Episode 220 - The Revelation of the Alter Rebbe to the Tzemach Tzedek and the Topic of the Farbrengens

00:01 I want to explain the background to the story we are about to tell. When the Alter Rebbe fled from Napoleon, as Napoleon approached the town of Liadi, the Alter Rebbe, together with his entire family and all the chassidim who were there, fled deeper into Russia. With him were the Tzemach Tzedek, of course his son the Mitteler Rebbe, and also his grandson Rabbi Nachum, the Mitteler Rebbe’s son. Then, in the village of Piena, the Alter Rebbe fell ill and passed away. They took the Alter Rebbe for burial in the town of Haditch, about a hundred kilometers from Piena. That is the background to this story. It also tells of the Alter Rebbe appearing to his grandson, the Tzemach Tzedek, after he had passed away and been buried in Haditch. The Tzemach Tzedek and Rabbi Nachum, the Mitteler Rebbe’s son, were in Piena when the Alter Rebbe passed away on Sunday, 24 Teves 5573, 1813 by the secular calendar. The Tzemach Tzedek and Rabbi Nachum accompanied the sled or wagon bearing the Alter Rebbe’s holy coffin. The Frierdiker Rebbe tells us that the wonders that occurred as the coffin was transported are recorded in his memoirs, copied from the Tzemach Tzedek’s account of the Alter Rebbe’s wonders, which he wrote over a period of nearly sixty years. These are wondrous matters concerning the Alter Rebbe and the Mitteler Rebbe. After the Alter Rebbe’s passing, the Tzemach Tzedek settled in Haditch, where the Alter Rebbe was buried, until later, when they moved to Lubavitch. Among the Tzemach Tzedek’s manuscripts are writings on revealed Torah and Chassidus, as well as sacred accounts he heard from the Alter Rebbe concerning ruach hakodesh and things that would happen in the future. In his notes from 5573, the Tzemach Tzedek records everything that happened from the eve of Shabbos Mevarchim Elul 5572, when the Alter Rebbe left with

03:05 all the members of his household, except for his youngest son, Rabbi Moshe. They left Liadi as he fled Napoleon, and eventually reached Haditch. In his notes from the months he lived in Haditch, the Tzemach Tzedek records the Alter Rebbe appearing to him in a vision or dream, and teachings in revealed Torah and Chassidus that his grandfather, the Alter Rebbe, revealed to him. In these accounts, the Tzemach Tzedek notes where each appearance took place and what the Alter Rebbe revealed to him there. At the Alter Rebbe’s direction, the Tzemach Tzedek visits all the places where the Alter Rebbe was born, grew up, was educated and lived until his marriage. We know that the Alter Rebbe married in Vitebsk. At the Alter Rebbe’s instruction, the Tzemach Tzedek travels to Liozna to visit the estate of Rabbi Baruch, the Alter Rebbe’s father, where the Alter Rebbe grew up. So when the Tzemach Tzedek arrived in Lubavitch, he was in an uplifted mood from the almost daily encounters with the Alter Rebbe, continuing the Alter Rebbe’s sacred way of relating to him, now that he lived in the World of Truth. The Tzemach Tzedek’s notes record various things he often heard from the Alter Rebbe after his passing about the order of avodah in the life of souls in the higher Gan Eden, together with explanations of Kabbalah according to Chabad Chassidus. In a special, deeply personal encounter, the Alter Rebbe appeared to the Tzemach Tzedek while he was traveling to the places where the Alter Rebbe had spent his childhood on his father Rabbi Baruch’s estate in Liozna. The Alter Rebbe showed the Tzemach Tzedek particular pleasure when he went to visit the town of Dobromysl. There, Rabbi Baruch, the Alter Rebbe’s father, had visited the blacksmith Rabbi Eliezer Reuven in his youth, learned Ahavas Yisroel from him, and befriended his young son-in-law, Rabbi Shaul, who told him about Chassidus. In Dobromysl, the Tzemach Tzedek met very elderly people

