Chapter 160: The Alter Rebbe Settles in Liozna, the Story of Rabbi Baruch Mordechai

00:01 The Alter Rebbe decided not to travel to the Holy Land, to Eretz Yisroel, but to return to Liozna or one of the other towns. The people of Liozna very much wanted the Alter Rebbe to return specifically to their town. Seven leading and respected members of the Liozna community asked the Alter Rebbe’s brothers to travel with a delegation they would send to greet him and present the decisions we mentioned earlier, concerning the hosting of young married men and other visitors, and so on. Seeing how deeply the people of Liozna longed for their brother, the Alter Rebbe, to settle in their town, and how hard they were working toward that end, his brothers agreed to join the delegation. They chose their brother, the gaon Rabbi Yehuda Leib, to travel with it to greet the Alter Rebbe. The Alter Rebbe accepted the people of Liozna’s proposal, and the delegation returned at the end of the festivities to tell the townspeople that their mission had succeeded. The Alter Rebbe and those accompanying him traveled slowly from town to town, with several dozen wagons. More students, outstanding in their abilities and their knowledge of Torah, had joined him on this journey, and he stayed a day or two in each place. At the beginning of Elul 5537—that is, 1777 by their calendar—the Alter Rebbe left Mohilev. He was on the road during Rosh Hashanah 5538 and the Yom Tov season, and reached Liozna in the middle of Shvat 5538. An announcement was sent to all the nearby and distant communities throughout the region: a. Guests should not come for Shavuos. b. Young married men who wished to come and receive a course of study would first be examined at places designated for that purpose. c. Within a month, the names of the places designated for examining students would be published. As we said, the Alter Rebbe arrived in Liozna on his return from Mohilev in Shvat 5538. As soon as he arrived, he organized the well-known chadarim and began to develop the magnificent structure of Chabad Chassidus. The Alter Rebbe’s delivery of Chassidus was awe-inspiring. Everyone standing around him was seized with awe of G-d, and there and then

02:53 they became complete baalei teshuvah and were fired with enthusiasm for the service of Hashem. The Alter Rebbe’s davening was awe-inspiring too. His grandson, the Tzemach Tzedek, said of him that the Alter Rebbe showed signs of being absorbed in Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself. The Alter Rebbe would say, “I do not want Your Gan Eden; I do not want Your World to Come. I want You, Hakadosh Boruch Hu—You alone.” When the Alter Rebbe davened in private, he davened quietly. When he davened with a minyan, he shook worlds, prolonging his davening until two hours after midday. On Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, he prolonged it even more. While davening, the Alter Rebbe would strike the wall with his hands until they bled. He did not feel it at all, so they put soft cloth on the wall to keep him from getting hurt. This is what the chossid Reb Zev Vilinker related from what he had heard from his brother, the chossid Reb Moshe Vilinker. Reb Moshe had been with the Alter Rebbe twenty years before Reb Zev traveled to him, for Reb Moshe was older than him by about that many years. And this is what Reb Moshe Vilinker related. There is the well-known story of how the chossid Reb Moshe Vilinker left his home in Vilna and went to the Alter Rebbe, while his wife and family did not know where he was. Their distress and anguish were immense, and they suffered many and varied hardships. Had a few young married men in Vilna not known where he was, the outcome would have been very bad. Reb Moshe Vilinker told his brother Reb Zev that when the Alter Rebbe traveled to escort Reb Menachem Mendel to our Holy Land, as we have already related, he learned on his return to Liozna in 5538 that, in the meantime, the students had adopted a reckless way of life that was not what he intended. They had completely abandoned worldly concerns and were living in seclusion. The Alter Rebbe gathered them and told them, “You students of

