Chapter 172 - The Life Story of the Chossid Yitzchok Eizik of Vitebsk

00:01 We are going to look a little at the history of the Jews of White Russia. Torah gradually reached the region of Reisen, known as White Russia, comprising the three provinces of Minsk, Mogilev, and Vitebsk. These three provinces had large Jewish populations, living in district towns, small towns, villages, and settlements. Since the soil in these provinces was largely poor compared with the fertile soil of Ukraine, most of their inhabitants were very poor and struggled to provide for their families. Yet at the beginning of the fifth century of the sixth millennium—that is, around the year 5580, corresponding to the period from 1740 onward—the light of Torah began to appear in these provinces too, through Jews who came from the Vilna and Zamut regions and from Kiev on the other side. Within about twenty years, points of Torah light could already be seen in towns throughout the three provinces. These were Torah scholars who had been taken as sons-in-law by wealthy and prominent Jews in the towns. Supported by their fathers-in-law, these Torah scholars spread the light of Torah in their places of residence in various ways. Some founded groups for the study of Mishnah, Gemara, and halachah. Others founded groups for the study of Aggadah, Midrash, and Jewish law. Above all, they established beacons of Torah in yeshivos for young men studying Torah. Within just a few years, the rivalry of scholars increased wisdom, and the eagerness of those who loved Torah produced more fine students of great ability. In those days, people generally stayed in their towns and places of residence and did not travel much from place to place, certainly not the long distances from one province to another. But because of the vigorous efforts of the Torah scholars who founded and ran the yeshivos and cared about their students’ progress, they worked hard to send their best students to yeshivos in the regions of Vilna, Zamut, and Kiev. Each student spent three to five years in a yeshivah and devoted himself to Torah study while there. At the same time, he would take care to find good husbands for his sisters, for over the years several hundred Torah scholars came

03:18 to settle in the three provinces we are discussing. In the second half of the fifth century—that is, from 5580 onward—the city of Minsk, the chief city of Reisen, was one of the greatest centers of Torah. There were hundreds of gifted students there. Then, about forty years after the towns of the Mogilev and Vitebsk provinces opened their doors to Torah scholars, and thanks to the strong spiritual condition of our fellow Jews, with their love of Torah and affection for holiness, institutions of Torah study were established in every town, settlement, and village. In the years 5481 and 5491, we find throughout Reisen thousands of craftsmen—shoemakers and carpenters—people working in the fields and gardens, shopkeepers, market traders, and peddlers who traveled from village to village. All of them had a substantial Torah education, because they had come from the yeshivos, and even now each studied Torah according to his ability. Most knew several orders of Mishnah and several hundred pages of Gemara by heart. The Baal Shem Tov and his companions of his generation, the hidden tzaddikim, visited these Torah institutions, sowing the light of the teachings of Chassidus and explaining the ways of serving Hashem through Ahavas Yisroel. They were followed by the Maggid of Mezritch’s companions and disciples, the holy fellowship. At this point, the Frierdiker Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak, relates a story told by the renowned gaon and chossid Rabbi Yitzchak Isaac of Vitebsk to the Rebbe Maharash. Let us look at Rabbi Yitzchak Isaac’s life. The well-known chossid Rabbi Yitzchak Isaac was born in Smilovitch in 5508, that is, about eight years after the passing of the Baal Shem Tov. His father was the gaon and tzaddik Rabbi Yeshayah the Masmid, to whom Rabbi Yitzchak Isaac was born in his old age. Rabbi Yitzchak Isaac was raised in the home of his uncle by marriage, his mother’s sister’s husband, the gaon and tzaddik Rabbi Zalmele Stoltzer. We already spoke about him when discussing the debate in Minsk. Rabbi Yitzchak Isaac served as a rav for about seventy-five years: fifteen years in Ostrovna, near Vitebsk, and sixty

06:35 years as rav in the city of Vitebsk itself. There was great love and special affection between the Rebbe Maharash, the fourth Chabad Rebbe, and the chossid Rabbi Yitzchak Isaac. The Rebbe Maharash’s father, the Tzemach Tzedek, held Rabbi Yitzchak Isaac in great affection and gave him the title “the halachic authority and decisor, Rabbi Yitzchak Isaac.” In fact, Rabbi Yitzchak Isaac had already been a chossid of the Alter Rebbe, and even then he was an outstanding gaon who had clarified and resolved various halachic questions in all four sections of the Shulchan Aruch. There is a well-known letter that the Rebbe Maharash wrote to Rabbi Yitzchak Isaac in Mar Cheshvan 5608 about a halachic question. In fact, he wrote it at the instruction of the Tzemach Tzedek. The Rebbe Maharash continues his account: When I was eight years old, I saw the chossid Rabbi Yitzchak Isaac of Vitebsk for the first time in a way that made a real impression on me. It was in Kislev, when Rabbi Yitzchak Isaac came to Lubavitch for 19 Kislev. There was a great deal of snow in the courtyards. Only specially cleared paths led from the home of my father, the Tzemach Tzedek, to the large minyan in the courtyard, and there were also paths from house to house within the courtyard. When I saw that the candles had already been lit in the courtyard shul, I hurried over. When I arrived, I saw my great-uncle, the chossid Rabbi Chaim Avraham, son of the Alter Rebbe, and my uncle Rabbi Menachem Nochum, son of the Mitteler Rebbe, dancing in a circle with three elderly men. Many dozens of people, including all my brothers and their sons, stood around them, singing and clapping in time with the song. “I loved my uncle Rabbi Chaim Avraham very much,” the Rebbe Maharash told his son, the Rebbe Rashab. “I loved my uncle—apparently Rabbi Chaim Avraham—and my uncle Rabbi Menachem Nochum too. They were always telling me stories about what they had seen

