Episode 212 - The Mitteler Rebbe as Leader of the Chassidim

00:02 The Rebbe Maharash continues the story he tells about Reb Yekusiel of Liepoli. The Rebbe Maharash asked him a number of questions about exceptionally deep maamarim of Chassidus. “That evening,” the Rebbe Maharash relates, “the chossid Reb Yekusiel came to me and demanded that I pay the price we had agreed on at the outset. I repeated the maamar for him, and he listened intently. It was quite a sight to see an elderly chossid listening to a maamar being repeated. When I finished, he asked me to have pity on him and repeat it for him once more early the next morning. I promised, and I kept my promise. He then began laying out his questions, most of which I had to put to my father, the Rebbe, the Tzemach Tzedek. I had a week of delight in those questions and answers. From then on, whenever the chossid Reb Yekusiel of Liepoli was there, I took pleasure in his company.” Reb Yekusiel remembered everything he had seen since the day he first came to Liozna in the summer of 5556. He would say, “Every week, in my thoughts, I go to yechidus with whichever Rebbe I wish,” for he remembered every time he had been to yechidus with the Alter Rebbe, the Mitteler Rebbe, and the Tzemach Tzedek. He had received a special blessing for long life from the Alter Rebbe, and he lived to nearly a hundred. The chossid Reb Shmuel Dov of Borisov told the Rebbe Rashab about Reb Yekusiel’s remarkable faculties and talents, saying that he had never seen such an extraordinary thinker, so incisive and thorough, and so orderly. He had another remarkable quality: he loved the effort of intellectual study for its own sake, and nothing could disturb him. When he was contemplating a subject, he would close his eyes, shut out what he heard, and nothing in the world could distract him. On one of the Mitteler Rebbe’s journeys, he once stayed at an inn not far from the town of Smorgon. It was the month of Menachem Av. The weather was good, and the Mitteler Rebbe decided to remain there for about a week. When word spread

03:00 of the Mitteler Rebbe’s decision, a large crowd gathered to greet him, and the Rebbe received them for yechidus, as was his custom. Several of the senior chassidim generally accompanied the Rebbe on his journeys, and that was the case on this trip as well. Then, on one of the days of that week, in the middle of the day, while hundreds of people stood crowded together waiting to be received for yechidus, the Mitteler Rebbe suddenly ordered the door closed and stopped receiving people. The chassidim waiting to enter yechidus, as well as the chassidim who repeated the maamarim of Chassidus, all assumed that the Mitteler Rebbe must be tired from receiving so many people and had paused for a short while to rest and regain his strength. This was the practice on all the journeys: anyone who came to see the Rebbe, whether a Torah scholar or a simple person, did not enter yechidus until he had first heard a maamar of Chassidus delivered by the Rebbe repeated two or three times. But half an hour later, the gabbai, Reb Zalman, came out looking deeply troubled, his eyes red from crying. He whispered a few words into the ears of the senior chassidim who were there. When they heard him, they were alarmed, turning pale, then flushed, then pale again. A feeling of fear swept through the chassidim. No one knew why. An hour or two later, several of the senior chassidim entered the building and heard, from behind the door of the Mitteler Rebbe’s room, that he was reciting chapters of Tehillim with an outpouring of the soul, weeping bitterly from the innermost depths of his holy heart. Some of the chassidim fainted from distress. They had no idea why the Rebbe had become so deeply alarmed that, in the middle of an ordinary weekday, he had stopped receiving visitors and begun such intense, bitter avodah. When the crowds standing in the courtyard heard the commotion, they formed groups and began reciting Tehillim with a minyan. An hour later, the entire crowd cried out as they recited Tehillim, with a true outpouring of the soul. Then, when

05:46 the Mitteler Rebbe finished reciting Tehillim, he began preparing for Minchah. But he was so weak from reciting Tehillim that he had to lie in bed for an hour or more to recover. Afterward, he davened Minchah in the manner customary during the Ten Days of Teshuvah. When the chassidim learned that the Rebbe was davening Minchah in the manner of the Ten Days of Teshuvah, they began to daven Minchah as on a public fast day, for both those who had already entered yechidus and those still waiting to enter were fasting. After Minchah, the Mitteler Rebbe went out into the courtyard, ascended a platform, and delivered a long maamar on the verse, “O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears flow like a stream.” The theme was that tears wash away the letters of harmful speech, improper reflections, and bad thoughts. The Rebbe explained the virtue of reciting the words of Torah and Tehillim, and spoke at length about “the way of the wicked is like darkness; they do not know what makes them stumble,” a subject explained at length in chapters 4 and 5 of his book Derech Chaim. This maamar, on “O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears flow like a stream,” caused a great stir among the chassidim and inspired a tremendous awakening. They remembered the event for many years afterward. The next day, the Mitteler Rebbe was very weak and had to remain in bed. But on the following day, he resumed receiving visitors as before. The chossid Reb Pinchas Reizes of Shklov, whom we already know as one of the distinguished chassidim in the Alter Rebbe’s time and one of the elder chassidim in the time of his son, the Mitteler Rebbe, was among those accompanying him on this journey. A few days later, he asked the Mitteler Rebbe what had caused the incident. The Rebbe grew very sad and said to him, “When people come to yechidus and reveal to me the afflictions deep within their hearts, each in his own way, I must find within myself everything a person tells me, perhaps in the subtlest form. I cannot answer someone’s question until I have first corrected that thing within myself. Only then can

