Chapter 165: The Alter Rebbe in the Debate in Minsk

00:01 The Alter Rebbe prepares for a debate with the misnagdim to demonstrate that the path of Chassidus is right. After the Alter Rebbe sent the emissaries with the donated funds to our Holy Land, he set out for the gathering in Volhynia, traveling back through Minsk. When he reached Minsk, he found that many guests from among the misnagdim had already arrived for the debate. He also received a summons from the communal authorities to appear before them for a hearing. The Alter Rebbe did not want to go to the communal offices. He said he would come to a place where many chassidim could be present during the debate, and at the direction of the beis din, the debate was assigned to one of the synagogues in Minsk. The Alter Rebbe then asked the beis din: since it was impossible to debate a large crowd of hundreds of people, he proposed that the debaters be only those who could answer questions he would put to them on a particular Talmudic topic. Those who explained the matter properly would be the debaters. The beis din replied that it would consider the matter. They convened a secret meeting and, after discussion, decided as follows: first, the Alter Rebbe would answer the questions they put to him. After answering their questions, he could ask his own questions on matters of Torah. Meanwhile, several hundred of the Alter Rebbe’s chassidim arrived in Minsk from distant places, in addition to those from nearby centers. The Alter Rebbe delivered Torah teachings before them in the synagogue. Since the synagogue was open to the public, many misnagdim came to listen as well, including some who hoped to find something they could seize upon to make accusations. Yet the Alter Rebbe’s teachings made a powerful impression on all who heard them, and the misnagdim could not make head or tail of the Torah he taught. Word spread through Minsk that the leader of the sect—that is, the chassidim—the Alter Rebbe, had delivered Torah teachings like the discourse of holy seraphim and had set every heart aflame. And so the story passed from mouth to mouth, with each person adding his own embellishment,

03:04 until it was being told that when the rabbi of the chassidim delivered his Torah teachings, heavenly angels were seen, and some people were even set aflame with a heavenly fire. A saying circulated among the people that the rabbi of the chassidim was a baal shem, and his attendants were holy angels. The scholars and Torah students, though, were moved in a different way. Hearing his Torah teachings had a remarkable effect on them. Meanwhile, the beis din’s reply arrived: after Shabbos, they would select a group of scholars to examine the rabbi of the chassidim on various Talmudic topics. There was not yet a minyan of chassidim in Minsk. Since the Alter Rebbe had already instituted his version of the prayer service, according to the Arizal, the community leaders saw fit to provide a separate place for him and the guests who had come with him to pray as they wished. In Minsk, people customarily prayed at sunrise, so by the time the Alter Rebbe prayed, at the ninth hour, they had already eaten their Shabbos meal. A large crowd therefore gathered to hear the song and prayer of the Alter Rebbe and the chassidim with him. The Alter Rebbe led the prayers and also read from the Torah himself. His meticulous rendering of the cantillation notes amazed those listening. As a rule, the Alter Rebbe read the Torah himself, with precise melody and great attention to the rules of pronunciation. It was said that although his pronunciation was Ashkenazic rather than Sephardic, one could hear him distinguish between ayin and alef, and between ches and chaf, as the Sephardim do. When reading the Torah, the Alter Rebbe stood on the right, with his face covered by his tallis, so that only his holy beard was visible; the person called to the Torah stood on his left. At times the Alter Rebbe would lift his tallis and look at the person called up, and on several occasions that person fainted from sheer awe. The Alter Rebbe’s chassidim relate that whoever merited being called to the Torah when the Alter Rebbe was reading merited a great light. The Alter Rebbe’s minyan

