Episode 145: The Alter Rebbe in Lubavitch with Rabbi Yissachar Dov

00:01 We continue with the story of the Alter Rebbe’s life, his education and upbringing. Rebbetzin Rivkah, the Alter Rebbe’s mother, related that when he was four or five years old, his great-grandfather Rabbi Moshe, whom we already know, came to stay at the estate of his grandson, Rabbi Baruch. He watched his great-grandson, the Alter Rebbe, learning with his teacher in cheder. Rabbi Moshe asked the young boy, “What do you love?” The Alter Rebbe answered, “I love the blue of the sky and the air, which cannot be dirtied.” Let us continue with a few accounts from the Alter Rebbe’s childhood. In 5510, when the Alter Rebbe turned five, he was accepted as a member of the chevra kadisha in the town of Liozna. The register of the Liozna chevra kadisha states: “Today, 15 Kislev 5510, the child Schneur Zalman, son of Rabbi Baruch, was accepted into the chevra kadisha. He is accepted on the condition that he serve as a shamash until his bar mitzvah and give ten brusses, each brussa being five klafters, toward the construction of the synagogue. Each year he is obligated to give chai three times, and, with Hashem’s help, when his youth is over, he will be one of us”—that is, a full member of the chevra kadisha. This was at age five. The Chabad Rebbes often spoke about the Alter Rebbe’s conduct during his childhood and youth. The Alter Rebbe himself told his son, the Mitteler Rebbe, and his grandson, the Tzemach Tzedek, about things that had happened to him as a child and as a young man. Once he told them that as a child he never had questions in Torah. That is, his learning did not follow a pattern of asking a question and finding an answer. Rather, he learned each subject in Torah directly, as it was; and if he did have a question, it remained a question. When the Alter Rebbe reached the age of five, he related, he felt that the gates of Torah were open before him. He grasped even the most difficult subject

02:38 in Torah in all its details, and everything was clear to him. He became highly proficient in Torah. “But it came without any effort, and the absence of mental toil in Torah—because it was open before me,” the Alter Rebbe told his grandson the Tzemach Tzedek, “distressed me greatly. I had not merited to fulfill the mitzvah of toiling in Torah. That remained so until I reached the age of fifteen, when I was told who I was and what the purpose of my soul’s descent into this world was. As a small child,” the Alter Rebbe told his grandson the Tzemach Tzedek, “I was filled with a feeling of Ahavas Yisroel. I took pleasure in drawing Jews close—not only Torah scholars, but simple people as well. Often I would draw the simple Jews even closer, because they observed mitzvos out of simple faith. When I turned five, I understood the verse, ‘And the souls I have made’: the two souls found in every Jewish man and woman, the G-dly soul and the animal soul. At that time, I made a great effort and worked hard to understand everything in depth. I thought a great deal about the difference between these two souls, for the verse says, ‘And the souls I have made’—meaning that Hakadosh Boruch Hu made both of them. It took some time before Hakadosh Boruch Hu illuminated my mind to understand that both souls, the G-dly soul and the animal soul, contain spiritual faculties that give life to the faculties of intellect, emotion, will and pleasure. The difference between the two souls, however, is that the G-dly soul takes pleasure in wanting one’s intellectual understanding, emotional longing, thought, speech and action to be devoted to Torah study, the fulfillment of mitzvos and good character traits. The animal soul, on the other hand, is also spiritual, but it is concerned only with physical well-being. It arouses all the faculties of pleasure and desire, as well as those of understanding and emotion, and thought, speech and action—all in material matters. When I delved into the spiritual nature of those two

05:20 souls and the ways they act upon a person, I saw the difference between their actions. The G-dly soul is openhearted. The animal soul is deceitful and tries to entice a person with all kinds of lies. When I investigated and understood the nature of the animal soul, Hakadosh Boruch Hu helped me find a way to discern, with any permitted thing a person is drawn to and desires, where that desire comes from: the G-dly soul or the animal soul. Some time passed, and Hakadosh Boruch Hu illuminated my mind to understand that there is also an intellectual soul, which helps a person see the truth of the G-dly soul and the falsehood of the animal soul. Then,” the Alter Rebbe said, “I was certain that I had found the true path of life.” Even as a child, the Alter Rebbe was orderly about his use of time. He rose early in the morning. His grandfather, the gaon Rabbi Moshe of Pozna, of whom we have spoken often, would daven with the first minyan, early in the morning. Immediately after davening, Rabbi Moshe would study Gemara in depth until Minchah. He customarily davened an early Minchah and then ate his morning meal—at around two in the afternoon. When the Tzemach Tzedek was nine years old, his grandfather, the Alter Rebbe, said to him, “What is there to be proud of? You are not yet familiar with the Shelah’s Shaar Hashamayim siddur?” His grandson, the Tzemach Tzedek, asked, “But haven’t we changed the wording of our prayers?” The Alter Rebbe answered, “Yes, but it will give you something to think about. I,” the Alter Rebbe continued, “was familiar with the Shaar Hashamayim siddur when I was eight.” When the Alter Rebbe was eight years old, he wrote a commentary on the Torah. His commentary incorporated the three commentaries of Rashi, Rabbi Avraham Ibn Ezra and the Ramban. Then,

