Chapter 191 - The Alter Rebbe is Freed and Arrives at the Home of the Misnaged

00:00 In connection with the Alter Rebbe’s imprisonment, we’re telling several stories surrounding it. Rabbi Mendel Yitzchak, a chossid, related that his grandfather, the chossid Rabbi Yechezkel, was born in the town of Starodub and was one of the Alter Rebbe’s chassidim. Once every two years he would walk to the Alter Rebbe in Liozna. When a law was passed requiring every family to have a surname, Rabbi Yechezkel chose the name Lioznov, after Liozna, where the Alter Rebbe lived. Now, when word reached Starodub of the Alter Rebbe’s imprisonment, and that he had been taken away in a black carriage like someone condemned to death, Rabbi Yechezkel gathered the chassidim and made a public declaration. He said that he was taking upon himself all the Alter Rebbe’s suffering, even to the point of death. He then fasted for three consecutive days and nights. On the third day, he davened Minchah early. He called the chassidim and told them that he would die in a few hours, because Heaven had accepted his request to take the Alter Rebbe’s place and serve as an atonement for him. Rabbi Yechezkel instructed them to bring mashke, drank a l’chaim, and said, “I don’t want to come to the World to Come looking self-righteous”—meaning, after ending a three-day fast. He also made the chassidim swear: “When the good news comes that the Rebbe has been released from prison, come to my grave with mashke, say l’chaim, and break into a dance.” He recited Vidui and passed away. At daybreak on the third day, 19 Kislev, the elder chassidim from Rabbi Yechezkel’s group arrived early at the shul, as was their custom for Tikkun Chatzos. They looked at one another, each waiting for someone else to say what he knew. Eventually it emerged that Rabbi Yechezkel had appeared to each of them in a dream and told them that on that day the Rebbe would leave prison with great honor, to be welcomed by the chassidim. So proclaimed

02:47 the one whose yahrzeit it was, the Maggid of Mezritch, in the middle of the night—apparently at midnight. Here, in parentheses, he writes that another account gives more detail: on the third day, after Minchah, the Baal Shem Tov came to the Maggid of Mezritch’s chamber. Several of the Maggid’s students and thousands of souls also came there. The Maggid of Mezritch delivered a teaching on the verse, “He redeemed my soul in peace”: “The soul of David—Moshe and David represent Chochmah and Malchus. An extension of Moshe exists in every generation to connect the souls of the Jewish people to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, through Torah. The level of David is to fight a mitzvah war, bringing souls closer to the service of their Creator.” Rabbi Yechezkel, who appeared to his fellow chassidim in their dreams, demanded that they fulfill the oath he had made them take: to come to his grave and tell him the good news. That’s the end of that story. Now for another story connected with it. When the Alter Rebbe was released from the Peter and Paul Fortress on 19 Kislev 5559, as we related, it was in the evening. They asked him where to take him. The Alter Rebbe told them to bring him to the home of the chossid Rabbi Mordechai of Liepli, who, as we already know, lived in Petersburg. But in the same building as Rabbi Mordechai’s apartment was the apartment of an enemy of the chassidim, a leader of the misnagdim named Natan Notkin. Natan Notkin assailed the Rebbe with words and accusations. His first question was why the chassidim had taken such an exalted name for themselves—“chassidim.” But the Alter Rebbe told him, “The chassidim did not take the name ‘chassidim’ for themselves. Chassidim do not take anything for themselves, because they believe in hashgachah pratis, as taught by the Baal Shem Tov. Hakadosh Boruch Hu gave the chassidim their name specifically through the misnagdim. One might have thought that the misnagdim would call the chassidim ‘misnagdim.’ But Hakadosh

05:28 Boruch Hu caused the misnagdim to see the truth: they themselves gave the chassidim the name they had honestly earned, ‘chassidim,’ while giving themselves the name ‘misnagdim.’” The chassidim, the Alter Rebbe told Natan Notkin, earned the name “chassidim” because Chassidus teaches that a person must put himself aside for another’s good. This is like the well-known teaching about cutting and burning one’s fingernails: one who burns them is called a chossid, because burning them may harm him, but he does so to prevent harm to others, even at his own expense. That is why our Sages say that a chossid is greater than a tzaddik. When Natan Notkin saw the Alter Rebbe free and entering his home, he was terribly shaken; his heart turned to stone and died within him. Nevertheless, he asked the Alter Rebbe to sit down, ordered the samovar brought out, and cleaned the cups himself. Meanwhile, he began speaking harshly to the Alter Rebbe. “Do you think that because you were saved, you’re free? Ah, now you’ve fallen into my hands. You won’t leave here until you sign a document abolishing your new version of the prayers and all the other practices you introduced, which our forefathers—great men of the land, just like you—never followed.” The Alter Rebbe was in great distress and did not know what to do. But Hashem, Who answered him in all his troubles, answered him then as well and quickly brought him relief and salvation. The chassidim had waited all day for the Alter Rebbe to arrive. When day turned to night and there was still no word, they became very confused. Perhaps, they thought, the misnagdim were right to claim that all the reports of the Alter Rebbe’s release were false. They decided to go to the misnaged who lived on the floor below Rabbi Mordechai and hear what he had to say. Rabbi Mordechai and one of the chassidim from Poland went. When they arrived, they found the door closed, but they heard the misnaged arguing: “You don’t like ‘Na’aritzcha’?