05:54 prayed word by word. The weekday prayers lasted about an hour and a half, sometimes an hour and three quarters; the Shabbos prayers lasted twice as long or more, not counting the Torah reading. The beautiful order, the chassidim’s discipline, and the overall atmosphere of Torah study and avodah made a great impression on the large crowd that had gathered to see and hear what was happening in the synagogue where the Alter Rebbe prayed. Over the course of the long summer Shabbos day, word spread through the city. It is no wonder that by the time of the third meal, a crowd had gathered that the walls of the beis midrash could not contain. Even before the Alter Rebbe arrived, they decided to take the bimah out of the synagogue so the entire crowd could hear his Torah teachings. Many of those assembled protested, saying that this should not be done on Shabbos because of the prohibitions concerning carrying and making a temporary structure. But their voices were drowned out by the crowd, and while they were still speaking, the bimah was carried outside. The Frierdiker Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak, relates in the name of the chossid Reb Abba of Chashnik: Reb Abba’s father had seen the Alter Rebbe several times and later became attached to his son, the Mitteler Rebbe, while Reb Abba’s father-in-law was attached to Rabbi Aharon of Strashelye. When Reb Abba of Chashnik was twelve, he became engaged. When he reached bar mitzvah age, his prospective father-in-law took him to Strashelye. Because his father-in-law was very close to Rabbi Aharon, Reb Abba too was warmly received. His account is very interesting: alongside the general story of the Alter Rebbe, we are now telling another story. Reb Abba’s account of his first visit to Rabbi Aharon of Strashelye, together with his prospective father-in-law, is very interesting. Rabbi Aharon’s speech, Reb Abba relates, was a flame of fire. Whenever he mentioned the Alter Rebbe’s name, he would rise to his full height and stop speaking, so great was his dveikus. Reb Abba did not remember the Torah teaching Rabbi Aharon delivered; he had not understood it either. But what he saw and heard, he said, implanted yiras Shamayim in his heart.

08:54 When Reb Abba and his prospective father-in-law entered, Rabbi Aharon told them: “When I was seventeen, I merited seeing the holy Rebbe. I was among those who came to Minsk and merited seeing the Alter Rebbe as a commander of Hashem’s army.” Rabbi Aharon became fervent and paced around his room, crying out and speaking to himself. “G-dliness, G-dliness, holiness. Ay, ay, ay!” He went on like this for a long time. Afterward, he continued his account of the debate in Minsk. This is what he related: Thousands of people were in the synagogue in Minsk that day. When the holy Rebbe ascended the bimah, a G-dly awe fell upon everyone, and they stood in the same state in which the Jewish people stood at Mount Sinai. When the Alter Rebbe began his Torah teaching and uttered the words “Hear, O Israel,” the entire crowd was stirred and aflame with holy fervor. The Alter Rebbe’s appearance and voice inspired awe, and everyone was overcome with the fear of Heaven. The Frierdiker Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak, continues: In 5664, when Reb Abba was in good spirits toward me, he gave me a copy of the discourse the Alter Rebbe had delivered in Minsk, which he had found among his father-in-law’s papers. “Hear, O Israel, Hashem is our G-d, Hashem is One.” “Hear, O Israel”: a Jew hears and senses that Hashem is our G-d, that our strength and life-force come from the name Havayah. The yud is Chochmah; the first hei is Binah; the vav is the middos; and the final hei is Malchus. “Hashem is One”: everything is united in absolute oneness. But that is only from the soul’s perspective, for the soul perceives G-dliness tangibly. When the soul descends below and is clothed in a body, however, even if a person’s mind is filled with Torah, it remains only an intellectual understanding, for the body conceals. The prescribed remedy is teshuvah: to transform the darkness into the light of heartfelt feeling. And when a person contemplates that he and his soul are emissaries of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, sent to illuminate the thick, doubled and redoubled darkness of this physical world and, through his avodah in Torah, prayer, and the observance of mitzvos with love and awe, to make it