09:22 in the home of our grandfather, the Alter Rebbe, and in the home of our grandfather, the Mitteler Rebbe, and what they had heard from the elder chassidim. More than once, after visiting my great-uncle Rabbi Chaim Avraham, I would come to my father, the Tzemach Tzedek, and when he asked where I had been, I would tell him what I had heard from my great-uncle. My father enjoyed it very much and instructed me to visit him more often. My great-uncle Rabbi Chaim Avraham was in poor health then. He was not all that old, about sixty-four or sixty-five, but at times he suffered from heart pain and could not bear wearing many layers of clothing. Several times I found him sitting in a light garment with a yarmulke on his head. But when he began telling a story about his father, the Alter Rebbe, or our teacher the Maggid or our teacher the Baal Shem Tov, or his brother, the Mitteler Rebbe, he would put on a gartel and place a hat over his yarmulke. Before each story he would tell me: ‘I heard my father, the Alter Rebbe, say many times: When we heard Torah teachings from our teacher and Rebbe, the Maggid of Mezritch, they were like the Oral Torah to us. But when we heard a story from our teacher and Rebbe, it was like the Written Torah to us.’ My uncle Rabbi Menachem Nochum would also say this to me before telling me any story. Now, when I entered the minyan and saw my great-uncle Rabbi Chaim Avraham and my uncle Rabbi Menachem Nochum dancing, I made my way through the crowd, ran over to them, took hold of one of the elderly men’s gartels, and danced with them. I saw that my nephew Rabbi Schneur Zalman, who was four or five years older than I, was envious of my quickness and my confidence in joining the dance. But I paid no attention. About a month earlier, in Mar Cheshvan, I had been out of sorts

11:56 My health and the throat ailment had left me with weakness in my legs, and after dancing for a short while I felt pain. I stopped dancing, stood to the side, and watched the dance and the dancers. I raised my eyes toward my great-uncle, Rabbi Chaim Avraham, and saw tears running down his cheeks. His eyes were closed, his brow was furrowed, and his lips moved as though he were turning over old memories. When the dance ended, one of the elders, the chossid Rabbi Yitzchak Isaac of Vitebsk, approached my great-uncle Rabbi Chaim Avraham. They embraced and kissed each other, and he also embraced and kissed my uncle Rabbi Menachem Nachum. Holding them both by the hand, he said, “We rejoice in a joy that we saw with our own eyes. Fifty-eight and a half years ago, I saw the Alter Rebbe for the first time, in Minsk in the summer of 5543, when he engaged in a Torah debate among the misnagdim, mighty cedars of Lebanon and giants of Torah scholarship.” We have already told the story of that debate. “Whoever did not see that scene in Minsk did not see the luminaries of Torah in such an exalted way. That gathering was the great assembly of its generation. The leading Torah scholars of the entire region came to Minsk, including the finest of the great scholars of the Vilna, Slutsk, and Shklov regions. I,” Rabbi Yitzchak Isaac said to my great-uncle Rabbi Chaim Avraham, “had the privilege of receiving rabbinic ordination from the Alter Rebbe, written in his holy hand, and he blessed me with long life and success in issuing halachic rulings.” Before Rabbi Yitzchak Isaac had finished speaking, he began to dance with great joy, moving like someone overcome with happiness, like a young man. Then a voice announced that my father, the Rebbe the Tzemach Tzedek, was coming, and silence fell. The Rebbe Maharash continued telling his son, the Rebbe Rashab: “I was fortunate at every stage of my life. Even as a child, I had an unusual gift for finding favor with people, so that even the elder chassidim would show me regard and tell me teachings and stories. And since I had heard from Rabbi Yitzchak Isaac that he had seen