08:23 I offer advice and a way to correct it. But that day,” said the Mitteler Rebbe, “a man came to me, and I was alarmed by what he told me. I could not find within myself, G-d forbid, even the faintest trace of what he described—not even in the subtlest of subtle forms. I thought to myself: perhaps, G-d forbid, this is the hidden evil buried in the deepest depths, as explained in Chassidus regarding Rabbi Yochanan’s words, ‘I do not know along which path they will lead me.’” “That thought,” the Mitteler Rebbe told Reb Pinchas Reizes, “shook the innermost point of my soul, moving me to return to Hashem from the depths of a profound heart.” Now we will tell a little about the circumstances surrounding the Mitteler Rebbe’s leadership. As mentioned, after the passing of the Alter Rebbe, most of the chassidim appointed the Mitteler Rebbe as their nasi and leader. But there was one group of chassidim whose hearts had turned away from the Rebbe’s household. They set their sights on one of the Alter Rebbe’s students, the holy Rabbi Aharon of Strashelye. Sadly, he too became estranged from the Mitteler Rebbe, although until then he had been dear to him. In place of their great love, like that of actual brothers, a deep rift arose between them. It is told that during the Alter Rebbe’s lifetime, when they were still loyal friends—the Mitteler Rebbe, then a young man, and Rabbi Aharon of Strashelye—the two of them walked past the window of the Alter Rebbe’s home, arm in arm, reviewing teachings of Chassidus. One of the chassidim standing inside the Alter Rebbe’s home said, “Those are two friends who will never part.” The Alter Rebbe answered, “If only they would not part.” The dispute between them had actually begun near the end of the Alter Rebbe’s life, when opposition to Rabbi Aharon of Strashelye arose within the Alter Rebbe’s household and among many of the leading chassidim. Rabbi Aharon was then forced to sell his house in Liadi, where the Alter Rebbe lived, and settled in his hometown of Ushva[?], coming to Liadi only occasionally. From then on, the paths of

11:17 The Mitteler Rebbe and Rabbi Aharon of Strashelye. After the passing of the Alter Rebbe, Rabbi Aharon approached several chassidim and invited them to come to him so that he could teach them the way of Hashem. Many of the chassidim accepted his view willingly and turned their hearts away from the Alter Rebbe’s house. Some of the Alter Rebbe’s prominent students also challenged the Mitteler Rebbe’s leadership and opposed him. Some argued that, just as after the passing of the Baal Shem Tov and the Maggid of Mezritch the leadership had been divided among several great students, so it should be now. Others claimed that no one could take the Alter Rebbe’s place. They would go from town to town crying, “Oy, oy, we have no Rebbe,” while Chassidus was vibrant with life. The Mitteler Rebbe first approached them peacefully, writing that they should not confuse people and stir up a new dispute among the Jewish people. He traveled around the region to draw close those who had become distant, and he also intended to visit Strashelye to meet his colleague Rabbi Aharon face to face. While he was in Vitebsk, one of the students advised the Mitteler Rebbe to settle in Little Russia, where his words would be accepted. Here, the student argued, they would not be accepted: his teachings of Chassidus were new, and if he repeated the teachings of his father, the Alter Rebbe, the chassidim, who were thirsting for something new, would not accept them. “And what will become of this region?” asked the Mitteler Rebbe. The student answered, “The students will travel to the towns.” The Mitteler Rebbe told him, “I will speak to you, and keep speaking to you, until whatever comes of it comes.” He added jokingly that this was what Moshe Rabbeinu said to Hakadosh Boruch Hu: “When I come to this people and they say to me, ‘What is His name?’ what shall I say to them?” That is, if I come to speak to them and they themselves tell me His name, what am I to say to them? Hakadosh