11:36 into a vessel for G-dliness, as it is written, “The soul of man is the lamp of Hashem.” Just as a lamp illuminates the darkness of a house, so the soul illuminates the darkness of the world through serving Hashem with Torah and mitzvos. Of this it is said, “And there shall be blessing in the midst of the earth”: to draw down the aspect of “Blessed is Hashem” into the world, so that the name of Hashem is revealed in the revealed world, from alma d’iskasya, the concealed world, into alma d’isgalya, the revealed world. This revelation of Hakadosh Boruch Hu should awaken a stirring in a person’s heart, from deep within. His soul should leave its earthly confines—that is, the body—and yearn for Hashem: “My soul longs for Hashem.” This is the meaning of “Hashem is one.” And when a person thinks deeply about this for a long time—that from the soul’s perspective there is nothing to prevent or resist this service, but his material body and his coarse, cold intellect hold him back—and contemplates the severity of the punishment of a king’s emissary who fails in his mission, and the immense damage he causes to all the affairs of the kingdom, particularly when the mission is from the King of kings, Hakadosh Boruch Hu: because of this, the person will be distanced from the palace of the supreme King and will undergo many reincarnations, and then perhaps, perhaps, perhaps he will fulfill his mission—his mission. But it is written, “Today, to do them.” Then he will become fired up, blazing with an inner cry: “To You, Hashem, I lift up my soul,” and “he will repent, and He will heal him.” The Frierdiker Rebbe relates that when the chossid Reb Abba recounted all this, he became completely animated, and would say: “True, afterward I merited to see the Mitteler Rebbe and also to become attached to the Tzemach Tzedek. But I will never forget what I saw and heard then from the chossid. A chossid, certainly; a tzaddik, certainly; holy and pure, certainly—but not a Rebbe. Reb Aharon, repeating this maamar of the Alter Rebbe, was then as though hearing the word of Hashem issuing from the holy mouth of the Alter Rebbe himself.” When Reb Aharon finished repeating the maamar, he said, “And since then we have been bound by an enduring bond.” That day with the Alter Rebbe—the davening, the Torah reading, and the delivery of

14:25 the Torah teaching—purified the air in Minsk and had a great positive effect on the entire congregation, especially the Torah scholars. On Sunday, the beis din issued an announcement that on Tuesday there would be a debate involving in-depth Torah discussion with “the rabbi of the sect.” The story continues. There was a chossid named Reb Yitzchak Isaac of Vitebsk, who related to the Rebbe Maharash—that is, to the grandson of the Alter Rebbe’s grandson; or rather, to the son of the Alter Rebbe’s grandson—that in the year 5543, that is, 1783, he was fifteen years old and an outstanding student of the rosh yeshivah Reb Zalman Stotzker [unclear]. Because he was among his finest students, Reb Zalman took him, along with five other students, to Minsk for the debate with the chassidim. Reb Zalman was about eighty years old and a renowned Torah genius. Disregarding his age, he traveled more than a hundred versts to test “the rabbi of the sect,” as he called him. He told his students, “If Hashem, blessed be He, grants me the merit to rescue the rabbi of the sect from the net of heresy into which he has mistakenly fallen—for the Torah teachings repeated in his name show that he is a learned man, and it is only through Satan’s doing that he has fallen into heresy—then when I come to the World to Come, I will demand an extra portion of Leviathan for it.” The chossid Reb Yitzchak Isaac continues his account: When we arrived in Minsk, there was a large gathering of the visiting Torah scholars and their elders. These were the misnagdim, of course. Among the elders were Reb Tzelke, Reb Shimon’le, and Reb Zalman, with whom I had come. Reb Tzelke had been among the first to study under the Gaon Reb Eliyahu when he was young. Reb Tzelke knew the Talmud, Rashi, and Tosafos by heart, letter for letter. He was nearsighted, and did most of his studying from memory, aloud and in a singsong voice, as though reading from a book. Reb Shimon’le was proficient in the Babylonian Talmud, but his particular brilliance was in the Jerusalem Talmud