14:44 the Alter Rebbe at the beginning of his leadership, had studied in the schools the Alter Rebbe founded, and knew many stories, I drew close to him. Whenever I came to Lubavitch, I spent long hours in his company. Over some twenty-three years, from 5603 to 5626, I heard many teachings and different stories from him. Rabbi Yitzchak Isaac’s memory was extraordinary. When he recounted an event from his childhood, eighty or eighty-five years earlier, he would name the place and every person who had been there. From the way he spoke, it was clear that he could see the events he described before his eyes. ‘I,’ the chossid Rabbi Yitzchak Isaac related, ‘was born to my father, the great and righteous scholar Rabbi Yeshayah the Masmid, in his old age, when he was seventy-six. My father was a student in the yeshiva of the great Rabbi Yechiel, author of Seder Hadoros, in Glusk. By thirteen, he was counted among the prodigies. When he turned fifteen, the wealthy Eliyahu Zalman of Sari Kabki [?], a settlement near Minsk, took him as a son-in-law and supported him for about three years. Then, heaven spare us, he was widowed. For fifty-seven years after that, my father lived in seclusion and devoted himself to Torah study. For most of those years, he lived in Koidanov among the ten men supported by the communal council to remain available for a minyan. One day, while studying Tractate Berachos and the account of King Chizkiyahu and the prophet Yeshayahu, he came to the Sages’ teaching, “For you will die in this world and not live in the World to Come.” My father began to cry and was deeply distressed. That same day, someone close to him arrived and asked him to travel with him to Minsk for his son’s wedding. On their journey they passed through Smilovitch, where my father delivered a public Torah discourse. The people were amazed by the breadth of his knowledge and his fear of Heaven. The daughter of the great Rabbi Baruch lived there; she had been married twice and widowed twice. While my father was visiting Rabbi Baruch, they discussed this halachic matter in depth

17:39 and [unclear] the idea of marriage. On my father’s return journey through Smilovitch, it was suggested that he marry the daughter of the great Rabbi Baruch—my mother, the Rebbetzin. They married in the summer of 5527, and my father remained in Smilovitch because my mother had a house, a vegetable garden, a cow, a goat, and a grocery store. My father was able to devote himself to Torah study in comfort and contentment. I was born in 5528. My father was among the staunchest opponents of the group from Mezhibuzh, as it was called. Yet, because he was so devoted to study—Torah never ceased from his lips, day or night, and even on his way to and from shul and the beis midrash he would recite and review it by heart—he did not wish to discuss the dispute with the Baal Shem Tov. But he ruled sharply that the group from Mezhibuzh should be kept at a distance altogether. My mother, the Rebbetzin, bore my father four sons and one daughter. Of them all, only my sister Zelda Gita and I survived. She is the wife of the chossid Reb Zalman Leib of Ulla, of whom the Alter Rebbe said that his mind was as open as the entrance to the Ulam and his heart as broad as the entrance to the Heichal. But to our sorrow, during the epidemic that broke out after the war with France, Reb Zalman passed away with a good name. My father raised me in his way, to be a diligent and learned student. From the time I was six, he closely supervised when I went to bed and when I got up. He accustomed me to pray early, at sunrise, and to be careful to eat breakfast. By the age of eight or nine, I already conducted myself like one of the elders. On the day of my bar mitzvah, I delivered an extensive, intricate Torah discourse that my father had taught me, before an assembly of great scholars and elderly Torah scholars. Among them was my uncle by marriage, the husband of my mother’s sister, the great Rabbi Zalmele Stolsker. My maternal grandfather, the great Rabbi Baruch, was about seventy or a little older, but suffered from various ailments. About a month after my bar mitzvah, he passed away. His place was filled by his son, my uncle

20:28 Rabbi Chaim Tzvi, great in Torah scholarship and fear of Heaven, who had been one of the outstanding students at the yeshiva in Smorgon, renowned in those days. The city’s scholars and elders asked my father to accept the position of rabbi, and my uncle Chaim Tzvi asked him too, but to no avail. My father said, “I never wanted to be a rabbi, because it would not let me study Torah as I should. Now, at the end of my life, when every day is as precious as a year and every moment as precious as a day, could I deprive myself and, G-d forbid, take time away from Torah study?” My father lived for about another year. He passed away in Iyar 5542, at the age of ninety-one, and my mother, the Rebbetzin, was widowed for the third time, heaven spare us. She was then about fifty and was occupied with supporting the household and running the store. My only brother, who was about seven when my father died, also fell ill and passed away at the beginning of Sivan. Our grief was very great, for he was an exceptional boy of remarkable ability. One day during the previous Pesach, my father had spoken at length in praise of his brother-in-law, my uncle the great Rabbi Zalmele, lauding his gift for deep analysis and clear explanation. My mother, the Rebbetzin, was a woman of great understanding. When she saw that my studies in Smilovitch would lack the supervision they needed, she took what my father had said during Pesach about the great qualities of his brother-in-law Rabbi Zalmele as something like a prophetic last wish. She therefore decided to send me to my uncle, Reb Zalmele Stolsker. For several days, however, my mother considered the situation. It was hard for her to send me away, since she was alone. In the end, she overcame her sorrow at sending her only son away. She hired Avraham the wagon driver, who traveled to Minsk, to take me to Kabilnik, where my uncle Zalmele lived at the time.