08:15 Only the new Kesser version?” Then they realized that the Alter Rebbe had been brought into the misnaged’s home by mistake. They pounded on the door until he opened it. How astonished they were by what they saw! The Alter Rebbe was sitting with his head resting on his hands at the table, listening to the misnaged insult him. When the misnaged, Natan Notkin, saw that help had come, his face fell. In a gentle voice he said to them, “Now, look what a commotion you’ve made. Your rabbi is right here in front of you.” Rabbi Mordechai rushed forward angrily to strike him, but the Alter Rebbe signaled to him not to do anything to the man and to leave him alone. “What are you doing here, Rebbe?” Rabbi Mordechai asked the Alter Rebbe. “Please leave the tents of these people.” The Alter Rebbe said, “Show respect to our host.” He drank a cup of tea and went home with Rabbi Mordechai. “You truly brought me back to life,” the Alter Rebbe told Rabbi Mordechai. “Believe me, in all the time I spent in the Tainy Sovet [unclear], it was not as hard for me as those three hours I spent in this misnaged’s home.” All the chassidim gathered at Rabbi Mordechai’s home to welcome the Alter Rebbe with great joy. The Frierdiker Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak, continues the account: The Geulah took place around Minchah, and for the three prayers of that day, the Baal Shem Tov and the Maggid of Mezritch were with him. So those three hours he sat in the misnaged’s apartment, forced to hear insults and abuse directed at the Baal Shem Tov, the Maggid, himself, and the chassidim, caused the Alter Rebbe greater pain than the entire imprisonment. For once he had prevailed—the imprisonment had been a spiritual matter, and once that matter was resolved, concerns affecting his holy body did not trouble him. And being together with the Maggid of Mezritch and hearing the Baal Shem Tov—one can imagine that the Alter Rebbe would not have minded staying another three

11:01 hours and another full day in prison. And indeed, when the Alter Rebbe was told that he was free, he did not want to leave. The Frierdiker Rebbe continues: The entire matter of the imprisonment took place with the Alter Rebbe’s consent. Not only the Alter Rebbe—every tzaddik has power over all material matters. After all, the Torah determines what will happen in the world, and everything in the world is subject to the Torah. Therefore, whatever is going to happen to a tzaddik happens with his consent. It follows that the imprisonment, too, took place with the Alter Rebbe’s consent. Had he not consented, they could not have imprisoned him. Proof of this is what happened on the way to Petersburg: on Friday, the carriage came to a halt, and even the four horses could not make it move. It did not budge because the Alter Rebbe did not want it to move, as we related. The story of the journey to Petersburg gives us tangible proof that anything that happens to a tzaddik in general, and to a tzaddik who is the leader of the Jewish people in particular, happens with his consent. The Alter Rebbe did not want to travel, and the carriage stopped exactly where he wanted it to. Had it stopped at candle-lighting time, there would have been nothing remarkable about it. This is true even of something a tzaddik does not know about, as in the story of the great gaon Rabbi Yehoshua Zeitlin, who tried to test the Alter Rebbe with wine that a non-Jew had touched, but did not succeed. Rabbi Yehoshua Zeitlin then said of the Alter Rebbe, “No harm will befall the righteous.” None of these things is surprising. But for a carriage to stop on Friday at ten-thirty in the morning and not budge—that is a wondrous marvel, one of Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s miracles, as tangible as any open miracle. So it is clear that someone like the Alter Rebbe, who had such power over the physical world, could have avoided imprisonment. He did not even need to hide for a moment. If he went

13:41 to prison, it was because of an inner purpose in serving Hashem. What was that purpose? Avraham Avinu opened the channel for self-sacrifice to sanctify Hashem’s name. The Alter Rebbe opened the channel for self-sacrifice in serving Hashem through the teachings of Chassidus. From all this, we understand that the entire imprisonment was only a natural guise for that inner purpose, so that he would not have to use means beyond nature. All this would need to be examined in much greater detail to understand the Alter Rebbe’s deep, essential love for every Jew. He wanted everyone to live with the vitality of Torah and serving Hashem in the way of Chassidus, and he had a particular love for chassidim. The Alter Rebbe implanted this love for the Jewish people and for chassidim in the Rebbes who came after him. I say this, says the Frierdiker Rebbe, so that chassidim will know they are not alone. Someone cares for them. This deep, essential love is everlasting, from generation to generation until the coming of Moshiach, when they will merit to be reunited with the Rebbes at the Resurrection of the Dead, face to face, with shining and welcoming faces. Even an ordinary person becomes more refined while in prison; how much more so the Alter Rebbe. Moreover, the reason for his imprisonment was his spreading of the inner dimension of the Torah, for which he had actually risked his life. As is known, the Alter Rebbe’s daughter, Rebbetzin Devorah Leah, passed away for this very reason. After such self-sacrifice and devotion to Hakadosh Boruch Hu and to our holy Rebbes, we can understand how little the imprisonment itself affected the Alter Rebbe. From this we can also understand the G-dly experience the Rebbe had while in the Peter and Paul Fortress, when he was together with the Maggid and heard the Baal Shem Tov there. We can try to understand how the three hours afterward, which he spent in the home of a misnaged, were harder for him than the entire imprisonment. In any event, news of the Alter Rebbe’s release spread like lightning, and the chassidim in Petersburg gathered to wait at the home of one

16:43 of the well-known chassidim. The chassidim’s joy and their public celebration in the streets of Petersburg were exuberant and noisy. Even so, they restrained themselves and did not slight their opponents’ honor, even in speech. They remembered what the Alter Rebbe had said about this, and they knew that he wanted peace despite all the torment and suffering he had endured. For them, that was a rule.