Rabbi Levi Yitzchok, Father of the Rebbe of Lubavitch | A Window into His Wondrous Personality and a Taste of His Torah

00:00 This coming Shabbos, Shabbos Parshas Eikev, 20 Menachem Av, marks the yahrzeit of the holy tzaddik and Kabbalist, the great Rabbi Levi Yitzchak Schneerson, the Rebbe’s father. Today in our class, we’ll learn at least a drop from the ocean. We’ll try to sketch the broad outlines of this extraordinary man, someone whose story may not be known to everyone, but whose story deserves to be told. We’ll try to understand him, touch on at least the broadest points, and take lessons for ourselves. What can we learn from this great man? With Hashem’s help, we’ll speak about some general points from his life. We’ll also discuss an extraordinary piece of writing—a short but deeply meaningful account that Rabbi Levi Yitzchak wrote about himself near the end of his life. It gives us a glimpse of his greatness, his character, and the distinctive way he viewed himself and his life, and of course it holds lessons for us too. In particular, we’ll consider what we heard from the Rebbe, his eldest son, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, who drew instructions for us from that account. We’ll also look at at least one of Rabbi Levi Yitzchak’s teachings. His Torah is especially profound. He was a great Kabbalist, and Kabbalah is not easy to learn. So we’ll take one point from his Torah that is especially relevant and learn from it, particularly in connection with the eightieth anniversary of his yahrzeit and passing. Rabbi Levi Yitzchak Schneerson, as we said, was a descendant of the Schneerson rabbinic family, a direct descendant of the Tzemach Tzedek and a descendant of the Alter Rebbe, author of the Tanya and founder of Chabad Chassidus. Reb Levik, as the chassidim affectionately called him—great as his greatness, genius, and holiness were, so too was his humility. Chassidim always called him by that affectionate name, Reb Levik. He was a genius by any measure,

02:34 both in the revealed Torah, in halachah, and equally in the hidden dimension of Torah, Chassidus and Kabbalah. We can see this in his books too. Sadly, very little of his writing remains. His wife, the righteous Rebbetzin Chana, the Rebbe’s mother, recounts in her memoirs how he devoted hour upon hour to writing Torah insights. There were thousands upon thousands of manuscript pages, nearly all of which were sadly lost. Only a drop from the ocean remains: the four volumes of Toras Levi Yitzchak and Likkutei Levi Yitzchak. They give us a taste of the vast ocean of his greatness and genius, both in the revealed Torah and in its hidden dimension. Rabbi Levi Yitzchak was born in 5669—sorry, in 5638, 1878, on 18 Nissan. In 5669, when he was thirty-one, he was chosen as rabbi of the Yekaterinoslav region, as it was then called, later known as Dnepropetrovsk. It was a major city and a large region in what is now Ukraine. Over those years, Ukraine and Russia were part of one great power, and he was the rabbi responsible for the entire area. The Rebbe Rashab was his Rebbe. Reb Levik was a devoted chossid, deeply connected to the Rebbe Rashab, and the Rebbe Rashab worked hard and made great efforts to have Reb Levik chosen as rabbi of that region. Indeed, he served as rabbi throughout those years, until 5699, 1939, when, on 9 Nissan, a few days before Pesach, the secret police—the NKVD—came in Soviet Russia and arrested him. This was, of course, because of his mesirus nefesh throughout those years, from 5669 to 5699: thirty years in which Reb Levik worked with extraordinary self-sacrifice to uphold Judaism and keep its flame burning during the

