Episode 242 - Continuation of the Story of Leib Pazin and Shmuel Berin

00:01 The story continues with Reb Leib Pazin bringing 3,000 rubles to Reb Shmuel Brin as a loan and telling him how the Rebbe Maharash had sent him on this errand. Reb Leib Pazin told Reb Shmuel the whole story from beginning to end, as we related earlier. Reb Shmuel listened with particular attention. When Reb Leib Pazin finished speaking, Reb Shmuel Brin said, “You have done as the Rebbe instructed you. Hakadosh Boruch Hu counts a good thought as a deed—especially when it has become an actual deed—but I will not take the money.” That very night, Reb Leib Pazin traveled to Lubavitch to complain to the Rebbe Maharash that Reb Shmuel Brin did not want to take the money the Rebbe had instructed him to give. Reb Leib Pazin went in to the Rebbe Maharash and placed the bundle of banknotes on the table. Early on Monday morning, the Rebbe Maharash’s second attendant, Reb Pinchas Leib Magid Eson[?], arrived and brought Reb Shmuel Brin a sealed package from the Rebbe Maharash. Inside was a note in the Rebbe’s holy handwriting: “I am sending you 3,000 rubles to trade with until the time the rafts are sold in Riga. May you succeed.” Reb Leib Pazin took the bundle of money with him to pay his debts to the Moscow merchants for the goods that had burned, and to pay a certain amount toward new merchandise. When Reb Leib Pazin arrived in Moscow and told the merchants about the disaster that had befallen him, they accepted what he said. One of the leading merchants said they would certainly share in his misfortune; after examining the accounts, they would determine what percentage to deduct from his debt. They gave him as much new merchandise on credit as he needed. A few days later, the merchants informed him that they had decided to deduct fifty percent of his debt, and that he could pay the remaining fifty percent over two years. That summer, Reb Leib Pazin won 15,000 rubles in a government bond lottery, and on the advice of

02:50 the Rebbe Maharash, he bought a great deal of flax at a low price. Its price tripled, and he succeeded in everything he did. Reb Shmuel Brin bought ready-made rafts, including some lying along the riverbanks. Some he sold locally, and some he sent as rafts to Riga, making large profits. Reb Shmuel Brin paid off all his debts and, on the advice of the Rebbe Maharash, bought a substantial house with a large plot of land. Now, the situation of the four chassidim is as follows: Reb Michoel Aharon Pisarovsky[?] is an elderly man; his sons, daughters, and descendants are wealthy businesspeople. The chossid Reb Nachman Lifzel[?] died young, leaving an estate of substantial houses, forests, and large businesses, and he passed away with a good name. Reb Leib Pazin is a very wealthy man, his sons are wealthy too, and he has a place among the respected members of the community. And last but not least is Reb Shmuel Brin, who handed his many businesses over to his sons and sons-in-law. He lives comfortably on the income from the substantial house he kept for himself, and his home is open to chassidim, men of good deeds, and Torah scholars. He is highly respected even among the misnagdim, and certainly among the chassidim. We will continue with stories about several chassidim of the Rebbe Maharash, through whom we can get a sense of the flavor of chassidic life in those days. From time to time, a Jew named Dovid Moshe Dovid Molyer would come to the Rebbe Maharash. He was a craftsman, and even while working he never stopped speaking words of Torah and reciting Tehillim by heart. The Rebbe Maharash said of him that Moshe Dovid Molyer was on a higher level than the chossid Reb Shmuel Ber of Borisov. When Moshe Dovid ate his piece of hard bread with salt on Wednesday morning after davening, and then went about his work while reciting Tehillim, the Rebbe Maharash said, he was immersed in genuine teshuvah. For Shavuos in the year 5640, that is, 1880 by the secular calendar, the chossid Reb Shmuel Ber and the chossid

05:42 Moshe Dovid came to Lubavitch. They stayed there for several weeks. The Rebbe Rashab, the son of the Rebbe Maharash, related: “I watched closely how they both davened, and the truth is that I envied Reb Dovid Moshe Dovid more than Reb Shmuel Ber.” The Rebbe Rashab added, “One can reach that state only by accepting the intellectual teachings of Chassidus with simplicity.” In other words, one should not insist on understanding everything through intellectual reasoning. That chossid, Moshe Dovid Molyer, for example, never kept money in his possession, because he distributed everything he had to the poor. But he kept a coin for his travel expenses to Lubavitch, and would say that this was the meaning of “one who benefits from the labor of his hands”: the labor of his hands brought benefit to his soul. That was Moshe Dovid Molyer. Now let us turn to the chossid Reb Zalman z"l Potolsky. He too was one of the Rebbe Maharash’s chassidim. When he came to Lubavitch, the Rebbe Maharash would say a maamar of Chassidus especially for him. Once, in 5637, that is, 1877, the Rebbe Maharash repeated for him the maamar he had said the previous Shabbos before the whole gathering. But the following year, 5638, he said a new maamar for him. The Rebbe Maharash was accustomed, in the middle of saying a maamar, to utter a few words that seemingly had no connection to its subject. Sometimes the connection was tenuous. In the maamar he said for Reb Zalman in 5638, the Rebbe Maharash explained the saying of our Sages, “Rabbi Eliezer would give a coin to a poor person and then daven.” The Rebbe Maharash said that davening must be done with vitality, brought about by giving to a poor person before davening, thereby giving life to the poor person. This adds a great deal of vitality to one’s davening. The Rebbe Maharash gestured with his hand to indicate how great the spiritual influence drawn down through davening is after giving tzedakah. Reb Zalman z"l

