Episode 22: Rabbi Yosef in Vitebsk, the Decree, and the Baal Shem Tov's Promise

00:01 We continue the story of Rabbi Yosef and his wife Devorah Leah, and the history of Chassidus and Chabad Chassidus. Along the way, we also tell of various events that happened to Jews across Europe in those days. Rabbi Yosef told his bride, Devorah Leah, about the hidden tzaddikim, and revealed to her that his servant Malkiel was himself a hidden tzaddik. Malkiel then explained the whole subject of the hidden tzaddikim to her, with all its details. Meanwhile, something happened in Vitebsk that shook the community and all the Jews in the surrounding area. This is what happened. The local governor in Vitebsk summoned the head of the community, Zalman Leib, and three of the seven communal leaders, and imprisoned them. No one knew why. Nor did anyone know what was happening to them. That same day, soldiers came to the home of Avraham Segal, Vitebsk’s wealthiest man and a great benefactor of charity. They confiscated all the money and documents they found there, and took Avraham himself to the governor’s residence. News of the arrests spread rapidly through the city. Shopkeepers hurried to lock their shops, craftsmen laid down their work, and everyone gathered in the study halls. The beis din issued a call for everyone to refrain from eating for the rest of the day and to gather to recite Tehillim. The prisoners’ families ran to the governor’s residence to find out what had happened to their loved ones, but no one answered their questions. The order was to remove them by force. Women who remained there weeping were severely beaten. This added to the turmoil in the city. Nothing like it had ever been heard of in Vitebsk. Merchants and craftsmen with connections to senior government officials tried to find out what lay behind these developments, but no one answered them. A meeting of the community leaders was called, and they decided to suspend all work and trade. They also decided that Jewish merchants who had connections with noblemen

02:48 should try to get the noblemen to speak with the governor. A special messenger was also sent to the wealthy Jew Zev Wolf, asking him to do everything in his power to save the Jews of Vitebsk from trouble. At the same time, a delegation of Jews was sent to the governor’s residence to find out why the communal leaders and Avraham Segal had been arrested, and what had become of them. When the delegation arrived, they were met by armed soldiers, who led them into a room and ordered them to remain there. The room was empty; there was not even a chair to sit on. The windows were barred. One member of the delegation tried to open the door, and they discovered that it was locked. They were, in fact, prisoners. Naturally, this filled them with dread and fear. They were deeply distressed by their imprisonment, and concluded that some sort of plot was afoot. But one member of the delegation, an elderly and respected scholar named Shlomo Aharon, was the first to regain his composure. He found words of comfort for his companions and said, “Let us place our trust in Hakadosh Boruch Hu, do complete teshuvah, and call out to Him. Surely He will save us from all harm.” To strengthen the confidence of the younger members of the delegation, Shlomo Aharon told them about something that had happened in Vitebsk itself ninety years earlier, when his grandfather, the gaon Nosson Dovid, was a young man. The Jews of Vitebsk at that time had made a great effort to build a shul in the city center. It was not easy to obtain a permit from the city’s governor, a man named Semyon Mangorka, and they had to bribe him to get it. In the end, though, they managed to build the shul, and the joy of Vitebsk’s Jews knew no bounds. Years passed, and in the meantime Gavriel Chaim, Shlomo Aharon’s father, was appointed head of the community. Then, on one Rosh Hashanah, while all the Jews were gathered in shul for davening, a runner arrived from the governor with an order that the head of the community and the seven communal leaders appear before him immediately. When the delegation reached

05:47 the governor, they could see at once that he was angry. He informed them that within a few days he would issue an order closing every shul and study hall in Vitebsk, expelling all the city’s Jews, and confiscating a quarter of their property for the royal treasury. At the same time, he ordered the immediate arrest of all the communal leaders and refused to explain his actions. When the Jews of the city learned what had happened, an uproar broke out. The joy of the festival was completely disrupted. The city was filled with grief and mourning. Immediately after Rosh Hashanah, a series of fasts was scheduled. The city’s Jews were called upon to come to the rabbis, speak of any hidden sins, and try to make amends. People hurried to check their tefillin, mezuzos, and tzitzis. The elderly maggid, Reb Gedalia Zalman, who was blind, delivered words of rebuke and reproof without pause and called for teshuvah. Members of the chevra kadisha went through the city with charity boxes, proclaiming, “Charity saves from death.” Then, on the fourth day, the governor ordered that the head of the community be brought to him from prison. He also summoned the city’s leading priests. It was clear that a trial was about to take place. The alarm in the city grew. Jews ran to the study halls to recite Tehillim. Others hurried to the cemetery to pray at the graves of tzaddikim. When the prisoners were brought to the governor’s residence, a large number of soldiers were there. The governor sat on a raised platform with a priest beside him, as though they were sitting in judgment. Gavriel Chaim, the head of the community, who knew Polish well, gave a speech. He said that all the prisoners were innocent of any crime, as were all the Jews of the city, and demanded an explanation for the persecution. He added that if, for some reason, they wished to punish them for sins they had not committed, it would be better for the communal leaders alone to serve the sentence, while the people as a whole remained unharmed. The governor’s reply was very surprising. This is what he said: “For various reasons, I cannot explain why you were arrested. At the