05:27 most difficult years. In Soviet Russia, everything was forbidden, and this was his life: a life of self-sacrifice, standing firm and unafraid. For this, in 5699, a few days before Pesach, he was arrested. He was held for six months, as he writes in that account of his that we mentioned—an extraordinary account, brief, concise, and profound. He writes that they took him a few days before Pesach. He remained there for six months, until Hoshana Rabbah of 5700, in Tishrei 1939, moving through five prisons. In each prison, of course, they subjected him to terrible torture to extract information from him. But he stood firm, with the greatest resolve, refusing to give up any information about anyone. He suffered terribly for it. The Rebbetzin recounts this in her memoirs. We are fortunate to have a remarkable diary written by his wife, Rebbetzin Chana, the Rebbe’s mother, in which she relates and reconstructs remarkable stories that also give us a glimpse of this towering figure. He endured terrible suffering over every detail: preserving Jewish life, keeping kosher, keeping his beard. Prisoners were required to shave their beards, but with extraordinary self-sacrifice he stood firm and would not let them touch his beard. And he succeeded—something no one could withstand in Russia at that time. After six months, on Hoshana Rabbah, they informed him that the sentence was five years of exile in Kazakhstan, in a remote town far from other Jews, among coarse peasants. The town was called Chiili, in Kazakhstan. He was sent there and remained until 5704, 1944. By the end of that period he was already ill and

07:59 exhausted. His wife, Rebbetzin Chana, of course accompanied him, and she was with him throughout those years of difficult, grueling exile. She tells remarkable stories in her diary. Through them we get some sense, on the one hand, of the terrible hardships and daily suffering they endured there, both materially and spiritually, and, on the other, of the astonishing self-sacrifice of this great man in observing Torah and mitzvos, in Ahavas Yisroel, and in helping fellow Jews even in moments of almost unimaginable self-sacrifice. In the last months of his life, he finally received permission to leave Chiili, that village, and move to the supposedly big city nearby, Alma-Ata in Kazakhstan. Compared with the suffering he had endured all those years in that remote village, it was practically paradise. He moved to Alma-Ata and lived out the final months of his life there, already seriously ill, weak, and exhausted. Even then, he did not stop holding farbrengens, speaking words of Torah, and writing down his Torah insights, right up to the end. On Wednesday, 20 Menachem Av, he passed away. His wife, Rebbetzin Chana, was with him, as were several chassidim living in the area. They accompanied him to his resting place, and he is buried in the cemetery in Alma-Ata, Kazakhstan. Let’s speak a little about the remarkable account we mentioned. Reb Levi wrote a few lines. Incidentally, his wife, Rebbetzin Chana, recounts in her diary how thirsty he was to write down Torah insights. It pained him that he could not write. Writing was difficult simply because they had no ink, no pens, and no paper. She tells how she would go and gather grasses, boil and cook them so that they could

10:24 To make ink from it, while she could barely find paper. For him, it was a celebration; it was paradise. She relates that once she said to him, “Why don’t you write a little about yourself? Tell your life story.” He told her, “Ah, why would I waste time and paper on such nonsense? If I already have paper, a pen, and ink, I want to write another Torah insight, another Torah thought.” And indeed, thanks to that, we have the little that remains of his tremendous, extraordinary genius. But this short account gives us enough, at least, to get to know this towering figure. He begins it, “I am Levi Yitzchak, son of Zelda Rachel.” He writes when he was born, and then describes what happened to him: as we mentioned earlier, when he was arrested, he passed through five places of imprisonment. He describes the suffering they inflicted on him, and writes that he knows all this suffering is an atonement for his many sins. It is hard to read, but an extraordinary humility shows through every line: may Hakadosh Boruch Hu atone for me, and so on. Then he relates that on the night of Hoshana Rabbah, his final hearing took place, and there they sentenced him to five years in the town of Chi’ili. After writing those few short lines about himself, he begins, in his own wonderful, distinctive way, to explain the root of everything according to Kabbalah. As we said earlier, Reb Levik was a unique personality who combined opposites within himself. We’ll talk about that in more detail shortly, but one remarkable combination we see in him was his genius, on the one hand, in the halachic side of Torah.

