Episode 121: The Baal Shem Tov Leads the Jewish People, Annuls the Burning of the Books

00:01 In connection with the history and development of Chassidus, I want to put things into a little perspective in terms of time and place. The Baal Shem Tov, who founded the teachings of Chassidus, was born in 5458—1698 by the secular calendar. For many years the Baal Shem Tov was a hidden tzaddik, and then he revealed himself. Then we have Baruch joining him—young Baruch, the son of Rabbi Schneur Zalman and his wife Rachel. Baruch was also the brother of Devorah Leah, who married Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak, the prodigy from Tzary[?], and they lived in Vitebsk. The Baal Shem Tov knew about the birth of the Alter Rebbe, Rabbi Schneur Zalman, to his chossid Baruch, because Baruch had become a chossid of the Baal Shem Tov. The Alter Rebbe was born in 5505, that is, 1745 by their reckoning. The Alter Rebbe, Rabbi Schneur Zalman, lived for fifteen years while the Baal Shem Tov was still alive. The Baal Shem Tov passed away in 5520, that is, 1760—1760. We are now telling a story that happened the year before the Baal Shem Tov passed away. One year before his passing, the following story took place—a most interesting and astonishing story. In 5519, or 1759 by their reckoning, our teacher the Baal Shem Tov sent one of his young students, Moshe Meshel, from the village of Bazanka[?], with a letter to his student, the great gaon Rabbi Chaim Rappaport. The Baal Shem Tov wrote to Rabbi Chaim Rappaport that on a certain day he should travel to the forest outside the city of Lviv, about eight parsaos to the east, and there study the first four chapters of the Rambam’s Laws of Blessings with great care. Whatever new insights he developed, he should write down briefly at once so he would not forget them. On that day he should daven

03:16 early, eat breakfast, and set out on his way, allowing nothing to delay him. When he reached the forest, he would see the Baal Shem Tov standing there. That was the place where he should stop, sit down, and study his Rambam lesson. Afterward, he should daven Minchah there and return home safely. Our teacher the Baal Shem Tov also sent, through his student Moshe Meshel, another letter to a man in that same city, Lviv. The man’s name was Chaim Yisroel. The Baal Shem Tov instructed his student Moshe Meshel that no one should know about this mission, and that when he delivered the letter to Chaim Yisroel, he should not speak with him at all. Our teacher the Baal Shem Tov also instructed his student Moshe Meshel to keep watch on the night before the gaon Rabbi Chaim Rappaport’s trip to the forest, so that the gaon would not be late to daven early in the morning. Although the gaon always rose for Tikkun Chatzos, the Baal Shem Tov said that, because of his great weariness from the day’s work, he might fall asleep again. Moshe Meshel should also make sure the gaon ate breakfast before leaving and take a cup along in case the gaon became thirsty for water. While traveling with the gaon, he should recite from memory from Parshas Bereishis through the second parsha, and recite the Song of Az Yashir and the Song of Haazinu. Throughout the time that the gaon Rabbi Chaim Rappaport remained there, he, Moshe Meshel, should recite the Book of Tehillim. If he finished, he should start again, and if he finished a second time, he should recite it a third time. He was not to speak with anyone from the morning of the day before the trip. The particular day our teacher the Baal Shem Tov set for the gaon Rabbi Chaim’s trip to the forest was a Wednesday in the month of Tammuz. So Moshe Meshel, the Baal Shem Tov’s student, had two

05:57 missions in Lviv: one to Rabbi Chaim Rappaport, the gaon and rabbi of Lviv, and the other to a Jew named Chaim Yisroel, to whom he was to deliver a letter. Moshe Meshel relates: “I arrived in Lviv on Thursday afternoon. When I entered the court chamber of Rabbi Chaim Rappaport, the gaon, there were many people there, and the gaon was occupied in a large meeting with the community leaders. I turned to one of the dayanim, named Moshe Yosef Yisroel, and asked him to let me see the gaon. Moshe Yosef looked at me in surprise and asked, ‘Don’t you know about the terrible decree issued by the deputy archbishop, Mikulski? Within about a week, by next Thursday, the Aleinu prayer must be removed from all the siddurim, and starting next Sunday it may no longer be said in the houses of prayer. We are sitting here now to discuss how to confront this calamity.’” Moshe Meshel continues: “When I saw that I could not meet with the gaon, I went to carry out my second mission: delivering the Baal Shem Tov’s letter to that Jew, Chaim Yisroel the potter—or, in Yiddish, der teper. I delivered the letter, and when I returned to the court, I saw that the gaon had already gone home. I went to his house and gave him the Baal Shem Tov’s letter. When the gaon Rabbi Chaim Rappaport saw the envelope, he rose to his full height. When he heard from me that our teacher the Baal Shem Tov had sent me to deliver the letter, his holy face lit up, and he read the holy letter with special reverence. When he finished reading, he sighed deeply and said, ‘The entire Jewish community of Lviv and the surrounding area needs great mercy over this terrible decree. May it never come to pass—that the recitation of Aleinu should, G-d forbid, be abolished!’” The gaon Rabbi Chaim Rappaport told no one about the holy letter he had received from the Baal Shem Tov. But the members of his household and the yeshivah students,

