Episode 147: The Alter Rebbe Studies with His Uncle Yosef Yitzchok

00:01 The Alter Rebbe continues telling of his childhood: Some time passed. I was in the forest, thinking deeply about a matter in Kabbalah, when I heard someone learning aloud, in a pleasant voice. I followed the sound slowly and saw Zundel Aharon sitting on a small hill beneath a tree, learning joyfully, his face shining. It then became clear to me that Zundel Aharon belonged to the circle of hidden tzaddikim. I very much wanted to watch him learn, but after thinking it over, I decided not to disturb his order of avodah. What I had come to know of the hidden tzaddikim’s way of life had a powerful effect on my conduct and on my desire to establish a path in the ways of Chassidus. I greatly respected the way my grandfather, Rabbi Moshe, learned. I was also pleased to hear his lessons, with their brilliant, orderly explanations. But, says the Alter Rebbe, I could not accept his dry, cool approach to the fear of Heaven, together with his self-satisfaction. From time to time, I came to know more of the learned men who passed through our home, and I had already developed a discerning eye for recognizing the hidden tzaddikim. Growing close to them had a great effect on the way I learned Torah and served Hashem. Some time later, I was sitting and learning diligently when Avraham Leib the potter approached me and began explaining the sugya I was studying as he understood it. I was very pleased. I asked him, “Why do you hide who you are and pretend to be an am haaretz?” Avraham Leib told me, “When you grow up, you’ll understand.” Avraham Leib also told me that Eliyahu Ber knew the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds, the Rambam, the Arba’ah Turim, and the Shulchan Aruch by heart, and that he had a quick grasp and a remarkable memory. And Zundel Aharon was an extraordinary am haaretz. Why had I merited having these brilliant scholars and tzaddikim reveal themselves to me? I did not know, but their revelation to me was a spiritual blessing. I felt that each day I was drawing

03:08 closer to inner avodah and gaining broader knowledge and more orderly understanding, and I thanked Hakadosh Boruch Hu. When the Alter Rebbe, Rabbi Schneur Zalman, was eleven years old, he began involving himself in communal affairs. Rabbi Moshe, the Alter Rebbe’s son, writes in his memoirs what he heard from the elderly Moshe Ivansker: While at the fair in Liozna, he saw and heard the prodigy of Liozna, the Alter Rebbe, then eleven years old, standing on a wagon and addressing a large crowd. He urged them to leave trade behind and earn their livelihood through farming and crafts. At that time, Rabbi Moshe, the Alter Rebbe’s son, relates, refugees from Prague and Posen arrived in our region. In response to the appeals of the prodigy of Liozna—that is, the Alter Rebbe—many families established themselves as farmers on the large estate of his father, Rabbi Baruch. The Alter Rebbe, who was born in a village and had loved the fields as a child, was among the first Jews of his time to call upon Jews to take up farming. While still young, before he had become acquainted with the teachings of Chassidus, the Alter Rebbe worked to settle Jews expelled from the state of Bohemia—known at the time as the Bohemian refugees—on land in estates near that of his father, Rabbi Baruch. Many listened to him and settled near his father’s estate, around the White Spring, called Biali Rotche, near the town of Liozna. The Alter Rebbe encouraged them to earn their living by working with their hands in the fields and gardens, and urged his honored father, Rabbi Baruch, to help them. There is an interesting story about the White Spring. The spring opened one day after the sorcerer from the village of Levitshov, Levitshove, cursed the spring on the other side of the town of Liozna, turning its waters black. The village’s sheep and cattle, which were accustomed to drinking from that spring, fell ill, and many died. The shepherds, too, who were accustomed to bathing in the spring’s channel, became ill after the sorcerer’s curse. The sorcerer’s name was Akim[?]. They, too, suffered

06:07 from leprosy and fever. The sheep and cattle belonging to the Jews of the settlement, including the flock and livestock of Rabbi Baruch, the Alter Rebbe’s father, fell ill. There was no river or stream anywhere nearby, and all the animals suffered greatly, for they had to be given water from a well. One day, the Alter Rebbe and his younger brother, Rabbi Yehudah Leib, who later authored the book She’eris Yehudah, were sitting in the vineyard. There were several fruit trees there, but it was their fourth year, and no one ate their fruit. One of the non-Jewish servants, however, picked an apple and ate it. She gave one to the young Rabbi Yehudah Leib as well. He made a blessing and ate it, then ran to ask his older brother, the Alter Rebbe, what concluding blessing to say after eating an apple. The Alter Rebbe asked him, “Where did you get the apple?” Rabbi Yehudah Leib told his brother that the servant had given him an apple she had picked from one of the trees. The Alter Rebbe was very distressed. He explained to his younger brother why this was forbidden and set out a course of correction for him. He also told him to resolve that from then on, he would neither eat any food nor drink any beverage until he had first made sure it was kosher. When the young Rabbi Yehudah Leib accepted everything his brother had told him, the Alter Rebbe said that he needed to immerse himself, and that he himself wished to immerse as well. He explained to his brother that there is an immersion for purification, to go from impurity to purity, and an immersion for holiness, to go from the mundane to the holy. The Alter Rebbe told his brother that he sensed a spring beneath the hill. If they dug and found it, the water would flow down into a hollow like a pit beside the hill, where they could immerse. The children dug into the hill, and the spring was revealed. A great deal of water emerged, and they made a channel, bringing relief to the animals as well. They all drank from the channel and recovered, and the shepherds, too, were cured of their leprosy when they bathed in its waters. And because the spring emerged