12:30 He was a great rabbi, a genius by any measure in matters of halachah. As we said, he oversaw an entire district in Ukraine, where he had to handle all the halachic matters involved in running a city—a large city, that whole area. At the same time, he was a kabbalist of extraordinary genius. His brilliance, his knowledge and depth in the books of Kabbalah, are almost beyond comprehension. So for him, everything had a root in the world of Kabbalah, in the mystical dimension of Torah. When he writes about himself, he immediately turns to that dimension to explain the root of it all. He explains: Why am I called Levi Yitzchak? Why am I called Levi Yitzchak, son of Zelda Rachel? What does my name mean? The name says everything. The Alter Rebbe teaches us in Tanya that a name expresses a person’s essence, a person’s life. So Reb Levik says: My life is full of gevurah, of severity. Gevurah is the opposite of chesed, kindness. There is the attribute of chesed, and there is the attribute of gevurah, of judgment. He says that he has endured terrible hardships in his life, especially in those years, when he wrote this account near the end of his life. So he says: My name is connected with the attribute of gevurah. His task is to sweeten the gevurot, the severities. This idea of sweetening the gevurot is well known in Kabbalah, in the Zohar, in the books of Kabbalah and Chassidus. We speak about it especially when we come to the month of Tishrei. Tishrei contains days of judgment, days of gevurah, and a Jew’s task—through prayer and supplication, through blowing the shofar, through everything we do on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the fast, the prayers, and all the mitzvos we perform, Sukkos and the apple dipped in honey—is to sweeten the gevurot. That is what the month of Tishrei is all about. So he says: My name is connected with gevurah. Levi is connected with gevurah. The Levi’im served as gatekeepers in the Beis Hamikdash. A gatekeeper’s task

14:49 is gevurah: setting boundaries—who comes in, who goes out, when to open, when to close. According to Kabbalah, Levi represents gevurah, while a Kohen represents chesed. Yitzchak, as we know from the Patriarchs—“And the Fear of Yitzchak was with me”—represents the attribute of gevurah. Avraham is chesed; Yitzchak is gevurah. Levi Yitzchak thus represents gevurot. Levi Yitzchak, son of Zelda Rachel: Reb Levik says its numerical value is shoshan, 656. We know the shoshan, the rose; there is shoshan and there is shoshanah in Shir Hashirim. “The rose of the awe-inspiring valley.” A rose is generally red, as the Zohar also says, and as we see in reality. Most roses are red, symbolizing gevurah. That is why the month of Tishrei is also connected with the rose. “I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine,” whose initial letters spell Elul, continues, “He who grazes among the roses.” This is the theme of the attribute of gevurah, and here the gevurah is sweetened and turned into kindness. “He who grazes among the roses.” “The rose of the awe-inspiring valley” refers to the gevurot of exile—the valley, the depths of exile—and we must transform that into kindness. Five years in exile. Reb Levik says the number five symbolizes gevurah. There are five gevurot, corresponding to the five letters of the alphabet that have final forms: the final forms of kaf, mem, nun, pei, and tzadi. These too are called the five letters of gevurah. What is gevurah? A boundary; setting limits. The final letters are letters of gevurah because they set a boundary to a word. So the number five signifies gevurot. That is why on Hoshana Rabbah we use five willow branches, corresponding to the five gevurot. Our task is to sweeten the gevurah, to sweeten the gevurot. That is the meaning of taking the five willow branches on Hoshana Rabbah and striking them: the sweetening of the gevurot. So, he says, the number of years he was there was five. The number of days he was imprisoned was 303. He says 303 is

17:15 the numerical value of sheva. Sheva is one of the vowel signs, and it too signifies a boundary, gevurah. The sheva vowel sign marks a stopping point. According to Kabbalah, it too symbolizes gevurah. Hoshana Rabbah was the day his sentence was handed down; Hoshana Rabbah is the sweetening of the gevurot. We all know that Hoshana Rabbah marks the end of the days of judgment. For him, too, that was when his imprisonment ended and he was told he had to go into exile in Chi’ili for five years. He goes on to say: The town Hakadosh Boruch Hu chose as the place of my exile, where I would achieve atonement, as he wrote earlier, was Chi’ili. And he explains that name according to Kabbalah as well. This too was no accident. Even though it is a non-Jewish name, the name of a town with no connection to Judaism, Reb Levik sees deep layers of meaning in it. He says that the root of the word Chi’ili is tzel, “shadow.” Shadow is the opposite of light. There is light and there are shadows. Light is chesed; shadow is gevurah. The Alter Rebbe says in Tanya that when a Jew experiences suffering, it is a form of shadow, the opposite of light, and our entire task is to turn the shadow into light. So he says that in the name, in the way Chi’ili is written in Hebrew—tzadi, yud, alef, yud, lamed, yud—we find the letters of tzel, “shadow,” as we said: darkness, gevurah. But the letters that remain—yud, alef, yud, yud—have the same numerical value as the Divine Name E-l, thirty-one. Chesed. The Name E-l is a name associated with chesed. “E-l is Hashem, and He has given us light.” “The kindness of E-l is all day long.” The Name associated with the attribute of chesed is E-l. So here his task is to transform the gevurot into kindness. It is remarkable how he explains it.