06:06 who remembered the time when the tzaddik Rabbi Baruch would visit Dobromysl and associate with the hidden tzaddik Rabbi Yitzchak Shaul, the young son-in-law of Rabbi Eliezer Reuven the blacksmith, who was especially close to ordinary people. The Tzemach Tzedek felt heartfelt joy and genuine satisfaction in Dobromysl from the personal closeness the Alter Rebbe showed him that day. So he hoped that when he reached Lubavitch, he would merit a special appearance from the Alter Rebbe. The Tzemach Tzedek had a set daily study session with his son, the Rebbe Maharash, covering revealed Torah, Kabbalah and Chassidus. He would also tell him what he had heard and received from the Alter Rebbe. One of the accounts describes at length when and how the Tzemach Tzedek studied with the Rebbe Maharash, and which stories he told him. On one occasion, the Tzemach Tzedek spoke about the virtue of tzedakah and the value of helping a Jew earn a living. He also spoke about how giving tzedakah helps the giver himself in the avodah of opening his mind and heart to receive and absorb revelations from above. Then the Tzemach Tzedek told a story that had happened to him personally. This is how he told it: “When I traveled from Dobromysl to Lubavitch,” the Tzemach Tzedek said, “I was in a very uplifted mood because of the personal closeness the Alter Rebbe had shown me. So I hoped that when I arrived in Lubavitch, I would see the Alter Rebbe with a radiant face. Meanwhile, various questions in revealed Torah and Chassidus arose in my mind, and I organized them in my thoughts so I could ask the Alter Rebbe. When I reached Lubavitch, I went straight to the place our grandfather had told us about while we were traveling from Liadi. He used to study in the shul that stood there, but it had been destroyed in the fire. My father-in-law, the Mitteler Rebbe,” the Tzemach Tzedek continued, “told us about the site of that shul in Lubavitch: fifty-seven years earlier, the Alter Rebbe had made Lubavitch a suitable place to lead Chabad chassidim

08:56 for many long years, with an enduring existence until the coming of our righteous Moshiach.” But the Alter Rebbe still did not appear to the Tzemach Tzedek. As the Tzemach Tzedek put it: “The fact that the Alter Rebbe had not appeared to me since I arrived in Lubavitch left me deeply broken and dispirited. I felt I had fallen from a lofty height into a deep pit. I had prepared myself for a warm welcome, and instead there was no appearance at all. I was very distressed. I examined my deeds to determine the reason for this distance, so that I could do teshuvah and merit seeing my grandfather’s holy face and hearing teachings of Torah and avodah from him.” Then, on Wednesday, 25 Elul, the Tzemach Tzedek went to daven in shul. On the way, he met a Lubavitch resident named Pinchas, who asked him for a loan of three rubles so he could buy goods at the market, sell them and earn money for Shabbos expenses. The Tzemach Tzedek told him to come to his house after davening and he would give him the money. But as the Tzemach Tzedek was preparing to daven and placed his tallis on his shoulders, he remembered Pinchas’s request—and that today was market day. Since the market opened early in the morning, Reb Pinchas needed the money right away. The Tzemach Tzedek took the tallis off his shoulders, went home, took five silver rubles, searched for Reb Pinchas among the vendors and gave him the money so he could trade and earn a living. When he returned to the shul and stood by the basin to wash his hands, the Alter Rebbe appeared to him. He answered all his questions, and his holy face was radiant. And the story continues. On the second night of Sukkos, after Maariv, the Tzemach Tzedek would hold a Simchas Beis Hashoevah farbrengen with melodies and dancing. The Tzemach Tzedek himself would dance so much that the young men could not keep up with him. During the farbrengens in the lifetime of his father-in-law, the Mitteler Rebbe, he would