05:41 the chadarim must know that bread is eaten at the edge of a sword.” In other words, you have to engage with material affairs and not cut yourselves off from the world. At that time, the Alter Rebbe instituted several practices. First, from sixty different versions of the siddur, he selected one distinctive text, called Nusach Hakodesh—the nusach of the Arizal. Years later, he printed this siddur, taking extraordinary care with the number of words and letters and the precise vowel markings. The Alter Rebbe did everything with the greatest precision. This siddur was accepted throughout the world because it was the finest of all the versions. Second, the Alter Rebbe established the specifications for tefillin according to the traditions of the Rishonim and the Arizal—in their writing and preparation, where they are placed, how the straps are wound, and so on. The Alter Rebbe also instituted the practice of putting on tefillin known as Rabbeinu Tam tefillin, in accordance with the Arizal’s view. The Arizal said that both opinions, Rashi’s and Rabbeinu Tam’s, are true, and therefore both are needed. Another practice the Alter Rebbe instituted was not to put on tefillin on Chol Hamoed, following the view of the holy Zohar and the Kabbalists; this is also correct according to the revealed teachings of Torah. Fifth, he completed the Shulchan Aruch that he had begun writing in Mezritch, edited and refined it, and prepared another edition. He also prepared another edition of the siddur based on the Arizal, revising several laws in accordance with the rulings of the Kabbalistic sages. Sixth, the Alter Rebbe drafted a text for the contract for selling chametz, following the views of the great Rishonim with the utmost care. And, most importantly, the Alter Rebbe instituted the use of specifically sharp, polished knives for shechitah, which had not been the practice before. Eighth, the Alter Rebbe instituted heating the mikvaos. Until then, mikvaos had not been heated and were cold; the account here says the importance of this change cannot be overstated. He

08:48 also accustomed the chassidim to immerse before davening, so that their davening would be in a state of purity. The Alter Rebbe instituted that all mitzvos be performed in the most beautiful manner. He also instituted that Anash—that is, the chassidim—should live with love and unity. Here is an excerpt from a letter the Alter Rebbe wrote to Reb Moshe Meisels in Vilna. The Alter Rebbe writes to him: “I ask and request that you awaken a spirit of purity in your pure heart and overlook offenses. As our Sages said, one should be among those who accept insult, and you should publicly ask forgiveness of the distinguished benefactor, our teacher Rabbi Meir. Do this before the coming Yom Kippur, for my sake and for the sake of peace. For peace does not emerge from a quarrel, G-d forbid, especially from a dispute for the sake of Heaven. Most troubles and hardships come specifically from disputes for the sake of Heaven. May the Merciful One save us from them.” All the chassidim accepted these practices upon themselves and their descendants, committing to observe everything with all their heart, soul, and might. For this reason, they arranged to have their own shuls, where they could daven without interruption. They engaged their own shochtim, who would use specifically polished knives. They also separated from the Ashkenazi misnagdim in the funds collected for the poor of the Holy Land and established a separate fund for the chassidim. They showed great mesirus nefesh in all these matters. Now we will tell a story about one of the Alter Rebbe’s great chassidim, to get some sense and understanding of what things were like. It is the story of the gaon and chossid Reb Boruch Mordechai of Bobruisk. Here is the story. The renowned gaon and chossid Reb Boruch Mordechai served as rabbi in Bobruisk for decades and was held in high regard throughout the region. Even the great scholars among the misnagdim in Shklov, Minsk, and Slutsk treated the gaon Reb Boruch Mordechai with the utmost respect. The chossid Reb Boruch Mordechai was born in the settlement of New Sventsian, near the town of Sventsian in the Vilna Governorate. The small settlement grew and, in time, came to be known as New Sventsian. Reb Boruch Mordechai had an illustrious lineage on his mother’s side.

11:56 His mother was the daughter of Rabbi Chaim Yehuda Leib, one of the great Torah scholars of Lvov and the head of its rabbinical court. Rabbi Baruch Mordechai knew that his father had moved from Lvov to the area around Vilna and settled in a small village near Shvintzian. Years later, when Rabbi Baruch Mordechai learned about the hidden tzaddikim, his memories of his father led him to realize that his father had been one of them. Rabbi Baruch Mordechai was very gifted and excelled in his studies. When he became bar mitzvah, he left his parents’ home to study in Vilna. On the way, when he reached Shvintzian, he met a brilliant young scholar and stayed to study with him there for a time. While he was in Shvintzian, his father passed away, leaving him an orphan. Rabbi Baruch Mordechai relates: “For two years I studied with Rabbi Michel, known among chassidim as Rabbi Michele Optzker[?]. I did not know he was a chossid of the Alter Rebbe. Only in the third year of our acquaintance did he reveal to me, under a seal of the strictest secrecy, that he was one of the students of the Rebbe of Liozna, and that there were also several chassidim of the Alter Rebbe in Shvintzian. For six months, Rabbi Michele studied Chassidus with me and advised me to go study in Vilna. When I arrived in Vilna, I met some of its renowned scholars. I visited several yeshivos and listened to the classes and scholarly discussions that the great heads of the yeshivos delivered to the advanced students. Over the course of several weeks, I became acquainted with the Torah giants of Vilna.” Because of a certain incident, word spread that the sixteen-year-old young man who had arrived in Vilna was the one known as the prodigy from Shvintzian, who had made a name for himself through his extraordinary abilities. He was immediately given the title “master of reasoning.” All the Torah giants of Vilna admired Baruch Mordechai, and he also became a regular visitor to the head of the rabbinical court, Rabbi Shmuel. From time to time, he had the privilege of discussing Torah learning with the Gaon of Vilna, the Gaon Rabbi Eliyahu. We already know that Rabbi Baruch Mordechai