19:27 Every detail. But what can we learn from this remarkable account? We were fortunate that the Rebbe explained it at one of the farbrengens in 5725. That was the year his mother, Rebbetzin Chana, passed away. After her husband’s passing, and some years later, after World War II ended, she managed to leave Russia against all odds. At last she reached America, where she was reunited with her eldest son. In her final years, she had the privilege of living near her eldest son, the Rebbe, and seeing the flourishing, the growth, and the greatness. As she herself wrote, that was her consolation for all the heartbreak and suffering she had endured in her life. So Rebbetzin Chana passed away in 5725. That year, on her yahrzeit, the Rebbe spoke about this account and what we can learn from reading it. He focused on two points, which we’ll look at now. It’s very interesting. First, we can learn about the remarkable combination in his personality: extraordinary humility together with greatness and strength. Usually those two qualities don’t go together. A person who is humble by nature generally feels lowly: Who am I, after all? He doesn’t much like being in the spotlight. He’s humble. On the other hand, a forceful leader stands firm. You feel his presence; he stands out. In this letter, in this account, a remarkable combination emerges. He begins with the word “I.” “I” conveys strength: “I, Levi Yitzchak, son of Zelda Rachel.” More than that, the very fact that he speaks about himself and explains every detail about himself according to Kabbalah and the inner teachings of Torah conveys someone who values himself, someone with a healthy, strong sense of self-worth, a person

21:51 who nevertheless shows almost unimaginable humility in what he writes about his many sins. We can be sure there wasn’t a trace of that in him, but he writes about himself with such humility: everything that happens to me is to atone for my sins and transgressions, and so on. A remarkable combination of humility and strength. And as the Rebbetzin related in her wonderful diary, you can see that this really captures the extraordinary character of Reb Levi Yitzchak. On the one hand, he was exceedingly humble and unassuming. He never thought of himself. He showed respect and consideration for every Jew, whoever they were. The Rebbetzin describes how moved he would become as he looked at Jews and spoke about them—Jews of every kind, ordinary Jews, Jews who worked hard to earn a living. She describes the appreciation, and the tears in his eyes, with which he spoke about members of his community. We mustn’t forget that these were the hardest times in Soviet Russia. She describes how difficult it was to get to shul to daven on Yom Kippur. People had to work seven days a week, so even on Yom Kippur Jews had to go to work. She relates that on Yom Kippur morning they came very, very early to daven. By eight o’clock, they had to have finished all the davening. Then they went to work. At the end of the day, at six in the evening, the Jews returned from work and came in for Ne’ilah. Reb Levi led the Ne’ilah davening. The weeping there! When he came home afterward and spoke about the mesirus nefesh of those Jews who had to work, and how brokenheartedly they had davened Ne’ilah, he simply wept bitterly. He said, “What is a Jew! Fortunate are you, Yisroel.” His humility and self-effacement before every Jew were truly extraordinary.

