Ushpizin #5 Aharon Hakohen and the Tzemach Tzedek: The Secret of Peace, Unity, and Acts of Kindness | Rabbi Chaim Zilber

00:00 Speaker 1 Well, Reb Chaim, gut Yom Tov.

00:02 Speaker 2 Yom Tov to everyone.

00:03 Speaker 1 On the fifth day of Sukkos.

00:04 Speaker 2 Right.

00:05 Speaker 1 And we have two distinguished guests.

00:07 Speaker 2 Distinguished guests: Aharon the Kohen and the Tzemach Tzedek. Good.

00:12 Speaker 1 The first thing that comes to my mind is their clothing.

00:16 Speaker 2 Nice, right.

00:17 Speaker 1 They come in, and you can almost see them. The Tzemach Tzedek used to wear—there’s a picture of the Tzemach Tzedek in...

00:22 Speaker 2 White garments.

00:23 Speaker 1 Yes.

00:23 Speaker 2 Wow, white garments like Aharon the Kohen’s.

00:25 Speaker 1 Yes, and that’s relevant now.

00:25 Speaker 2 Well, I don’t remember that from the sichos, but we always need to find something new.

00:30 Speaker 1 Did the Tzemach Tzedek wear them often, all the time, or was it...?

00:33 Speaker 2 He wore white garments from the beginning of his leadership, on Shavuos 5589, when he openly accepted the leadership. The accepted account is that he came in wearing white garments.

00:42 Speaker 1 Wow.

00:43 Speaker 2 Yes, it’s distinctive. Distinctive.

00:45 Speaker 1 Interesting. Well, the Tzemach Tzedek’s era was also one of the more glorious periods in...

00:50 Speaker 2 Yes, definitely a golden age of Chassidus.

00:53 Speaker 1 Yes, in its writings too.

00:53 Speaker 2 There were hundreds of thousands of chassidim in Lubavitch, and his Chassidus was truly on a remarkable level...

00:59 Speaker 1 Well.

00:59 Speaker 2 Right.

01:01 Speaker 1 So, Aharon the Kohen and the Tzemach Tzedek.

01:03 Speaker 2 The Tzemach Tzedek. What did the Rebbe speak about most as their common thread? It’s what Pirkei Avos says: “Hillel says: Be among the disciples of Aharon, loving peace and pursuing peace, loving people and bringing them close to Torah.” The Tzemach Tzedek was the first in his generation to establish peace between the chassidim and those known as the misnagdim. In the Alter Rebbe’s time, by contrast, the fire of conflict between the misnagdim and the chassidim raged. Chassidim were actually beaten, especially those who had newly drawn close to Chassidus. Some came home from the Alter Rebbe in Liozna and really were beaten. There are known, rare cases of people who lost their lives, G-d forbid.

01:51 Speaker 1 Wow.

01:52 Speaker 2 Yes. Anyone who looks will find accounts like that too. It was rare, but in the Mitteler Rebbe’s time, the Mitteler Rebbe declared...

01:59 Speaker 1 It’s important to know this, because it explains just how special the Tzemach Tzedek’s era was.

02:03 Speaker 2 Absolutely, absolutely.

02:04 Speaker 1 It was a troubled time too.

02:05 Speaker 2 The Mitteler Rebbe’s solution was to live separately. He simply established colonies, meaning...

02:12 Speaker 1 Settlements.

02:12 Speaker 2 Settlements of chassidim. There were dozens of colonies in the Mitteler Rebbe’s time, around...

02:19 Speaker 1 In other words, many communities of chassidim.

02:22 Speaker 2 Exactly. In Dubrovna, in the Molchovka [?] area, there were many colonies. In each place, only chassidim lived there and worked their fields. In a sense—though they’re not the same—they resembled kibbutzim. They lived off their own crops and didn’t need to go into the big city. Spiritually, too, there was an advantage to living within a...

02:48 Speaker 1 Everyday life...

02:48 Speaker 2 An atmosphere, a G-dly atmosphere, without going into the non-Jewish cities. And one of the aims was to avoid persecution by the misnagdim: “Why are you introducing new practices among us?” Here, they lived on their own. By contrast, the Tzemach Tzedek lived during the rise of the Haskalah, and the Haskalah forced all the great Torah leaders to join in a common struggle, because all of Judaism was in danger. The Maskilim wanted to change the order of study so that people wouldn’t study Gemara or Chumash with Rashi. They published an alternative commentary and tried to force the Jewish people to use it. All the great Torah leaders girded themselves and traveled to Petersburg to have the decree revoked. The Tzemach Tzedek went together with other great Torah leaders, including Rabbi Itzele of Volozhin and leaders from various circles. They came together and spent several months in Petersburg working to have the decree revoked.

03:50 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

03:51 Speaker 2 Naturally, their followers—the entire community of chassidim and Litvaks—united along with their rabbis, and so they too could come together. It began a glorious period of more than a hundred years in which the Jewish people lived in unity. This was later expressed in the Rebbe Rashab’s relationship with Reb Chaim of Brisk and with Reb Chaim Ozer Grodzinski, the rabbi of Vilna, with whom the Frierdiker Rebbe also maintained close ties. And really, it was...