08:41 same time, I summoned you here to tell you that you are free of all blame—you and every member of the community. And because I have caused you distress, I am exempting you from paying part of the poll taxes. Now return to your homes, accompanied by a military honor guard and a band of musicians.” An official on horseback rode at the head of the procession, followed by three horsemen, then the freed communal leaders, with a group of soldiers behind them. The sorrow of Vitebsk’s Jews turned to great joy. Everyone assumed that the whole ordeal had come to stir the Jews of Vitebsk to teshuvah, and that as soon as they had done what was required, the decree had been annulled. That was the story Shlomo Aharon told the members of the delegation imprisoned in the governor’s residence. He said that, apparently, this time too the matter was meant to arouse the Jews of Vitebsk, and the communal leaders who had been arrested for no reason, to teshuvah. One of the other prisoners, Azriel Yaakov, said that he too had heard the story Shlomo Aharon had told, and had more details to add. It turned out, Azriel Yaakov related, that the arrest of Vitebsk’s communal leaders and the threat to expel the Jews had resulted from a wager between the governor and the city’s chief priest. The governor had told the priest that Jews were more attached to their faith than, lehavdil, Christians were to theirs. In the governor’s opinion, he said, the priests themselves were to blame for that. The priest replied that the Jews’ devotion was entirely outward and superficial. If they were put in trouble, all that devotion would evaporate, because they would resent Hakadosh Boruch Hu for not helping them. The governor and the priest therefore agreed to frighten the Jews. The governor issued his decrees and arrested the communal leaders. During that time, secret agents of the governor and the priest moved among the Jews and watched what was happening. It became clear that, contrary to the priest’s claim, the Jews had strengthened their conduct in accordance with

11:19 the Torah and prayed fervently, and so the governor prevailed in the dispute and announced that the decree had been rescinded. The detained emissaries began to hope that their case, too, would end in a similar way. For the time being, however, they remained confined to their locked room. After a while, the door opened and an official told the emissaries that he would take them to the governor. They would have to wait until he finished washing and feeding his beloved dog. In this way, the governor meant to humiliate the Jews, or to show them that his dog mattered more to him than the Jewish representatives. The delegation followed the official dejectedly to the room where they were to wait their turn to see the governor. After a long while, the official came out and told them to prepare to appear before the governor. Some time later, a second door opened. The dog appeared in the doorway, with the governor behind it, holding a whip. The governor said to the dog, “Give these men your paw, take their memorandum from them, and hand it to the official.” Then he called to the official, “Come here and let them state their request.” The emissaries said that their only request was to know why the community leaders had been arrested. The governor grew angry and told them, “I will inform you of their offense after they have spent a considerable time in prison, and I will also tell you how they can redeem themselves. As for Avraham Segal, I can tell you that a severe punishment awaits him.” He ordered the Jews to leave. They left dejected at the failure of their mission. They had not managed to find out why the community leaders had been arrested or what they were accused of. Attempts to learn details about the prisoners through other channels also failed. The noblemen through whom they had hoped to obtain the information they needed were then busy hunting in the forests of Vileyka, near Vilna. The leaseholder Zev Wolf, also known as Ettinger, tried to make use of his connections with the owners of smaller estates, but they said they did not want to get involved. The rabbis declared a fast. On that day, Malkiel, one of the hidden tzaddikim, came to Rabbi Yosef

14:05 and told him that a special emissary from the Baal Shem Tov had come to the hidden chassidim of Vitebsk with an instruction from the Baal Shem Tov to fast for three consecutive days and, in various ways, encourage the city’s Jewish community to put their trust in Hashem. The Baal Shem Tov’s emissary was the well-known tzaddik Rabbi Kehot[?]. He also told them in the Baal Shem Tov’s name that in ten days, deliverance would come to the Jews of Vitebsk and their mourning would turn to joy. At the same time, the Baal Shem Tov instructed that this news remain a secret known only to a select few.