24:17 And alongside that was the strength, the proud spirit of Yaakov, that he displayed in the way he led the community with such firmness. There are remarkable stories of mesirus nefesh. There’s the well-known story of the matzos in Yekaterinoslav. Dnepropetrovsk was a region of grain, wheat fields, and flour mills. Matzos were supplied from there to Jewish communities throughout Russia. Of course, when the Soviet government took control of all the factories and enterprises, it also took control of the wheat fields and flour mills, and they wanted to sell everything under their own kosher supervision. Reb Levik stood firm and personally went to the home of the minister of the interior. I remember how deeply moved the Rebbe was when he told this story. I was there when the Rebbe told it in 5750. Reb Levik was undeterred. He went and arranged a meeting with the minister of the interior, an enemy of the Jews whom Jews were afraid to meet—let alone a rabbi, and let alone a Schneerson, considering what that family name meant in Russia. He met with the minister himself and told him that if he was not given supervision over the flour, he would send letters to all the Jewish communities in Russia saying that the matzos were forbidden to eat. To do such a thing then was mesirus nefesh upon mesirus nefesh—walking right into the lion’s den. But that was his strength, and it comes through in this account: “I, Levi Yitzchak, son of Zelda Rachel.” The Rebbe connected this with one of the great leaders in our history. The Gemara tells us about Hillel—Hillel the Elder, of the House of David. On the one hand, the Gemara speaks of Hillel’s humility and how Hillel did not take offense. There are incredible stories about Hillel’s humility and the patience he showed to anyone who came to bother him. His patience was beyond the ordinary.

26:39 “Humble like Hillel,” as the Gemara says. Yet Hillel stood at the Simchas Beis Hashoevah, danced, and said: “If I am here, everyone is here. If I am not here, who is here?” Rashi asks: Who is this “I”? It is the Shechinah. Tosafos says: No, “I” means Hillel. So the Rebbe explained, according to Chassidus, that these are not contradictory. Hillel’s “I” was his soul. Hillel was a Jew whose entire being was truly a part of G-d above. His body had no importance to him; his soul shone within him, and the soul is truly a part of G-d above. That utter self-effacement before the light of the soul shining within him was itself what gave him the greatest strength. Not the strength of arrogance, not the strength of an egotistical “I,” but the strength of the G-dly “I.” It isn’t me; it is Hakadosh Boruch Hu. If I am here—my soul, connected to Hakadosh Boruch Hu—then everyone is here; there is room for everyone. That “I” is the “I, Levi Yitzchak, son of Zelda Rachel” written in this account. This combination teaches us how a Jew should live: with absolute humility and self-effacement before Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Yet humility is not weakness. Humility is strength; humility is steadfastness. Because when that humility is entirely self-effacement before the G-dly light, it gives you the firmness and strength not to be shaken by any trials or difficulties, and not to be embarrassed by those who mock you, as the very first paragraph of the Shulchan Aruch says. That is the power of humility: a kind of pride and humility that go together. It is the remarkable combination that Reb Levi lived by. That is what we need to learn for ourselves. And another thing is this wonderful perspective of looking at everything and seeing its G-dly source. Nothing in the world happens by chance. This short account shows us, teaches us

28:55 How a Jew should relate to the events of his life. Sometimes things happen in life that seem entirely incidental: I traveled there, came here, visited this place, went somewhere else. For Reb Levik, there is no such thing. What is so remarkable about his teachings is that not a single detail is by chance, and that speaks to our own lives. A Jew needs to live with a clear awareness of Hashem’s providence—His individual providence over every step of our lives, as the Baal Shem Tov taught us. But through Reb Levik’s teachings, we can see just how much depth and meaning there is in every detail. We come to understand that nothing in our lives is a coincidence; nothing just happens. Everything has meaning and depth. It happens for a reason, and it has significance in our lives. Here, we’ll say a few words about his teachings. One almost unimaginable feature of Reb Levik’s teachings, as we said, is the connection he made between the revealed dimension of Torah—halachah, the Gemara and the Talmud—and Kabbalah. Throughout the generations, there have been great Torah scholars in the revealed dimension, in Talmud and halachah, right down to our day; and there have been great scholars of Kabbalah, the hidden dimension of Torah. What is so remarkable about the little that remains of Reb Levik’s writings? The way he joins these two dimensions into one Torah. He takes a passage in the Gemara, with a dispute among Tannaim and Amoraim and all the details of the discussion, and explains the root and deeper meaning of every detail according to Kabbalah. There are letters Reb Levik wrote to his son, the great Rebbe, and it is truly remarkable to see the correspondence between father and son. That is a subject in its own right: the wonderful letters between the father and the son, and between the son and the father. Here, too, only the tiniest