08:02 when he was ten, he had a frightening dream. In the dream, he was sitting and learning in the room adjoining the synagogue in Liozna, when Rabbi Reuven Baal Shem entered and told him that he had been summoned to judgment, instructing him to enter the synagogue. When he went in, he saw a beis din seated by the table on the south side, with three dignified elders standing some distance away. As the Alter Rebbe entered the synagogue, the man seated in the middle at the south-side table signaled the three elders to approach, and Rabbi Reuven Baal Shem led him to the table. The judges sat wrapped in tallisim, and the elders were dressed in white. When they came forward, the judge in the middle turned to the Alter Rebbe and said, “These three elders are Rashi, Rabbi Avraham Ibn Ezra and the Ramban. They have brought a claim against you: by writing a commentary that incorporates all three of theirs, you intend to deprive them of the merit of benefiting the many, who would otherwise study and reflect on their commentaries.” The Alter Rebbe had nothing to say in his defense. With complete sincerity and much weeping, he said that he would burn his commentary. The elders placed their hands on his head and blessed him that he would succeed in his learning and develop novel Torah insights and approaches to serving Hashem, by whose light thousands upon thousands of Jews would walk throughout the generations, until Moshiach comes. When the Alter Rebbe awoke—he was ten years old at the time—his heart was troubled and he was deeply worried. He fasted, and when the dream recurred twice more, he went and burned his commentary. The Alter Rebbe’s grandfather, Rabbi Moshe, had many books kept in a special room in the beis midrash. Before the Alter Rebbe turned eighteen, he knew the names of all his grandfather Rabbi Moshe’s books. A few years later, it became clear that he knew not only their names but also what was written in them, and everyone was amazed by his great and extraordinary abilities.

10:40 ...limited faculties of comprehension and memory. As a child, the Alter Rebbe studied with various teachers in Liozna. When it was decided that he would leave, the Alter Rebbe said: “When I was going to travel to a place of Torah to study, there was joy... There was a joy lodged in the heart of my grandfather, Reb Moshe, on the one hand, and weeping on the other. My grandfather was very pleased that I was going to a place of Torah to perfect my learning, but my departure also caused him great pain. He consoled himself with the thought that I was going to perfect my knowledge of Torah.” The Alter Rebbe’s father, Reb Baruch, took him to the town of Lubavitch, to the renowned scholar Rabbi Yosef the Mochiach. Rabbi Yosef entrusted him to his son-in-law, the scholar Rabbi Yissachar Dov of Kabilnik, to study with him. Remember the name Rabbi Yissachar Dov of Kabilnik, because we’ll tell another story about him on another occasion. The Alter Rebbe spent about two years in Lubavitch, lodging in the home of Reb Naftali Batlan and [unclear] the grocer. His regular place of study was the second room of the Poalei Tzedek Beis Midrash, where the early risers gathered. The extraordinary diligence and perseverance of the Alter Rebbe, then known as the prodigy from Liozna, were on everyone’s lips. Parents wished to be blessed with a child like him, and many great Torah scholars showed him honor, for some booklets of his Torah insights had been found. The Alter Rebbe related: “Ahavas Yisroel, and particularly showing honor to fellow Jews, I learned while I was in Lubavitch. I saw the respect that the scholar Rabbi Yosef the Mochiach showed Reb Yitzchak the shoemaker, Reb Shlomo the tailor, and Reb Avraham the blacksmith. They were unlearned men who did not even understand the words of the Torah and the prayers, but they were sincerely G-d-fearing. These three—Reb Yitzchak, Reb Shlomo, and Reb Avraham—were among the elders of the early risers’ group. Every day, on weekdays, Shabbos and Yom Tov, in summer and winter, they would come to the beis midrash at two in the morning to say Tehillim. One of

