chaim.