31:11 fraction remains, but it already gives us a remarkable window into their world. Among other things, we see how he studied Torah, because he writes to his son about how Torah should be studied—how we need to look at the root of everything. He explains that even when the great Tannaim taught halachah, they saw each law as it exists in its higher root, in the higher worlds and the higher sefiros. From there, they then brought it down into the physical world as practical halachah. The hidden and revealed dimensions of Torah are not two separate worlds; they are body and soul. The body is bound to the soul, and the soul to the body. You cannot understand one without the other. Reb Levik examines the names of the Tannaim with great precision. That is a subject in its own right. It is extraordinary to see how closely he examines an Amora’s name. Why did this Amora say this? Why does this Tanna say that? Why does this Amora disagree with another? They have roots in the higher worlds, in the higher sefiros, and in their souls. A person’s name expresses his soul and, consequently, his approach to learning. That is why one said this and another said that. The stories of what happened between them, too—every detail has meaning. It is truly remarkable. So let’s share just one teaching from Reb Levik’s Torah, to conclude with a thought from Torah. Over the years, the Rebbe asked us to study his father’s teachings, especially now that it is eighty years. I’ll say one thing about the number eighty in Reb Levik’s teachings. Reb Levik says this about the number eighty: He cites the verse in Shir Hashirim: “There are sixty queens, eighty concubines, and maidens without number; my dove is one.” The “sixty queens” in this verse refer to the tractates. There are sixty tractates of the Oral

33:26 Torah. “Eighty concubines,” the Midrash says, refers to the baraisos. So eighty is a number associated with the Oral Torah, particularly with the baraisos. That is where we find the number eighty. What is special about eighty, and what does it have to do with Torah? Here we see that eighty has a place in the Oral Torah. What does the number symbolize? Rabbi Levi Yitzchak says: Eighty is twice forty. The letter mem—a mem and another mem, an open mem and a closed mem together—equals eighty. When the Gemara in tractate Shabbos discusses the letters, it says: “An open mem, an open teaching; a closed mem, a concealed teaching.” In other words, as we said, Torah has an open dimension, the revealed dimension—an open teaching—and a concealed dimension, the hidden teachings of Torah. An open mem and a closed mem together make eighty. That is what eighty symbolizes for us: joining the revealed and hidden dimensions of Torah. And that, in essence, symbolizes Rabbi Levi Yitzchak’s own life. This is what we need to learn for ourselves. Now we have reached the eightieth year: mem—an open mem and a closed mem. We have the ability to bring together these two dimensions of Torah. Rabbi Levi Yitzchak embodied this, as did his son, the Rebbe. We all know that one of the most striking features of the Rebbe’s teachings, throughout his books—the volumes of Likkutei Sichos and Toras Menachem—is this very point. One of the most striking things in the Rebbe’s teachings is what he learned from his father: how to bring together the two dimensions of Torah. Of course, the approach is different. With Rabbi Levi Yitzchak, Kabbalah is more prominent. With the Rebbe, it is expressed more through understanding, Chassidus and serving Hashem. But here, too, the remarkable point is that these are not two Torahs; they are body and soul—the hidden and revealed dimensions of Torah. This is what we need to learn for ourselves: to take guidance and a lesson from this great day, 20 Menachem Av,

36:02 and from this great man. We should learn from his self-sacrifice, his resistance to sin and his firm resolve—together with extraordinary humility and complete self-effacement. These are not contradictory qualities; they go together. We should learn to look at every detail of our lives, to see Hashem’s individual providence, and to recognize the higher, G-dly root of everything that happens to us, as well as the connection between the revealed and hidden dimensions of Torah—the open mem and the closed mem. May we soon merit the fulfillment of “Those who dwell in the dust will awaken and sing,” with him, the one whose yahrzeit we mark today, among them, together with his great son, the Rebbe, and all the tzaddikim, all the great sages of Israel and all the great figures of the generations. May we merit to see the complete Geulah with the coming of Moshiach Tzidkeinu, speedily in our days. Amen.