Chapter 185 - The Tzemach Tzedek Grows Up Near His Grandfather the Alter Rebbe

00:01 We continue the story of the Alter Rebbe’s daughter Devorah Leah and her mesirus nefesh. Devorah Leah passed away on the Fast of Gedaliah 5553—1793. During the days of shivah, the Alter Rebbe himself led all three daily prayers, and the Tzemach Tzedek, the little orphan, recited the Kaddishes. On the eve of Yom Kippur, the Alter Rebbe visited Rebbetzin Devorah Leah’s gravesite and said that the child should be brought there too. Standing beside the grave, the Alter Rebbe said, “Just as the righteous are greater after their passing than during their lives, so too are their blessings greater after their passing than during their lives.” Everyone present burst into tears. The Alter Rebbe stood holding his young grandson’s hand and said aloud, “I ask you, Devorah Leah daughter of Shterna: today, the eve of Yom Kippur, please bless your only son, the orphan Menachem Mendel son of Devorah Leah, that this little one should grow great in both the revealed and the hidden teachings of Torah, and be blessed with success, good deeds, and long life. Please ask for mercy for me, for the community of chassidim, and for the teachings of the Baal Shem Tov.” Then, after Yom Kippur, the Alter Rebbe summoned the chossid Rabbi Avraham son of Rabbi Shimshon Melamed and proposed that he move to Lubavitch—sorry, move from Lubavitch, where he lived with his family, to live with the Alter Rebbe in Liozna and study with his grandson. But since, according to Torah, a husband cannot change his place of residence, even from one house to another, without his wife’s consent—and certainly not from one town to another—he first needed to consult his wife. So the Alter Rebbe suggested that he return home for Sukkos. Rabbi Avraham usually stayed with the Alter Rebbe in Liozna for the entire month of Tishrei, but now the Alter Rebbe told him, “Go home, speak with your wife, and with her consent, come

02:39 afterward with your family to Liozna. Meanwhile, for reasons I am keeping to myself, I want to bring my grandson Menachem Mendel son of Devorah Leah into cheder on the day after Yom Kippur, the day everyone calls ‘Fun G-tts Nomen.’” And indeed, on the day after Yom Kippur, the Alter Rebbe prayed at daybreak, earlier than usual. He led the prayers and himself read the weekly parsha. It was Thursday of Parshas Haazinu. His little grandson recited every Kaddish, from the Kaddish d’Rabbanan before the prayers through the Kaddish d’Rabbanan after the Alter Rebbe’s study of Mishnayos. The Alter Rebbe was generally careful to follow the order of Kohen, Levi, and Yisroel when calling people to the Torah. But at the Torah reading that Thursday, 11 Tishrei 5553, he did not follow that order. He instructed the shamash, the chossid Rabbi Baruch Shlomo, to call the Alter Rebbe himself for the first aliyah, in place of a Kohen; the righteous Rabbi Sholom Shachna, the Alter Rebbe’s son-in-law and the child’s father, for the section beginning “The Rock, His work is perfect,” in place of a Levi; and for the section beginning “Remember the days of old,” to call the child with these words: “Menachem Mendel, son of Rabbi Sholom Shachna and Devorah Leah,” together with Rabbi Avraham son of Rabbi Shimshon. The Alter Rebbe read “Remember the days of old” with extraordinary feeling. “Every word,” Rabbi Avraham Melamed related, “penetrated my mind and heart. When he read the verses, ‘He found him in a desert land... He surrounded him, He gave him understanding, He guarded him like the pupil of His eye,’ two large tears rolled from the Alter Rebbe’s eyes onto the lower margin of the Torah scroll, and I felt my knees give way.” After the prayers, the Alter Rebbe instructed them to wrap the child in a tallis so that he would see nothing, and to carry him to his mother’s grave. The Alter Rebbe, all the members of the household and family, and a large crowd of chassidim who joined them set out for the cemetery. When they reached the

