Chapter 167 - The Events Surrounding the Debate in Minsk

00:01 The continuation of the teaching that the Alter Rebbe explained to the great Torah scholars of Brisk, Minsk, and all the communities in the area. The teaching continues: It is written, “For man is a tree of the field.” There are fruit trees, which Rabbi Yechezkel says represent Torah scholars. And there is the thornbush—and it is precisely in the thornbush that the flame of the fire is found. The explanation is this: Torah scholars who study Torah are themselves like fire, because the Torah is compared to fire. But their fire does not keep burning without being consumed, because these Torah scholars satisfy it with the Torah insights they develop. In the thornbush, however—in those simple people—is found the flame of the fire. Through their sincere, earnest prayers and their recitation of Tehillim, even though they do not understand what they are saying and do it only out of simple faith, the flame of the fire burns within them without being consumed. Their great longing is for G-dliness, Torah, and mitzvos. “And Moshe said, ‘Let me turn aside now.’” Rashi explains: “Let me turn aside from here to draw near there.” Moshe Rabbeinu understood the lofty vision he was being shown: the great virtue of simple people compared with Torah scholars, that the flame is found precisely in the thornbush, precisely among simple people. Moshe Rabbeinu then reached the level of a baal teshuvah. But Moshe Rabbeinu was a completely righteous person, and the form of teshuvah practiced by someone completely righteous differs from ordinary teshuvah. When Moshe Rabbeinu was born, the Torah says, “She saw that he was good,” meaning that the entire house filled with light. His form of teshuvah was “Let me turn aside from here to draw near there.” In other words, even if I am at a high level and in an exalted state—even someone as completely righteous as Moshe Rabbeinu—there is still a need for this work of turning aside from here to draw near there. That is the movement of teshuvah. In delivering this teaching to the great scholars seated there, the Alter Rebbe clearly set out the Baal Shem Tov’s approach to serving the Creator, blessed be He. The flame of the fire is found among simple, sincere people, and the Jewish thornbush is not consumed; its fire is never sated,

03:13 while the fire of Torah among Torah scholars generally, and great scholars in particular, is sated by the pleasure they take in their Torah insights. Among simple people, however, the flame is not sated. Rather, their heartfelt prayers and simple recitation of Tehillim kindle that flame within them with an even greater longing and attraction to G-dliness. And the Baal Shem Tov explains his approach to the service of tzaddikim: they must be in a state of constant ascent. Tomorrow must always be on a higher level than today, and the entire service must have the movement of teshuvah. This approach of the Baal Shem Tov, the Alter Rebbe told the scholars, is founded on the first revelation to Moshe Rabbeinu, whom Hakadosh Boruch Hu chose to be the first redeemer and the final redeemer. The Divine revelation to Moshe Rabbeinu was not like the Divine revelation to Noach, or even like the Divine revelation to Avraham Avinu. The Divine revelation to Noach was a personal revelation, arising from Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s particular love for Noach. That love may have come because Noach found favor, as it is written, “And Noach found favor,” or the love and closeness may have been because he was the righteous man of his generation, as Hakadosh Boruch Hu told him, “For I have seen you to be righteous before Me in this generation.” In any case, the revelation was to Noach personally. The Divine revelation to Avraham Avinu was entirely different: a Divine revelation that included specific instructions in the ways of serving Hashem, along with great tests. Clearly, the Divine revelation to Avraham Avinu was far greater than the revelation to Noach. But ultimately, the love and closeness expressed in the Divine revelation to Avraham Avinu were also more personal, and were on account of what was to come. As it is written, “For I have known him, because he will command his children and his household after him to keep the way of Hashem, doing righteousness and justice.” Rashi explains that the words “For I have known him” are an expression of love, and that Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s love came

06:06 to Avraham Avinu because Avraham Avinu would teach and instruct his children and his household after him to follow the ways of Hashem. But the Divine revelation to Moshe Rabbeinu was not personal. It was not because he served Hashem. The revelation to Moshe Rabbeinu was a revelation to the one whom Hakadosh Boruch Hu had chosen to lead and redeem the Jewish people. In the Divine revelation to the redeemer and leader of the Jewish people, he was shown that their leader must be the emissary of redemption. As leader, he must find the flame within the thornbush, among simple people, and his entire task is to reveal that flame from within the thornbush. This is accomplished through the work of “Let me turn aside from here to draw near there.” That is, I leave my present state—however exalted it may be—and draw closer to an even higher state. The chossid and great scholar Rabbi Yitzchak Isaac relates with great enthusiasm that the Alter Rebbe repeated this teaching of the Baal Shem Tov and concluded: “In truth, the greater a Torah scholar a person is, the greater he must also be in serving Hashem. If not, G-d forbid, he is a transgressor against the King of the world, as it is written, ‘Those who transgress against Me.’ One must truly return in teshuvah from the depths of the heart, uprooting one’s own Amalek, which cools one’s commitment to the ways of Hashem and the ways of serving the Creator.” The chossid and great scholar Rabbi Yitzchak Isaac relates that the Alter Rebbe spoke these words with such fervor, with such heartfelt sincerity and such holy bearing of fear of Heaven and love for the Creator, blessed be He, that they made a great impression on everyone present. The foremost of the great scholars, the elderly Rabbi Aharon Yaakov, was the first to approach the Alter Rebbe... and said to him, “May you be blessed.” Rabbi Yitzchak Isaac continues: Anyone who did not witness that scene in Minsk never saw the luminaries of Torah in such an exalted setting. That gathering was the great assembly of that generation. At that assembly in Minsk came the leading Torah scholars of the entire region,

