Episode 210 - The Mitteler Rebbe's Settling in Lubavitch

00:01 After the passing of the Alter Rebbe in the village of Piena, in the Russian interior, the Alter Rebbe was buried in the city of Haditch. The Mitteler Rebbe was then in Kremenchug, in White Russia. His son-in-law, the Tzemach Tzedek, who was the Alter Rebbe’s grandson, was also there, and for the time being they settled in Haditch. The rest of the Alter Rebbe’s family settled in the nearby town of Romen[?]. Then, as we have already related, the chassidim held a farbrengen and asked the Mitteler Rebbe, who was continuing the Alter Rebbe’s path, to settle in one or another of their own towns. But the Mitteler Rebbe chose Lubavitch. Several stories are told about his journey to Lubavitch. As mentioned, the Mitteler Rebbe came from Kremenchug and established his residence in Lubavitch on Monday of the week of Parshas Nitzavim-Vayeilech, 8 Elul 5573. The journey from Kremenchug to Lubavitch took a long time. Wherever he went, the Mitteler Rebbe delivered teachings of Chassidus and received chassidim for yechidus. Some chassidim accompanied him on foot from Kremenchug to Lubavitch, and in every city and town where he stopped and taught Chassidus, they would repeat the Rebbe’s teachings. The itinerary had been planned in advance, including where he would stop. The Ministry of the Interior in Petersburg instructed the governors of the Poltava, Minsk and Mogilev provinces to provide good carriages and accommodations for Rebbe Schneur, his family and those accompanying him, until they reached Lubavitch. Then, on Monday, 8 Elul, the Mitteler Rebbe, part of his family and several thousand chassidim arrived in Lubavitch. On arriving, the Mitteler Rebbe went to a vacant lot where the houses had burned down two years earlier. He said, “Fifty-eight years ago, when the Alter Rebbe was ten years old and studied in Lubavitch under the righteous chossid Rabbi Yitzchak Dov, Rabbi Yitzchak Dov studied with him in a synagogue that stood here on this lot. When I was preparing for this journey

02:58 to Lubavitch, my father, the Alter Rebbe, told me that when I arrived, I should establish my residence on this spot.” The Mitteler Rebbe then blessed Lubavitch, the city that would be home to the Chabad Rebbeim, with long life and many years. We will now turn to the actions of the opponents of Chassidus at that time. When the war with Napoleon had quieted down—Napoleon had lost, and what remained of his forces had retreated to France—in the winter of 5573, the opponents of Chassidus began sending secret agents to chassidic towns. They carried out a campaign to cool the chassidim’s enthusiasm and keep them from becoming attached to the Mitteler Rebbe. But they saw that their scheme was not succeeding. They then hoped that once the Mitteler Rebbe settled in a permanent location, they would find ways to carry out their plan to dampen the spread of Chassidus. After all, they knew his character: he was humble and spoke gently. But the beginning of the second generation of Chabad Chassidus, amid the devastation left by the French-Russian war, and the Mitteler Rebbe’s arrival and settlement in Lubavitch made a powerful impression throughout White Russia and Lithuania. Everyone knew that the Alter Rebbe had helped Russia defeat the French, and government officials and local landowners alike looked favorably upon the Chabad chassidim. Furthermore—and this was the main thing—when the Mitteler Rebbe arrived in Lubavitch and assumed the leadership, he issued a firm directive to all the towns in White Russia: the chassidim were to build separate houses of prayer and were not to enter the opponents’ synagogues or study halls to pray, even occasionally. A chossid who violated this instruction would be punished by not being received in Lubavitch. In some cases, the Mitteler Rebbe instructed chassidim living in towns without a chassidic minyan to pray alone. As for the Torah reading, he told them, “Listen from behind the door

06:03 or from behind the window.” The Frierdiker Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak, relates that he once met one of the Mitteler Rebbe’s chassidim in Vitebsk. The chossid had lived in Lida, and he said that during the five years he lived there, he would stay in Lubavitch for the months of Elul and Tishrei. For the rest of each year, he did not pray with a congregation, because there was no chassidic minyan or chassidic synagogue there. This continued until he moved to [unclear]. In addition, the Mitteler Rebbe instructed all the chassidim, wherever they lived, not to enter into arguments with the opponents—neither amicably nor contentiously. He warned the young married men about this especially sternly. These emphatic directives from the Mitteler Rebbe cut off, as though with a sharp knife, all relations and contact between the opponents and the chassidim. The troublemakers among the opponents saw that their hope of drawing the chassidim away from studying Chassidus had come to nothing. They still held out a faint hope of causing discord among the chassidim through those attached to two students of the Alter Rebbe: the chossid Rabbi Aharon of Strashelye[?] and the chossid Rabbi Shlomo Freydes[?]. That is a story in its own right, which perhaps we will tell another time. But that hope of the opponents also came to nothing. When the Mitteler Rebbe came to White Russia and settled in Lubavitch, large numbers of gifted young married men, exceptionally accomplished in Torah learning—many dozens of minyanim—gathered there. They devoted themselves to studying Chassidus and reviewing the maamarim they heard each Shabbos. The Mitteler Rebbe made it a rule that no young married man could remain in Lubavitch for more than two months, or three months with special permission. The instruction was that on his way home, he should stop for a day or two in each town along his route and publicly repeat the maamarim he had heard in Lubavitch. The chassidim in the towns, villages and settlements throughout White Russia agreed among themselves that even when a single chossid, or a group,