08:42 Petrovsky did everything deliberately and with reflection, and approached everything with an orderly Chabad, Ashkenazic manner. He had a particular routine for his journey to Lubavitch and his visit to the Rebbe Maharash, for the time he spent in Lubavitch, and for his return home. Reb Zalman was among the foremost scholars of Chassidus and among those devoted to avodah. For him, staying in Lubavitch, hearing a maamar of Chassidus, and going in for yechidus were spiritual experiences that held the highest place in his life. For inwardly focused chassidim, the journey to Lubavitch and the return home were spiritual experiences. On the way back from Lubavitch, each of the prominent chassidim would stop in certain cities and towns to share with the chassidim what he had heard in Lubavitch and to repeat the maamar of Chassidus he had heard. They would also arrange a chassidic farbrengen. The real welcome-home gathering, though, would be held when he returned to his own home. All the Chabad chassidim, whether rich or poor materially or spiritually, in knowledge or in avodah, would take part in that celebration. Once, when Reb Zalman returned from Lubavitch and held his welcome-home farbrengen, he recounted what the Rebbe Maharash had said in the middle of the maamar: when one gives a Jew life in a material sense and gives him enough to eat, one receives a reward both materially and spiritually. When the chossid Reb Chaim Ber, who was at the farbrengen, heard this saying, he began distributing food before davening to passersby or simply to poor people, so they would be able to eat immediately after davening. The Rebbe Maharash said that the chossid Reb Chaim Ber’s devotion and dedication to the Rebbe Maharash had brought him to a place of light and success in the avodah of the mind and heart. There was also the chossid Reb Eliyahu Abaler. Reb Eliyahu Abaler grew up in Sliva. He was a simple chossid, a grocer in Polotsk, and one of the chassidim of the Mitteler Rebbe. This was during the years of the Tzemach Tzedek’s leadership. The Tzemach Tzedek did much to encourage ordinary people to move to small towns and settlements. When Reb Eliyahu Abaler’s father complained to

11:35 When he told the Tzemach Tzedek about his difficult financial situation, the Tzemach Tzedek instructed him to settle in a village near Polotsk. Rabbi Eliyahu’s father told the Rebbe that he had not had an opportunity to do so until now, and even if an opportunity arose, he lacked the means to move to a village and find a livelihood there. The Tzemach Tzedek told him, “I will lend you three hundred rubles, and Hashem will give you a good place. Just be careful not to spoil things, because everyone I lend money to prospers, as do their descendants for generations.” Rabbi Eliyahu Abaler’s father returned home, met an acquaintance and told him about it. The acquaintance said that the owner of the estate where he lived wanted to sell it along with its flour mill. He proposed a partnership: Rabbi Eliyahu’s father would buy the mill, and he himself would buy the estate. And that is what happened. After several years, the small village became a Jewish community whose residents lived well, materially and spiritually. The chossid Rabbi Eliyahu Ber Beitchik [unclear] Abaler was not particularly learned, but he formed a strong bond with the Rebbe Maharash, the son of the Tzemach Tzedek. After his wedding, Rabbi Eliyahu Abaler asked the Rebbe Maharash what he should do for a living: should he remain in his birthplace, the village of Abal, or settle in Polotsk? The Rebbe Maharash answered that he should stay in Abal and blessed him with success. Indeed, Rabbi Eliyahu Abaler enjoyed good health and a generous livelihood. Once, when Rabbi Eliyahu Abaler came to Lubavitch to visit the Rebbe Maharash, the Rebbe told him, “Eliyahu, I envy you and the tests you face.” Rabbi Eliyahu was shrewd by nature, tall and handsome, and materially very successful. Over several years, he bought many plots of land in and around the town of Sliva, and from the estate owners

14:02 in the area he bought tracts of forest and shipped the logs to Riga. He traveled there every year to sell his merchandise. Because of his business dealings with the local estate owners, he often met with them and their families, and had to sit, talk and socialize with them. This brought him face to face with difficult tests. When Rabbi Eliyahu Abaler reached the age of seventy, he told the Rebbe Rashab, the son of the Rebbe Maharash, that throughout his life he had faced bitter tests that had been extremely hard for him. But the closeness the Rebbe had shown him and the blessings the Rebbe had bestowed upon him had helped him, and thanks to Hashem, he had not stumbled even once. Rabbi Eliyahu Abaler used to say that after 120 years, when he arrived in the World to Come and was given what he deserved, until nothing remained of his physical being, he would ask to be admitted to his Rebbe. From this, says the Frierdiker Rebbe, we see how deeply the Rebbe Maharash’s words affected him. Rabbi Eliyahu was not waiting for a reward. He lacked nothing materially. In spiritual matters, he felt he had no understanding. His one hope was that after the severe punishment he would receive, when nothing remained of his physical body, his soul would merit to be bound to his Rebbe. Such was the way of life, and such were the longings and hopes, of ordinary people raised as chassidim in earlier generations.