08:47 including the finest of the great scholars of the time from the regions of Vilna, Slutsk, and Shklov. Rabbi Yitzchak Isaac goes on to describe at length the far-reaching results of the debate in Minsk. The Alter Rebbe breathed the spirit of Chassidus into several dozen leading scholars, who decided to select the elders among them and send them to the Gaon Rabbi Eliyahu, to persuade him to rescind the ban that had been declared against the chassidim and their leader, the Maggid of Liozna. More significant than anything else was the great gain the Alter Rebbe made in that debate: some forty minyanim—four hundred young married men, most of them renowned men of spiritual stature with good reputations throughout the regions of Vilna, Brisk, Slutsk, Minsk, and Shklov. Some were distinguished by titles of praise such as veteran, [unclear], deliberate, incisive, prodigy, and the like. They attached themselves to the Alter Rebbe. Some went with him to Liozna at that time, while others came afterward, and almost all joined the ranks of the chassidim. We will go on to tell a little more about the debate, the various figures involved, and how they reacted to everything that happened. The paternal grandfather of the chossid Reb Nissen Skabala [unclear], whose name was Chaim Yehoshua, was a native of the town of Bychov and came from a family of misnagdim. Since his father earned his living by leasing mills near the town of Slutsk, Chaim Yehoshua moved there—that is, to Slutsk—and enrolled his son Chaim Yehoshua in a yeshivah in Slutsk. He studied there diligently for several years and made great progress. When he was fifteen, he entered one of the yeshivos in Minsk and studied there with tremendous diligence. At that time, opposition to the Baal Shem Tov’s approach intensified. The great scholars of Lithuania were particularly outspoken against the Maggid of Liozna, the Alter Rebbe, who was leading the effort to spread the teachings of the Baal Shem Tov and his disciple, the Maggid of Mezritch, throughout Lithuania. He had gathered many Torah scholars and was teaching them the practices of the group. The yeshivah students did as their scholarly teachers wished and spoke ill of the group and its leaders. And then

11:31 One day, word spread that the maggid from Liozna had come to Minsk to debate those who opposed his teachings, and the outstanding yeshiva students prepared questions and challenges with which to catch the head of the sect. When the Alter Rebbe arrived, the great scholars, teachers, and students surrounded him with their questions. For a week, day after day, the Alter Rebbe answered their questions for several hours from the bimah in the beis midrash. He would recite the passages in the Gemara, Rashi, Tosafos, Rambam, and Rosh by heart, exactly as they appeared in the books. This astonished the scholars who knew those texts well. When the Alter Rebbe put his own questions to them, they did not know how to answer. When the great scholars of Minsk asked him to give them the answers, the Alter Rebbe replied that they could hear them from his leading students at his yeshiva in his hometown. About six minyanim of the most talented students in the Minsk yeshivas went with the Alter Rebbe to Liozna. When news of this reached Vilna, they decided to place a ban on the chassidim and their leaders. That was the reason for the ban issued at that time. And another passage: When the Alter Rebbe was in Minsk for the first time, during the great debate, and after the well-known Shabbos on which he showed the city's scholars what true mastery of learning meant and prevailed over all the opponents of Chassidus, dozens of accomplished young scholars joined him and drew close to him. Seeing that these young scholars were about to become chassidim, the opponents held meetings and decreed a ban on studying Chassidus. On what grounds? On the grounds that it took time away from Torah study. When the Alter Rebbe heard the reason for the ban, he answered: The yetzer hara came to the opponents with the cunning of a clever thief. When he is caught stealing, he begins to cry, “Merciful One! Merciful One!”—invoking Hakadosh Boruch Hu. But the truth is that a thief can stand at the opening of the tunnel he has dug to commit a theft and call upon Hakadosh Boruch Hu to help him. And another passage: When the Alter Rebbe traveled