11:37 He would explain matters of Chassidus, usually saying: “My grandfather, the Alter Rebbe, who revealed and organized the wisdom of Chassidus, explained this matter in such-and-such a way. My uncle and father-in-law, the Mitteler Rebbe, who revealed and further developed the structure of Chassidus, brought out the many details that branch from the original point.” In this way, the Tzemach Tzedek himself revealed the power of daas in Chabad Chassidus. At the end of the Simchas Beis Hashoeva farbrengens, the Tzemach Tzedek would sit and study halachah in Choshen Mishpat with great depth, to dry the sweat of a mitzvah so that the external forces would have no hold on it. On Simchas Torah 5576, during hakafos, the Tzemach Tzedek danced a great deal. Healthy young men could not keep up with him. Some collapsed from the exertion, while the Tzemach Tzedek kept dancing, saying, “Dance, Jews, dance and rejoice in the joy of the Torah! In its merit, you will be blessed with children, life and abundant sustenance.” His wife, Rebbetzin Chaya Mushka, went to her father, the Mitteler Rebbe, and complained that her husband was exhausting the chassidim with his dancing. “You should see for yourself how completely detached he is from physicality,” she told her father. “Grandfather, the Alter Rebbe, told me about him that he has expansive faculties. His intellectual powers are broad and great.” Her father, the Mitteler Rebbe, told her, “For him, the Tzemach Tzedek, the revelation of Simchas Torah is now shining as it shone in the Beis Hamikdash. The Beis Hamikdash is called Lebanon, a name that joins the thirty-two paths of wisdom with the fifty gates of understanding. Yonah ben Amitai merited a revelation of prophecy at Simchas Beis Hashoeva, while the Tzemach Tzedek, through his joy on Simchas Torah, merits a revelation of the essence of his soul as it is in Atzilus, and higher still. The Torah itself is elevated into the very Essence of His blessed Being through the Tzemach Tzedek’s joy on Simchas Torah.” On the night after Simchas Torah, following Maariv, the Tzemach Tzedek would change his coat, because the coat he had worn

14:21 on Simchas Torah was torn and soaked with sweat. When the Tzemach Tzedek entered his private room, the leading chassidim of the Mitteler Rebbe would each receive a piece of the torn garment as a segulah for success in Torah study and avodah. At one of the Simchas Beis Hashoeva farbrengens during the Mitteler Rebbe’s lifetime, the Tzemach Tzedek spoke about the avodah of davening, which is the foundation of Chassidus. Someone who occupies himself only with the intellectual study of Chassidus, meaning that he only learns Chassidus, but does not engage in the avodah of davening in keeping with his knowledge and understanding of Chassidus, is like a wealthy man who exchanges his wealth for counterfeit coins. Not only does he lose his property and become a poor man with nothing to buy or trade with; if he tries to buy and trade with counterfeit coins, he is severely punished. The Rebbe Rashab, whose soul is in Eden, said that the Tzemach Tzedek’s farbrengens during the lifetimes of the Alter Rebbe and the Mitteler Rebbe revealed the innermost powers of the mind and heart in the chassidim. Elsewhere, it is related that the Tzemach Tzedek farbrenged with chassidim both during the Alter Rebbe’s lifetime and during the Mitteler Rebbe’s lifetime, and afterward as well, when he himself was Rebbe. He began farbrenging with chassidim at the age of fifteen. When he assumed the leadership of Chabad, he farbrenged briefly and deliberately. This was the Tzemach Tzedek’s way of farbrenging: he would begin with a story, explain it, and emphasize its lesson—what the story should accomplish in chochmah, binah, daas, chesed, gevurah, tiferes, netzach, hod and yesod. Kabbolas ol of the Kingdom of Heaven, however, each person must acquire for himself. The Tzemach Tzedek said that a chassidic story can have an effect in those areas. If it does not, that is because the listener does not understand, does not want to understand, or is a repulsive vessel. The Tzemach Tzedek concluded: “Grandfather, the Alter Rebbe, was generous of spirit and gave us the power to wash a repulsive vessel through a niggun.”

17:14 At one of the Simchas Beis Hashoeva farbrengens in 5575, the Tzemach Tzedek spoke about matters of avodah and explained that the Alter Rebbe and the Mitteler Rebbe made the chassidim wise so that a chossid could recognize the animal soul in all its false disguises and all its cunning ways. The Tzemach Tzedek would then sing the well-known niggun sung by the Alter Rebbe’s early chassidim from Vitebsk, with the words: “How fortunate we are, how good is our portion”—in the revealed powers of the G-dly soul—“and how pleasant is our lot”—in the hidden powers of the soul.