08:47 from beneath a white stone in the hill, they called it the White Spring, Biali Rotche [?]. Eliyahu Reuven, whom we have already mentioned, was sitting one day in the beis midrash of Rabbi Moshe, the Alter Rebbe’s grandfather, and related: “I learned with extraordinary diligence. By nature, I learned aloud and extremely quickly. I did understand what I learned properly, but I learned at great speed. The Alter Rebbe, as we have already related, was sitting in the room of books at the time. As he passed by me, he said that I learned with great enthusiasm, but far too quickly. I told the Alter Rebbe that I was quick by nature. The Alter Rebbe told me, ‘One must change one’s nature.’ He told me that a Jew has the powers of the soul and can change his nature. Through practice, a habit becomes second nature, and the nature formed through habit changes even one’s inborn nature. The Alter Rebbe went on to tell me that the enthusiasm with which I had learned Torah until then was a gift from Above. Yet the verse in Devarim says, ‘And you will quickly be lost from the good land that Hashem is giving you.’ The Alter Rebbe said: The ‘good land that Hashem is giving you’ is the desire—the desire and enthusiasm for learning Torah and for serving Hashem. When Hashem gives the ‘good land,’ meaning the enthusiasm and desire to learn Torah, one must ‘work on the quickly.’ One must work on that haste and learn Torah in a pleasant way, letting the soul delight in the sweetness of Torah.” Eliyahu Reuven continues: “With those few words interpreting the verse, ‘And you will quickly be lost from the good land that Hashem is giving you,’ the Alter Rebbe changed my nature. My tendency to rush disappeared, and I developed a sense of deliberation. By removing my haste and helping me acquire that deliberation, the Alter Rebbe made me happy for the rest of my life.” We have already related that the Alter Rebbe’s bar mitzvah was a tremendous occasion attended by all the great Torah scholars, and that it lasted an entire week. A short time after the bar mitzvah, he traveled

11:36 The Alter Rebbe went to Vitebsk to stay with his uncle, the gaon Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak, and remained there for several months. The Alter Rebbe related: “During the time I was with my uncle Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak, I felt the delight of a festival all day long. My uncle’s novel insights in every area of Torah—in the revealed and hidden dimensions, in philosophical inquiry, Kabbalah and homiletics—were astounding. While I was with him, he would from time to time explain a verse, an Aggadah in the Gemara, a Midrash, or teachings of Kabbalah and inquiry into G-dliness. His explanations stirred the soul and illuminated the body. Later I learned that most of the Torah interpretations my uncle had shared with me were teachings of our master the Baal Shem Tov, together with my uncle Yosef Yitzchak’s explanations.” As we know, Rabbi Boruch, the Alter Rebbe’s father, was a great gaon. His uncle Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak was a renowned gaon and headed a yeshiva in Vitebsk. Both Rabbi Boruch and Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak were connected to the Baal Shem Tov, but the Baal Shem Tov had sternly warned them not to tell the Alter Rebbe about him. As we’ve already related, even as a child the Alter Rebbe was highly successful in his Torah studies, before he knew who he really was. He knew that his uncle Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak was a great gaon. But he found his uncle’s conduct puzzling: he had a broken heart, would spend hours davening Minchah, and would also spend a long time on Maariv and the other prayers. And he cried a great deal. The Alter Rebbe asked him, “Uncle, why?” He replied, “When you grow older, you’ll understand how much we don’t know.” The Alter Rebbe loved the fields. Passersby would come to his father Rabbi Boruch’s farm. Who were these passersby? They were the Baal Shem Tov’s shluchim, but they disguised themselves as ordinary people and did simple work, because they did not want to eat at his table for free.

14:14 They came to pass on guidance about how to guide the Alter Rebbe. At the same time, they were warned not to tell him about the Baal Shem Tov. When the Alter Rebbe grew older and had already learned a great deal, he came to Vitebsk and saw that his uncle Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak cried often. He would say a blessing and cry; he would recite Krias Shema before bed and cry; on Shabbos, he would cry. The Alter Rebbe found it remarkable. Even after the Baal Shem Tov passed away, they continued to keep everything about him from the Alter Rebbe, because the Baal Shem Tov had said that he needed to come to it through his own efforts. When the Alter Rebbe finally came to the Baal Shem Tov’s disciple, the Maggid of Mezritch, he saw that the Maggid’s leading disciples found his conduct toward simple people especially puzzling. The Maggid would draw simple people close and address them with the title “Reb,” and so on. Afterward, our master the Maggid of Mezritch explained that, in truth, even those who know still do not know. One must toil greatly to understand how much one does not know. The ultimate knowledge is to know that we do not know. The ultimate knowledge is to know that we do not know. A simple person, through his simple faith, reaches that place of not knowing immediately. But before the Baal Shem Tov, people did not know this at all. When the Baal Shem Tov came, he opened their eyes and said that Hakadosh Boruch Hu reveals Himself precisely through the service—the simple service—of a simple person.