05:18 cemetery, the Alter Rebbe, the child, and his father, Rabbi Sholom Shachna, approached Rebbetzin Devorah Leah’s gravesite. The Alter Rebbe proclaimed in a strong, joyful voice, “Mazel tov, Devorah Leah daughter of Shterna! Today I am bringing my grandson Menachem Mendel son of Devorah Leah into Torah. Bless him that, just as he has entered into Torah, so may he enter into marriage and good deeds, with long life.” “Amen!” the entire crowd answered with a mighty voice. When they returned from the cemetery, the Alter Rebbe instructed that the child be brought into the synagogue hall. He turned to Rabbi Avraham Melamed and asked him to study the first section of the Book of Vayikra with the child. Meanwhile, the Alter Rebbe sat leaning on his holy arms, absorbed in profound dveikus. When the lesson ended, the Alter Rebbe gave the child a slice of honey and a hard-boiled egg, on which various verses had been inscribed. Then the grandson asked his grandfather why the word “Vayikra” at the beginning of the book is written with a small alef. The Alter Rebbe sat for some time, still absorbed in dveikus. He opened his eyes and said, “Adam, the first man, was formed by Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s own hands. Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself testified that Adam’s wisdom surpassed that of the ministering angels. Adam knew his own greatness, and he attached importance to himself and held himself in high regard; he then stumbled in the sin of the Tree of Knowledge. Moshe Rabbeinu’s soul, by contrast, was hewn from the very wisdom of Atzilus, and his soul shone even in this physical world. As our Sages said, ‘The entire house was filled with light’—the light of Hashem from the world of Atzilus, which transcends all worlds. Moshe Rabbeinu also knew his own greatness, but he did not attach importance to himself. On the contrary, it made him brokenhearted and humble of spirit, because he thought: If someone else, another Jew—not the son of Amram, not a seventh-generation descendant of Avraham Avinu from father to son—had been granted such a lofty soul

07:35 and ancestral merit like mine, that Jew would certainly have been greater than I am. After all, Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself says of Moshe Rabbeinu, ‘And the man Moshe was exceedingly humble, more than any person on the face of the earth.’ Moshe Rabbeinu measured himself against every person, even the simplest of the simple, and said: If that person had been given the same spiritual gifts and ancestral merit that I have—not through his own toil, but as a gift from Above—he would certainly have been greater than I am.” So said the Alter Rebbe. The Alter Rebbe continued: “There are three kinds of letters in the Torah: asvan ravrevan, large letters; asvan beinoniyos, medium-sized letters; and asvan ze’irin, small letters. The Torah as a whole is written in medium-sized letters, signifying that a person should attain the level of a beinoni, which he can reach through Torah study. Adam, whose awareness of his own greatness led him to stumble in the sin of the Tree of Knowledge, has his name written with a large alef. Moshe Rabbeinu, whose work in recognizing his own lowliness brought him to an exceptionally high level of humility, has ‘Vayikra’ written with a small alef.” The Alter Rebbe then delivered a maamar on the verse, “When a person among you brings an offering to Hashem,” and asked everyone gathered to take part in a seudas mitzvah. When the Alter Rebbe left the synagogue, everyone washed their hands for the meal. The elder chassidim seated the little boy on a chair placed on the table and asked him to repeat the Alter Rebbe’s answer to his question about why “Vayikra” is written with a small alef. In a loud, childlike voice, the boy repeated his grandfather’s teaching. The elderly chossid Rabbi Reuven Sandler stood up and said, “May Hashem, blessed be He, fulfill all the blessings the Alter Rebbe gave his grandson Menachem Mendel son of Devorah Leah.” The entire crowd answered, “Amen and amen.” Every year of his life, the Rebbe

10:08 The Tzemach Tzedek observed the yahrzeit of his mother, Rebbetzin Devorah Leah, on the Fast of Gedaliah, and would deliver Chassidus. The maamarim he delivered centered on the greatness of the sefirah of Malchus as it will be revealed in the future. Then, on 19 Kislev 5592, the Tzemach Tzedek said: Avraham Avinu knew that he was destined to father a son from whose descendants the chosen people would come. He also knew Nimrod’s power as a mighty hunter who incited rebellion against Hashem. It was possible that Nimrod, with the help of Satan and his forces, would defeat and kill Avraham Avinu. Nevertheless, Avraham put his life in real danger—not because he trusted that Hashem would save him, but because he gave himself over and actually risked his life to make Hashem’s G-dliness known in the world, without thinking about what would happen afterward. So too, said the Tzemach Tzedek, my grandfather the Alter Rebbe knew the power of Satan, who brought accusations against the teachings and path of our teacher the Baal Shem Tov and the Maggid of Mezritch. From the time the Alter Rebbe began delivering the maamarim of Tanya in public in 5542, the opposition intensified alarmingly. When he delivered them a second time in 5552, the accusations grew far stronger, until my mother fell ill and passed away on 3 Tishrei 5553. The Alter Rebbe put his holy life at risk to arrange the Tanya, the Written Torah of Chabad Chassidus. His life remained in danger until 5559, when his holy body, too, was endangered: he was imprisoned and suffered deathly torment for fifty-three days, corresponding to the fifty-three chapters of Tanya. Through his holy work, he merited that Tanya—whose letters can be rearranged to spell eisan, meaning “strong”—would awaken the eisan, the strength within the soul. Everyone who studies this holy book of his will be strengthened in their service of Hashem. The Alter Rebbe