08:37 when they saw the visitor and the gaon’s uplifted spirits, understood that the visitor was an emissary of the Baal Shem Tov and had apparently brought some news from him, either orally or in writing. For it was the gaon Rabbi Chaim Rappaport’s custom, whenever he received news from the Baal Shem Tov, whether orally or in writing, to make that day a Yom Tov: they would not say Tachanun, and he would hold a seudas mitzvah. Sometimes he would tell them what news he had received from the Baal Shem Tov, and sometimes he would not. But he would always share words of Torah during the meal and explain the Baal Shem Tov’s path, the path of Chassidus. The gaon ordered a seudas mitzvah to be prepared, and before long his close associates and students heard about it. The community leaders and its prominent members also came to the meal, along with a large crowd, for everyone in the city was deeply distressed... over the decree. During the seudas mitzvah, they announced the meeting’s decision: the entire community would stand up for itself and continue saying Aleinu three times every day, as they had until now, without heeding the decree. The coming Sunday would be a public fast day, with the sounding of the shofar... When Friday, Erev Shabbos, arrived, that same Rabbi Chaim Yisroel, who had received the first letter from Moshe Meshel, went to the deputy archbishop Mikulski. Chaim Yisroel warned him that if he did not revoke the decree, he would be severely punished. Mikulski rebuked Chaim Yisroel and drove him away. On Sunday, as Mikulski was coming down from the platform in their church, he stumbled and fell, breaking his leg and his right arm. He fainted from the terrible pain and was carried home. As he lay writhing in agony, he remembered the Jew who had visited him the previous Friday. When he thought about it, he recalled that the Jew

11:14 He had seen this man once before, in Kamenitz-Podolsk, when that same Jew warned Archbishop Demboski to rescind the decree to burn Jewish books, and that if he did not listen, he would die. Mikulski instructed the head of the priests to inform the rabbi and the community that he was rescinding the decree concerning the recitation of Aleinu in the prayer books, and that the Jews could conduct their prayers as they had until now. In an instant, the news spread throughout the city. For the Jews of Lviv, there was light and joy. They sent messengers throughout the region to announce that the decree had been rescinded. At the direction of the gaon Rabbi Chaim Rappaport, they proclaimed that they would complete the fast, and that for the evening prayer they would light many candles in all the shuls, as on Yom Tov, pray to a Yom Tov melody, and chant Aleinu to the melody handed down from the Maharal of Prague, which is sung on the High Holy Days—though without tearing their garments or prostrating themselves on the ground. Now let us say a few words about Reb Chaim Yisroel der Teper [?], the potter, who carried out the mission to Mikulski. He was one of the hidden tzaddikim. No one knew where he came from or where he went, and no one paid him any attention, because in outward appearance he was like hundreds of ordinary Jewish craftsmen in Lviv. This Chaim Yisroel had been the Baal Shem Tov’s messenger to Archbishop Demboski in Kamenitz-Podolsk, to tell him that if he did not rescind the decree to burn the Talmud and other Jewish books, and cancel the fine imposed on the Jews of Kamenitz to repair his church, he would die suddenly. Mikulski, the archbishop’s deputy, was present when Demboski answered Chaim Yisroel, “Tell the one who sent you that I scorn him and his threats.” Demboski ordered the head of the priests to hurry the priests to collect Jewish books, build a pyre in the center of the city, and send runners throughout the region to publicize the burning of the books of the enemies of their faith. People from the entire area were to come in festive crowds to watch them take revenge on the Torah of the enemies of their faith. And if, by that day, Tuesday, the Jews had not brought the money for the fine