13:20 the elders of the group would stand at the lectern and recite it aloud in a tearful voice. Everyone would stand in his place and say it with him word for word, in a pleading voice, with tears streaming from their eyes. In this way they would finish the entire Tehillim each day, from beginning to end. And what a magnificent sight it was,” said the Alter Rebbe, “when the elderly scholar Rabbi Yosef the Mochiach would hurry to finish his Gemara study after Tikkun Chatzos so he could join these simple people in saying Tehillim. “Many times I heard Rabbi Yosef the Mochiach tell his son-in-law, my teacher Rabbi Yissachar Dov, that the Tehillim Reb Avraham the blacksmith and Reb Yitzchak the shoemaker recited while striking an anvil with a hammer or working on a shoe were more precious to Hakadosh Boruch Hu than their own Torah insights. More than I learned from my teacher Rabbi Yissachar Dov in knowledge of Torah,” said the Alter Rebbe, “I learned from his father-in-law, Rabbi Yosef the Mochiach, about the ways of serving the Creator.” Rabbi Yosef was an outstanding scholar of the revealed Torah, and even more so of the hidden wisdom, as well as works of Jewish philosophy and mussar. He was as familiar with the Zohar and Tikkunei Zohar as he was with the Rambam’s Mishneh Torah. He loved to explain a passage from Rabbi Gabbai’s Avodas Hakodesh or a profound question from Sefer HaIkkarim. “Rabbi Yosef the Mochiach,” the Alter Rebbe told his son, the Mitteler Rebbe, “opened the doors to the chambers of hidden wisdom for me, but only as wide as the eye of a needle. Divine Providence, however, brought me to my teacher and Rebbe, the Maggid, who, by Hashem’s kindness, opened them for me as wide as the entrance to a great hall.” The Alter Rebbe studied in Lubavitch with Rabbi Yissachar Dov until he was eleven years old. Rabbi Yissachar Dov then returned him to his father, Reb Baruch, saying that the Alter Rebbe no longer needed him. Elsewhere it is related that Rabbi Yissachar Dov set out on a period of wandering and took

15:56 the Alter Rebbe with him so he could bring him back to his father along the way. When the Alter Rebbe returned home, he established a schedule for studying works of Kabbalah, Jewish philosophy and mussar, in addition to his studies of Gemara and the halachic authorities. For about two years he studied with great diligence in the small beis midrash near his father’s home in Liozna. The elders who knew him in his youth said that his industriousness and composure were remarkable. He guarded his time so carefully that a moment was as precious to him as an hour. Nevertheless, he ate and slept at the proper times. His holy eyes radiated boundless energy and calm, and a pleasant serenity rested on his holy face. “When I returned from Lubavitch,” the Alter Rebbe related, “I had a set schedule for studying the revealed Torah that Rabbi Yissachar Dov had arranged for me. I also had a schedule for studying Kabbalah and a way of conducting myself in the paths of Chassidus, with a strong warning to do so discreetly. My grandfather, Reb Moshe, was very happy when I returned from Lubavitch. That day, Reb Moshe was fasting, as he customarily did every Monday, Thursday and Friday. He developed a profound Torah insight on the annulment of a vow out of respect for a Torah scholar, and my teacher Rabbi Yissachar Dov was amazed by my grandfather Reb Moshe’s profound scholarship. “My father, Reb Baruch, was very happy to have Rabbi Yissachar Dov as his guest, and Rabbi Yissachar Dov agreed to his request to stay in his home for several weeks. Rabbi Yissachar Dov would daven with my father’s minyan, and after davening he would study his regular lesson. He greatly enjoyed hearing my grandfather Reb Moshe’s Torah insights. My grandfather Reb Moshe was very pleased when I returned home. He tested me on my learning, was pleased, and gave me a study schedule that I followed carefully.” Alongside all this, the Alter Rebbe always had a feeling in his heart—a certain lingering grievance, perhaps we could call it—toward Rabbi Yissachar Dov, the maggid of Lubavitch. Why had he not taken him along to the Baal

18:30 Shem Tov while the Alter Rebbe was studying with him? During that period, Rabbi Yissachar Dov traveled to the Baal Shem Tov several times but did not take the Alter Rebbe with him. The Alter Rebbe said that the foundation of Chabad Chassidus began to take shape for him while he was still in Lubavitch. Once he heard his teacher, Rabbi Yissachar Dov, give a discourse explaining that there is an intellect guided by the will and a will guided by the intellect. “That was when,” the Alter Rebbe related, “the first seeds of Chabad teachings began to emerge within me.” “And from my earliest childhood,” the Alter Rebbe related, “I loved the fields. I had particular places among the trees and grain fields where I liked to study when I came home from cheder. So when I returned from Lubavitch, I found myself a place among the trees near the workplaces of Reb Avraham Leib the potter and Reb Eliyahu Ber the weaver. After my return from Lubavitch, I would often walk in the forest or the fields near the farm, and I would meet Zundel Aharon the shepherd sitting deep in thought, his face radiant. In Lubavitch I had learned that there were hidden tzaddikim, great Torah scholars, who wandered in self-imposed exile or settled in various places as ordinary laborers. And they truly were outstanding scholars and hidden tzaddikim.”