08:56 traveled to Lubavitch, if they passed through a city, village or settlement with chassidim, the local chassidim were obligated to provide them with food, drink and lodging, both on their way there and on their return. All of this strengthened the unity of the chassidim and greatly spread the teachings of Chassidus. Here is how the Rebbe Maharash, the Alter Rebbe’s grandson and the son of the Tzemach Tzedek, described the Mitteler Rebbe. He relates that the Mitteler Rebbe conducted himself with great gentleness. He had a choir of singers and musicians, because niggunim and Chassidus are closely connected, and chassidim need music. “Grandfather”—meaning the Mitteler Rebbe—the Rebbe Maharash said, “had to conduct himself with gentleness and great expansiveness in everything connected with opening the mind and heart, because my grandfather embodied the faculty of understanding in Chabad Chassidus.” The Mitteler Rebbe wrote at an extraordinarily fast pace. By the time he reached the fortieth or fiftieth line on a page, the first lines were still wet; the ink had not yet dried. Some chassidim said he wrote by means of an incantation over his pen. “No,” said the Rebbe Maharash. “Grandfather did not use incantations. His hand was simply connected directly to his power of thought, and he wrote at the speed of thought.” The Mitteler Rebbe’s table was covered with writing. Why? Because he would write the ends of lines on the table. He would not notice that the paper had run out and would simply continue writing on the table. Later on, when the time came for the Mitteler Rebbe to pass away, in the city of Niezhin, a candle standing on the table overturned, and the entire table caught fire and burned. It was the very table on which he had written Chassidus. His chair and a chest full of manuscripts also burned in that fire. Nearly all his writings on the revealed dimension of Torah were destroyed. Only a few pages on Shulchan Aruch, Even HaEzer and Yoreh De’ah remained. In addition, the Rebbe Maharash related that the Mitteler Rebbe had several kinds of

11:38 Chassidim—and for each kind of chossid, the Mitteler Rebbe wrote Chassidus suited specifically to them. There is the book Pokeach Ivrim, which the Mitteler Rebbe wrote for baalei teshuvah. We remember it from the story of Reb Yosef the wagon driver, who brought Shlomo Gametsky[?] back to observance. Pokeach Ivrim was written in Yiddish. Then there is Imrei Binah, an exceptionally profound book of Chassidus containing thousands of pages of Chassidus. There is an enormous difference between these two books in their intellectual level. That was the Mitteler Rebbe’s ability: to write for every kind of chossid what was suited specifically to them. There was a chossid, Reb Yekusiel of Lepel. Let’s tell his story. In the Mitteler Rebbe’s time, the young married men rose greatly in their knowledge of Chassidus. After the instruction was publicized that young men supported by their fathers or fathers-in-law should set aside no less than three hours a day to study Chassidus, many young men in every town and settlement became knowledgeable in its teachings. Within a few years, the number who understood the teachings of Chassidus deeply also grew, and many became mashpi’im and teachers in towns, villages and other settlements. This made a strong impression among Chabad chassidim, as knowledge and study of Chassidus spread. Now, in the town of Lepel lived one of the Alter Rebbe’s chassidim, a shopkeeper who sold salt. His name was Reb Yekusiel. He was known as one of the ovdim—someone who worked on refining his character traits. But his understanding of Torah in general, and Chassidus in particular, was very limited. Once, one of the young mashpi’im who had studied with the Mitteler Rebbe passed through Lepel and stayed for about a week. Each day he recited a maamar of the Mitteler Rebbe from memory. These maamarim explained exceptionally deep concepts in Chassidus. One of them began, “The inner dimension of Abba is the inner dimension of Atik, and I did not know the reason.” And the reason, too, is on the level of “I did not know.” This young man

14:33 had a remarkable gift for intellectual understanding and an extraordinary ability to speak. Everything he said was clear and well expressed, and it made a powerful impression on everyone listening. But the chossid Reb Yekusiel, the shopkeeper we spoke about, did not understand the maamarim. It troubled him deeply and crushed his spirit. He felt lowly in his own eyes and berated himself with contemptuous names. A well-known chossid named Reb Shmuel Dov of Borisov heard the story from Reb Yekusiel. “Just think,” Reb Yekusiel told Reb Shmuel Dov. “I was about forty then. I had been going to the Alter Rebbe for some fifteen years, and throughout that time I had studied as best I could. And suddenly I saw something new: a young man, barely out of the nest, reciting the Rebbe’s maamarim with melody and vitality, while I listened and did not understand. I could sense that these were very deep, wonderful ideas, but I could not grasp a thing. And every day,” Reb Yekusiel related, “when I heard the young man repeat the maamarim, I listened and did not understand. My flesh felt as though it were being pricked all over. Every maamar the young man recited crushed me. I called myself every contemptuous name, and an inner fire was kindled in me to know the maamarim, understand them and put them into practice. I asked the young man to repeat them to me again and again, and to try to explain them himself. But my head was like a block of wood, and my mind was closed to what he explained. I kept the young man in my home for three weeks. I left the shop in the hands of my family and spent nights as well as days struggling to understand what he taught me. But nothing helped. The young man left, and I remained like a ship in the middle of the sea. I afflicted myself with fasting. I wept bitterly while saying Tehillim. Nothing helped. Then I went to Lubavitch. When I arrived in Lubavitch, I saw before me a new world.