13:04 kept his promise to his daughter Devorah Leah. Every day, including Shabbos and festivals and even the High Holidays, he set aside time to study with his beloved grandson, saying that in this way he was repaying the debt he owed his daughter Devorah Leah. In one of the notes of Rabbi Moshe, the Alter Rebbe’s youngest son, Rabbi Moshe writes at length about what the Alter Rebbe said in 5555, two years after the passing of his daughter, Rebbetzin Devorah Leah, concerning the elevation of Devorah Leah’s soul through his study with her son. The Alter Rebbe explained at length the spiritual benefit children bring their parents through their Torah study and good conduct. After the boy, the Tzemach Tzedek, reached bar mitzvah at thirteen, the Alter Rebbe studied with him privately, including the books Kuzari, Moreh Nevuchim, Ikkarim and Avodas Hakodesh. They studied all this in the manner of Chassidus, as well as the book Eitz Chaim, a work of Kabbalah approached through inquiry. On one occasion, the Tzemach Tzedek told his youngest son, the Rebbe Maharash, that when the Alter Rebbe studied these books with him, he intended to rectify certain matters. Although the intentions of the authors of Kuzari, Moreh Nevuchim and Ikkarim were good, many accusations had arisen against them, and they needed an awakening of mercy for their rectification and elevation. “I myself sensed many times, in visions at night during that period, the rectification and elevation that my grandfather the Alter Rebbe accomplished for them through his study,” the Tzemach Tzedek continued. In a letter to his son, the Rebbe Maharash, the Tzemach Tzedek writes: “When I was three, my grandfather the Alter Rebbe taught me to be orderly. When I was five, he told me that one must work harder at being orderly than at becoming a scholar, because order is one of the fundamental principles in all matters of understanding and character.” And the chossid Reb Yitzchak Aizik of Homil, whom we have already spoken

15:51 about at length, was a chossid of the Alter Rebbe. He lived in the time of Reb Pinchas Reizes, Reb Moshe Vilenker and Reb Yosef Kolbok [unclear]—yes, all those great chassidim. In any case, the chossid Reb Yitzchak Aizik of Homil relates that at the age of three or four, the Tzemach Tzedek spent the whole day in the Alter Rebbe’s room, because the Alter Rebbe taught him to recite the blessings. The Tzemach Tzedek spoke clearly. He knew the morning blessings, Shema and the blessings over food by heart, and could read written letters like a six-year-old. Even then, he knew several stories from the Torah and the Early and Later Prophets. “We all knew,” Reb Yitzchak Aizik relates, “that the Alter Rebbe cherished his grandson, because we all knew that his mother, Rebbetzin Devoraleh, was a woman of great understanding and fear of Hashem, devoted to the Alter Rebbe like one of the great chassidim.” The Rebbe Rashab, of blessed memory, said in one of his sichos: The leaders of Chabad mirrored what takes place Above. The Alter Rebbe would daven for two hours every day: half an hour before Boruch She’amar, an hour from Boruch She’amar until after Shemoneh Esrei, and half an hour for the remaining parts of the davening. On Shabbos, it was beyond all limits. But on weekdays he davened for two hours each day, because that is the time for davening Above, and so he davened for that length of time as well. The Alter Rebbe would sit all day wearing tefillin. On Friday, he would fall asleep while wearing tefillin. Although he knew that one may not sleep in tefillin, that time was a time of sleep Above as well, and so he would fall asleep then as a matter of course. In another sicha, the Rebbe Rashab relates that his grandfather the Tzemach Tzedek said of the Alter Rebbe: Had he lived in the era of the Amoraim, he would have been an Amora. Had he lived in the era of the Tannaim, he would have been a Tanna—and likewise at an even higher level. By “higher,” he apparently meant that had he lived in the era of the prophets, he too would have been

18:09 a prophet.