14:00 he had imposed on them to repair his church, the whole crowd would descend on the Jews and plunder everything in their homes and shops. Archbishop Demboski’s order was carried out at once. Dozens of men raided the shuls. Dozens raided the study halls and Jewish homes to collect books. Dozens built the pyre. Dozens hurried to inform the people of the region of Demboski’s order to come to the city to witness the burning of Jewish books and plunder the Jews’ wealth and possessions. The entire Jewish community of Kamenitz was terribly afraid. They established fast days and prayed fervently to Hashem, our G-d, to rescue them from their plight. Over the next two days, thousands of non-Jews—men and women, old and young—came to the city to watch the burning and seize plunder from the possessions of the Jewish people. Early on Tuesday morning, the bells of their house of worship—that is, the church—rang out, and, at Demboski’s command, the pyre was prepared. Then Demboski left the church at the head of the procession to the place where the books were to be burned. Halfway there, he suffered a stroke and fell dead. Great turmoil broke out among those in the procession, and throughout the city and the region people spoke of how the G-d of Israel had protected His Torah from being burned. During the last two days before that day—we are returning now to the second mission, the mission to Rabbi Chaim Rappaport, who went out to the forest—the gaon Rabbi Chaim had been unusually busy, and was utterly exhausted. Had Reb Moishe Meisels not kept watch as the Baal Shem Tov had instructed him, the gaon would have risen late for Tikkun Chatzos. On the night leading into Wednesday, the sky darkened with clouds and heavy rain poured down. The moment the gaon set foot in the wagon to travel to the forest, as the Baal Shem Tov had instructed him, the heavens split with terrifying thunder and lightning. The horses stood still, refusing to take a single step. The wagon driver whipped them, but it did no good. The gaon urged

16:46 the wagon driver to go on, and so forth. They stood there for some time until the thunder and lightning eased a little, and then they set off. Although the place in question was only about eight parsaos from the city, the journey took many hours. Besides the damage the heavy rain had done to the road, something happened at every turn. Here the reins snapped; there the harness straps broke; then a wheel fell off the wagon; then the pole between the horses broke, and so on. Each incident cost them a great deal of time. The wagon driver was so worn out by the work and the distress that he could no longer drive the horses. Moishe Meisels [?] then took the driver’s seat, but they had not gone twenty paces before the wagon veered off the road into a ditch. They were delayed there for a long time, until, with great effort, they pulled the wagon out. In this way, it was only around two o’clock that they reached the place our teacher the Baal Shem Tov had marked in his letter to the gaon Rabbi Chaim Rappaport. The moment the gaon stepped out of the wagon, lightning suddenly flashed, and the thunder was so loud that the horses bolted. They too, so to speak, were frightened out of their wits. Within moments, darkness covered the entire area, and the thunderclaps and flashes of lightning terrified them greatly. The wagon driver wept bitterly and said to the gaon, “Rabbi, I am frightened. I am afraid.” Rabbi Chaim Rappaport told him, “G-d has made it so that people should fear Him.” The gaon went and sat where he was supposed to sit, and the moment he became absorbed in his studies, the sky cleared and the sun shone over the land. The place where the gaon sat was a large clearing, several hundred amos in area, about fifty amos from the main road, between rows of ancient trees planted in straight lines. Here and there, decaying foundations and excavations could still be seen, showing that buildings had stood there some years before. There were also signs of a well in the clearing: a very deep excavation,

19:27 its walls broken, dry and without water. The gaon sat engrossed in his studies for about four hours, and he was very thirsty. “The wagon driver and I went to look for water,” Moishe Meisels [?] relates. “Among the thickets of the forest, not far from the clearing, we found a spring. We brought water to the gaon. After Minchah, we returned to the city. The gaon Rabbi Chaim Rappaport told me to stay with him until after Shabbos, but I kept the Baal Shem Tov’s instruction to leave the city on Wednesday after the evening prayer. The Baal Shem Tov had told me that a wagon would come my way and that I should sit in it without speaking a word, neither to the passenger nor to anyone else. And that is what I did. On Thursday morning, a wagon brought me to within about three parsaos of Mezhibuzh. As soon as I set foot in the holy courtyard, I saw our teacher the Baal Shem Tov standing at the window, beckoning to me with his holy hand, and I approached the window. The Baal Shem Tov instructed me to recite the entire book of Tehillim three times—once before prayers and twice afterward—and not to speak to anyone, even to return a greeting, until I had finished Tehillim. After that, I was to recite the Song at the Sea once and the Song of Haazinu twice, and not to smoke tobacco until after the evening prayer.”