14:46 was connected to the Chassidus of the Alter Rebbe. We also know that Vilna was a center of opposition to the Alter Rebbe’s Chassidus. Even so, as soon as Rabbi Baruch Mordechai arrived in Vilna, a letter from his teacher Rabbi Michele introduced him to one of the Chabad chassidim there, and he arranged a regular Chabad Chassidus study session with him. In a conversation with one of the chassidim in Vilna, Rabbi Baruch Mordechai learned of the ban that the head of the rabbinical court, the Gaon Rabbi Shmuel, had proclaimed against the chassidim and Chassidus several years earlier, in 5532. His friendship with Rabbi Shmuel then cooled, and he stopped visiting him. After spending several months in Vilna, Rabbi Baruch Mordechai met a young scholar who studied at the famous yeshiva in Slutsk. Rabbi Baruch Mordechai then decided to leave Vilna and go study at that yeshiva. He spent two and a half years at the yeshiva in Slutsk and afterward at the yeshiva in Minsk. Throughout his life, Rabbi Baruch Mordechai spoke in wonder of the greatness of the elderly Gaon Rabbi Aharon Yaakov, head of the Slutsk yeshiva. We already remember that the yeshiva in Slutsk was Rabbi Baruch of Biazin’s yeshiva, about which we have spoken at length. The elderly Rabbi Aharon Yaakov, its head, was the same young head of the yeshiva whom Rabbi Baruch of Biazin had appointed at the time. Now, in the days of Rabbi Baruch Mordechai and the Alter Rebbe, Rabbi Aharon Yaakov was truly very old, and he was still the head of the yeshiva there in Slutsk. From Minsk, Rabbi Baruch Mordechai returned to Vilna and immediately joined the circle of chassidim. He received what he needed to live on from the Society for the Support of Torah Scholars. Rabbi Baruch Mordechai himself immersed himself in the study of the revealed Torah and Chassidus. From time to time, he would meet with one of the scholarly young men, including the two sons of the head of the rabbinical court, Rabbi

17:34 Shmuel. The Gaon Rabbi Shmuel, head of the Vilna rabbinical court, was the son-in-law of the renowned scholar and philanthropist Rabbi Yehuda, son of Eliezer, the scribe and judge of Vilna. In recognition of Rabbi Yehuda’s great righteousness and the good he did for the Vilna community, they gave him the title Yesod, an acronym for “Yehuda, scribe and judge of the holy community.” His tombstone, too, bears the title “Rabbi Yesod of the holy city of Vilna.” In 5528, the Gaon Rabbi Shmuel, head of the rabbinical court, was widowed. A considerable time later, he married a widow who was, in fact, Rabbi Baruch Mordechai’s mother. Rabbi Baruch Mordechai did not know this, of course; there was no communication back then. He was away from home and did not know what was happening with his mother. But she became the wife of that same Rabbi Shmuel with whom Rabbi Baruch Mordechai had initially studied, before breaking off contact because of Rabbi Shmuel’s opposition to the chassidim. Then, while in Vilna, Rabbi Baruch Mordechai heard one day that the Gaon Rabbi Shmuel had married a woman of distinguished lineage: the daughter of the renowned Gaon Rabbi Chaim Yehuda Leib, head of the Lvov rabbinical court, a widow who had lived in a village near Shvintzian. Rabbi Baruch Mordechai realized that this was his mother. But because he was a very deliberate person, he refrained from seeing her for several months while he considered how he should act. Let us return for a moment to Baruch Mordechai’s time in Slutsk. While there, Rabbi Baruch Mordechai learned that the large yeshiva headed by the elderly Gaon Rabbi Aharon Yaakov was supported by a permanent fund left as a bequest by a Torah scholar and a very wealthy man. Today we know that this was Rabbi Baruch of Biazin [?], of course. The benefactor’s two sons were also very wealthy men, though they were not as wealthy as they once had been, but they supported the yeshiva generously.