13:41 Boruch Hu answered him, “I will be what I will be.” The numerical value of “I will be” is twenty-one, and the numerical value of “I will be what I will be”—twenty-one times twenty-one—is that of “truth.” In other words, Hakadosh Boruch Hu told Moshe Rabbeinu that they would not be able to say it. And the Mitteler Rebbe was accustomed to say: Everyone can talk, of course, but to speak the truth, one’s eyes must come out of their sockets. The Mitteler Rebbe then came out against them forcefully. He wrote to the faithful Anash, who had not sought greatness, telling them not to listen to the words of those stirring up trouble and not to be ungrateful to his holy father, who had put his life on the line for them with actual mesirus nefesh. These words of the Mitteler Rebbe bore fruit. The Alter Rebbe’s students remained devoted to his house and supported the Mitteler Rebbe’s righteous cause as much as possible. They wrote to Anash that they should follow their example. In one letter, the Mitteler Rebbe writes to a chossid: “Since empty distractions, the troubles brought by the Satan to confuse and uproot everything from within and without, have fallen upon me—I do not know what this is, for Hashem knows my heart: my heart has not been haughty, nor have I pursued things too great for me. That is not to say that I could not do so if I wished. May Hashem have mercy on my soul and on His people forever, remember the merits of my ancestors, and bring me to rest.” One of the Alter Rebbe’s prominent students, the chossid Reb Pinchas Reizes, whom we mentioned just now, wrote to all the chassidim to inform them faithfully of what the Alter Rebbe had disclosed to him in 5571: he had asked him to ensure that requests for blessings be brought specifically to his son, the Mitteler Rebbe. This is what he writes to the chassidim: “Men of heart, listen to me, and I will reveal publicly what I know. Hear my words, pay attention, and make your ears like a funnel, and may G-d hear you. Let me tell you what happened in 5571, at the wedding of the daughter of the Rebbe Mahar"d [unclear] to the son of the rabbi of Chernobyl. He called for his son, the aforementioned Rebbe, and closed the door behind us.” In other words, the Alter Rebbe closed the door and began to speak, his words sweet and pleasant. In brief, the substance

16:29 of his holy words was this: The Alter Rebbe said that his son, the Mitteler Rebbe, was good-natured, and that his desire and longing were to spread the wellsprings of Torah. Therefore, the Alter Rebbe told them that after he passed away, I, Reb Pinchas Reizes, was to be responsible for ensuring that requests for blessings were brought specifically to his son, the Mitteler Rebbe, and to no one else. “When we heard this, we were seized with trembling and fear. We did not want to understand what he had told us.” In any event, Reb Pinchas Reizes writes to all the chassidim that the Alter Rebbe had instructed that his son, the Mitteler Rebbe, should take his place. The Alter Rebbe’s brother, Rabbi Yehuda Leib of Yanovitch, who wrote the sefer She’eiris Yehuda, also wrote to Rabbi Aharon with open rebuke born of hidden love. In brief, these are his words: It is the established way for a son to take his father’s place, and Rashi explains “takes his father’s place” to mean that none of his brothers is greater than he. All the more so here, where no one in the entire region is greater than he—meaning the Mitteler Rebbe. Rabbi Yehuda Leib writes further to Rabbi Aharon that this had been the view of “my brother, teacher and Rebbe,” meaning the Alter Rebbe. “Because of my love for him”—that is, for Rabbi Aharon—“I have spoken at length. Perhaps my words will enter his ears. Fortunate is he, and I await his reply. His friend forever, Rabbi Abba Yehuda Leib [unclear].” But sadly, these honest words did not help. The work of the Satan succeeded, and a pen of anger burst into flame. A large group of chassidim attached themselves to Rabbi Aharon. He settled in the city of Shklov, in the Mogilev region, and from there spread the wellsprings outward according to the path he had set for himself. Most of those loyal to the Alter Rebbe’s house remained devoted specifically to his son, the Mitteler Rebbe, and followed his holy words with all their heart and soul. They grew and prospered, and bore fruit. In those years, the Mitteler Rebbe began publishing

19:15 his holy works, in which he clarified and refined the paths of avodah in great detail, especially in his sefarim Kuntres Hahispaalus and Shaar Hateshuvah Vehatefillah. In them, he revealed some of what lies hidden deep within each person’s heart and its humility. Rabbi Aharon, however, found fault with every sefer the Mitteler Rebbe wrote. The Mitteler Rebbe did not sit idle: he clarified and explained each matter, giving his reasons. Hashem’s good hand was upon him, and none of the winds blowing against him moved the Mitteler Rebbe from his place or changed his holy outlook, which was as broad as the sea. On the contrary, the opposition strengthened him and the chassidim with great resolve, until his sheaf rose and stood firm, and his opponents could no longer raise their heads against him. In the end, many of those who had opposed him asked to be taken under his holy protection. But the Mitteler Rebbe did not accept them all—only those few whom he knew were returning to him sincerely.