17:15 and the Rambam, and he was also a man of great insight. Reb Zalman, besides his brilliance and great diligence, was an earnest man. He never looked beyond his immediate surroundings, and never engaged in idle talk. Reb Zalman, Reb Yitzchak Isaac related, was also proficient in Kabbalah, for he had spent some five years living in seclusion at the yeshivah of the Gaon Reb Yechiel, author of Seder Hadoros, in Minsk. Not a single night passed without Reb Zalman rising for Tikkun Chatzos, and from one Shabbos to the next he never tasted meat. At this gathering of the misnagdic scholars, they first lifted the ban that had been proclaimed in 5532 against all the students of the Maggid of Mezritch and all who followed them. After lifting the ban, Reb Tzelke began speaking tearfully before those assembled about the emergence of a new “sect of heretics,” and how Satan’s work was succeeding: many people were being drawn after them, including many scholars and people knowledgeable in Torah who had the fear of G-d upon their faces, but who were mistakenly drawn after their misguided views. One of those assembled recited from memory the list of the “sect’s” sins—that is, those of the chassidim. Then emissaries from the beis din arrived and told the participants in the gathering what was happening in the city: many Torah scholars were being drawn after the chassidim; the “rabbi of the sect”—that is, the Alter Rebbe—had delivered Torah teachings twice and displayed acts of sorcery, for angels had appeared while he was teaching Torah. There were also witnesses, they said, that they had publicly desecrated Shabbos by carrying the bimah from the shul into the courtyard. Well, Reb Zalman wept over this great calamity. Afterward they decided who would test the Alter Rebbe in Torah study, prepared all the questions with which they would test him, and also decided that the day of the debate would be declared a fast day, with Selichos recited. The great day arrived. The beis din came to the appointed place. The Alter Rebbe arrived accompanied by his two brothers, both Torah scholars, several elderly chassidim, and many

20:02 young married men. When the Alter Rebbe arrived, they cleared a path for him to the place designated for him. Before going there, the Alter Rebbe approached the right side of the bimah in the middle of the shul and recited the verse, “But I, through Your abundant kindness, will enter Your house.” Reb Yitzchak Isaac relates: “Awe and trembling seized me when I heard his quivering voice recite that verse, and when he reached the word ‘in awe of You,’ fear fell upon everyone present.” The Alter Rebbe then sat on one of the benches near his designated place and recited Psalm 134. When he finished, he stood and went to the place assigned to him. Reb Yitzchak Isaac relates: “I was amazed to see that there was not a single white hair in the Alter Rebbe’s beard.” They then began the examination, which lasted about five hours. The Alter Rebbe answered every question graciously and clearly. The scholars examining him marveled at the depth of his intellect, the strength of his memory, and his remarkable ability to quote everything in its precise wording. When they had finished testing him, the Alter Rebbe said that he had several matters in Torah study that he wished to present before the scholars examining him. He then asked several questions. The Alter Rebbe’s questions caused an uproar among the scholars, and the beis din announced that the continuation of the debate was postponed until the next day. They then davened Minchah with the reading of Vayechal, for the beis din and all the participants in the debate were distressed that they had been forced to sit together with someone who had previously been under a ban. Reb Yitzchak Isaac continues: Broken and worn down by the fast, Reb Zalman returned to his lodgings, tired and weary from the deep, analytical discussions he had heard that day. He told his students that the gathering had been like a chamber of the Sanhedrin, and that “the rabbi of the sect”—the Alter Rebbe—was a great Torah scholar with a sharp, expansive mind, but that apparently something terrible had happened to him, may Hashem protect us. After eating something, Reb Zalman told us all that he had not fully grasped the questions asked by

23:08 “the rabbi of the sect,” meaning the Alter Rebbe. He therefore wanted to meet with his colleagues Reb Tzelke and Reb Shimon’le the next morning, after the early morning davening. Meanwhile, word spread through Minsk that the rabbi of the chassidim had answered every question put to him, but that the scholars had found no answer to the questions he had asked them, and had postponed the matter until the following day. Great excitement was evident among the misnagdic scholars.