17:13 Five or six minyanim of young men diligently studied Chassidus for long hours every day, repeated maamarim of Chassidus and explained them to one another. I arrived in Lubavitch on Wednesday,” Reb Yekusiel related, “and on Shabbos, before Kabbalas Shabbos, the Mitteler Rebbe delivered a maamar. On Shabbos, before Minchah, he delivered another maamar explaining the one he had said before Kabbalas Shabbos. I understood a little of the first maamar and could even repeat part of it from memory, but I did not understand the explanation. How amazed I was that the young men knew the explanation too. I was deeply distressed that I did not understand it, and all night I wept from the depths of my heart, and I fasted all day. On Monday I entered yechidus with the Mitteler Rebbe. I told him what had happened to me: that one of the young mashpi’im had passed through Lepel and repeated the maamarim he had heard in Lubavitch. I understood the usual maamarim, but not those that explained deep concepts. I also told him that I had understood the maamar delivered that Shabbos, but not the explanation of it. The Mitteler Rebbe told me, ‘Know that nothing stands in the way of the will. Although the will itself is only a faculty of the soul and not the essence of the soul, it has the power to direct even the soul and reveal essential powers, opening up the soul’s inherent faculties and developing its senses. This is especially true of faculties lower than the will, such as the intellect and the emotions. The power of the will acts upon them, and when a person truly wants something, even their capacities broaden.’ When I heard,” Reb Yekusiel related, “that it depended on my will, I decided to stay in Lubavitch until I began to understand. I informed my family that I would be staying in Lubavitch for some time and that they would have to run the shop themselves. For about four months I worked with tremendous effort, both mental and physical, training myself to think about one subject for several hours at a stretch and struggling to review a single idea dozens of times. The young man Efraim of Lian[?] did me a great kindness:

20:01 he reviewed the maamarim with me many times, until I was able to delve into their meaning. Usually,” Reb Yekusiel related, “I would withdraw to the cellar beneath the large shul or to the attic under its roof. By that Tishrei, I felt like a new person. Thank G-d, I had scrubbed out the pot and become a vessel able to receive. Then I returned home.” The content of the yechidus that Reb Yekusiel of Lepel had with the Mitteler Rebbe before returning home is very interesting, and it shows us the outlook of the chassidim in those days. When Reb Yekusiel went into yechidus and heard that everything depended on the will, he did not leave until he had corrected what he lacked, without regard for how much effort and work it would take. The Rebbe Maharash related that he once had a question about the Mitteler Rebbe’s Imrei Binah, in Shaar Hatefillin, chapter 32, concerning what are called direct light and reflected light, and how chochmah comes into being from a level above chochmah. “I struggled with this a great deal,” the Rebbe Maharash related. “I went into yechidus with my father, the Rebbe the Tzemach Tzedek, and told him the questions that were troubling me. My father, the Tzemach Tzedek, replied, ‘The chossid Reb Yekusiel of Lepel is here.’ He told me several things about him, including that the Mitteler Rebbe had written Imrei Binah for Reb Yekusiel. ‘Go to him,’ my father, the Tzemach Tzedek, told me, ‘and ask him. Tell me everything he says, and then I will answer you and explain it.’ Well,” the Rebbe Maharash related, “Reb Yekusiel’s practice was to spend a long time davening. So I asked the attendant Yosef Mordechai to keep an eye on him and tell me when Reb Yekusiel finished davening. And so he did. I went to him in the shul and put my questions to him. Reb Yekusiel thought for about an hour and said, ‘I am a shopkeeper. When someone asks a shopkeeper for merchandise and he has it to give, he takes payment first and then hands over the goods. I have the goods. Give me the payment, and I’ll give you the goods.’

22:40 ‘What is the price?’ I asked,” said the Rebbe Maharash. “Reb Yekusiel told me that he would be satisfied if I repeated for him the maamar delivered on Shabbos and explained what he did not understand. Whatever I could not explain, I would ask my father, the Tzemach Tzedek. I agreed,” said the Rebbe Maharash, “and only then did he answer my questions, with such clarity and such orderly reasoning that I could hardly believe my ears. I could not believe these words were coming from a man whose knowledge of Torah was average, perhaps even basic. Yet he spoke with ease about the deepest subjects in Kabbalah and Chassidus, explaining them at length and with great depth. When I told my father, the Tzemach Tzedek, what Reb Yekusiel had said to me, he told me, ‘The chossid Reb Yekusiel is a living example of the Zohar’s saying, “If you toil, you will find.” He toiled greatly, and he found a great deal too.’”