04:21 Speaker 1 That was through the power of...

04:22 Speaker 2 The merit of Aharon, our forefather Aharon the Kohen: “loving peace and pursuing peace.” What does “loving people” mean? The Rebbe said that we see how the Tzemach Tzedek also ran a gemach, a free-loan fund, alongside his immense Torah scholarship, which fills dozens of volumes. He was involved in lending money to...

04:39 Speaker 1 There’s a story about that.

04:41 Speaker 2 Hm?

04:41 Speaker 1 There’s a story from...

04:42 Speaker 2 And it’s a beautiful point. There’s a story about a Jew, Reb Dovid, who came before davening one morning to ask for a loan from the gemach, because he needed to go to the market. The Tzemach Tzedek told him to come back after davening. The Tzemach Tzedek was already wrapped in his tallis, right in the middle of preparing to daven, and felt it wasn’t the right time to go and give out a loan. But then, as he stood ready to daven, he said to himself, “How can I stand here and daven when this Jew can’t go to the market? Without cash, he can’t do anything there.” So he took off his tallis, put it aside, ran after the Jew and gave him the loan. Reb Dovid’s eyes lit up, and he went off to do business happily. When the Tzemach Tzedek wrapped himself in his tallis again, the Alter Rebbe suddenly appeared to him. It had been a long time since he had merited such a revelation, and it was because of the loan. He told him, “Because of the act of kindness you just did, it opened up...” I don’t remember the exact wording...

05:48 Speaker 1 The revelation returned; that revelation was granted to him again.

05:50 Speaker 2 That revelation returned. The Rebbe says that this is “loving people.” And what does “bringing them close to Torah” mean? As is well known, Chassidus explains that we need to bring Jews close to Torah, not compromise and bring Torah down to them. We shouldn’t change halachah in order to bring Jews closer. And how was this expressed spiritually in the peace between the chassidim and the misnagdim? The closeness that developed between them had such an effect that even great Litvish Torah leaders accepted certain principles of Chassidus. The Rebbe gives the example of Reb Chaim of Volozhin, one of the Vilna Gaon’s foremost students, who was still alive at the beginning of the Tzemach Tzedek’s era. There was a longstanding dispute between the chassidim and the misnagdim over tzimtzum—whether it is literal or not. We won’t go into that now. But Reb Chaim of Volozhin writes in his book, Nefesh HaChaim—I found it there—that tzimtzum is not literal. That really is “bringing them close to Torah.” In the end, the misnagdim accepted that principle.

07:03 Speaker 1 So it wasn’t just a practical peace; they came together, and their students did too.

07:06 Speaker 2 We see that it was expressed spiritually as well: tzimtzum is certainly not literal, as though there were a place where Hakadosh Boruch Hu is absent. Rather, tzimtzum applies only to certain levels, as explained in the note in Tanya, chapter 2—certain levels of G-dliness are contracted, but not, G-d forbid, the Infinite. “There is no place devoid of Him.” Today this is accepted throughout the Jewish world, and here we see that unity: everyone drew closer, in a certain sense, to the principles of Chassidus. “Bringing them close to Torah.”

07:36 Speaker 1 I think the message is pretty clear. Still, what do we learn—what can we learn from these two guests in the sukkah?

07:43 Speaker 2 That’s it. Each of us has our own way of life, our own chassidic way of life. We eat only food that meets our standards, and in certain respects we’re somewhat separate and different from the people around us. But today, we need to emphasize coming together wherever we can unite with others. If a visitor comes to a Chabad shul, accommodate his nusach. Don’t be narrow. Be open to accepting someone who is different, and unite with him over the things you share. We all have common ground. Dancing together with everyone won’t hurt us. Nor will going to a simchah or a sheva brachos held by another community. Sometimes it won’t hurt us to visit others, take a disposable cup and say l’chaim with them. These things are very important. Don’t remain closed off in your own place. Don’t compromise on things that truly can’t be compromised—standards of tznius and kashrus. But at the same time, genuinely accept someone who is different and understand him. And among ourselves, too, it won’t hurt to be united with all the chassidim.

09:00 Speaker 3 Sometimes it’s easy for us to say that about someone distant from us.

09:03 Speaker 2 Right.

09:03 Speaker 3 We need to be together within our own community too, as much as possible.

09:05 Speaker 2 Within our own community, we can certainly accept someone who doesn’t look exactly like us and expresses his beliefs differently. Dance together wholeheartedly; wish him a heartfelt good morning—gut morgen. We really can link arms, and you’ll see that what we have in common is far greater than what divides us.

09:28 Speaker 3 Right.

09:28 Speaker 2 L’chaim.

09:28 Speaker 3 L’chaim. Gut morgen.

09:30 Speaker 2 Gut morgen.