14:08 from Minsk after the debate, he stayed in the town of Smiln. It was a center of Torah learning, with young scholars living there. During the week the Alter Rebbe spent in Smiln, a full minyan of young men became chassidim, among them Reb Avraham Ber of Smiln. These young men were well known throughout the surrounding area for their good name. When Reb Avraham Ber first came to the Alter Rebbe in Liozna and entered yechidus, the Alter Rebbe told him: A person is like a tree of the field. When it bears no fruit, it becomes a barren tree. A Jew can be thoroughly versed in Shas and still be barren. One must be a tree that bears fruit. What are your Torah and your avodah worth if you have not yet brought light—meaning, if you have not brought light into another person? When you turn someone who knows Torah into someone who loves Hashem and show him a path in serving Hashem, he will have children who are rabbis. Reb Avraham Ber then stayed in Liozna for several weeks. On his way home to Smiln, he passed through the town of Lepel and remained there for some time. There he began to bear fruit, and among his first fruits was the chossid Reb Mordechai of Lepel. And another passage: Among those the Alter Rebbe brought back from Minsk after the great debate was the chossid Reb Yitzchak Isaac of Vitebsk, whose name we have mentioned several times. Several minyanim of exceptionally learned young men joined the Alter Rebbe on his journey from Minsk to Liozna. Reb Yitzchak Isaac of Vitebsk related: We thought the Alter Rebbe would reveal treasures of Torah to us. We thought angels envied us. We lacked nothing. We did not know that anything was missing. But when we arrived in Liozna, the Alter Rebbe opened two windows for us. He opened one window to let the impurity out—that is, to rid us of the self-importance, arrogance, and pride that had built up in us from the hundreds of pages of Gemara we had studied before. The Alter Rebbe opened a second window to let the G-dly light in. The chossid Reb Yitzchak Isaac served as rabbi in Vitebsk for

16:57 sixty years. Before that, he had been rabbi for fifteen years in the town of Ostrovna, near Vitebsk. His uncle, the great scholar Rabbi Zamil[unclear], was one of the leading opponents of the Alter Rebbe, and at first Reb Yitzchak Isaac was an opponent too. But after he was in Minsk when the Alter Rebbe debated the leading opponents, Reb Yitzchak Isaac came to know the Alter Rebbe and became attached to him. When the Alter Rebbe traveled from Minsk to Liozna, dozens of young men accompanied him, including Reb Yitzchak Isaac. A halachic discussion arose about Tefillas Haderech: Is it a blessing in its own right, or must it be a blessing joined to another blessing? They concluded that it is an independent blessing. The Alter Rebbe remarked that Tefillas Haderech is a prayer for the whole journey of a person's life on earth, and every day is part of that journey. These words affected Reb Yitzchak Isaac, who became a chossid and bound himself to the Alter Rebbe. It is said that Reb Yitzchak Isaac recited Tefillas Haderech every day, and his prayer was that he should be as he ought to be. He was not, of course, referring to physical life—worrying about it or fearing for it. As is well known, Reb Yitzchak Isaac reached a very old age and lived for more than ninety-seven years. He was not afraid for his physical life, for he was not a fearful person at all. He never worried and lived a tranquil life. Reb Yitzchak of Chotzk[unclear] said of Reb Yitzchak Isaac that his learning was clear Mishnah and settled halachah, because he lived calmly and without worry. The first time he visited the Alter Rebbe, the Alter Rebbe told him that one must not worry. Those words affected him so deeply that whenever, G-d forbid, something bad happened during his life, he would immediately say, “But the Rebbe told me not to worry at all.” It is therefore clear that the Tefillas Haderech he recited every day was not about physical life,

19:28 but about his spiritual journey, for which one must pray that it proceed as it should. During the Alter Rebbe's second debate in Minsk, everyone saw his extraordinary genius in the Torah discourse he delivered. It made a tremendous impression on the great scholars of Lithuania. The Alter Rebbe spoke mainly about the laws of blessings over food and drink, and that is why the first work he composed was on those laws. After a Torah discourse, the Alter Rebbe would always draw a lesson concerning a person's inner life. During that debate in Minsk, the Alter Rebbe commented on the Mishnah, “One who drinks water to quench his thirst recites, ‘Everything came into being through His word.’” The Alter Rebbe said: Water represents Torah. What is the sign and measure that a person is diligent and persevering in Torah study? When he says, “Everything came into being through His word”—that is, when in each and every thing in the world he sees and senses the word of Hashem that brings it into being. Many diligent scholars who studied eighteen or twenty-one hours a day were present when the Alter Rebbe said this. And here the Alter Rebbe came and gave them this interpretation. As a result, several minyanim of exceptionally learned and talented young men were drawn to him.