Episode 226 - The Intensification of the War of the Maskilim and the Informing

00:01 The maskilim continued their campaign against the chassidim. Lilienthal, the mainstay of the maskilim and of those fighting Chassidus, took leave of Prince Lichtenberg and Minister of Education Uvarov with great warmth. But while his standing and esteem grew in their eyes and in the eyes of the maskilim, officials of the Third Department—and especially the deputy head of the secret police, General Freigenk[?]—suspected Lilienthal of political activity. They brought their suspicions before Minister Bildov. Bildov was... well, this is what he writes: “When Nicholas established the Third Department, its purposes were, first, to protect the government from the influence of various movements within the country and abroad; second, to see whether ministers, their deputies, governors and provincial officials carried out their duties as the emperor commanded; and third, to safeguard the sovereign and arrange a network of spies wherever needed, even in the royal court and among the grand princes. This responsibility was entrusted to Count Bildov, a man of firm convictions and a courageous heart.” Bildov—not Bidlov, but Bildov. “With his authorization, men were sent to watch Lilienthal’s movements. Lilienthal’s participation in the secret conference in Vilna—although the Minister of Education had already honored him, in the emperor’s name, with the task of developing a plan for schools for Jewish children and had allotted him a monthly salary of seventy-five silver rubles, apart from travel expenses—heightened Freigenk’s[?] suspicions, and surveillance of Lilienthal intensified. The maskilim in Vilna wondered why more than four months had passed since they had sent their article to the German newspapers and it still had not appeared. They then learned that the article had gone astray en route. The same thing happened the second and third times, until they found someone who was traveling and sent the article with him a fourth time. It then appeared in issue number six of the Israelitische Annalen. When the newspaper reached Petersburg, it was immediately delivered to the Minister of Education. Minister of Education Uvarov was deeply agitated to read that someone doubted whether the government would be able to bring

03:05 its plan for schools for the Jewish children of Russia into effect. He saw this as a grave insult to the government. He wrote to Interior Minister Stroganov, drawing his attention to the enormous insult being directed at the mighty government in a newspaper abroad: the claim that its orders would be thwarted by one Jew from Lubavitch, the leader of the chassidic sect—a sect against which a complaint had been lodged seventy years earlier, and whose leader had been tried as a rebel against the crown fifty years earlier. “I am certain,” Uvarov writes, “that the Interior Minister will investigate the Jews of Lubavitch and take the appropriate measures so that he cannot thwart the government’s orders.” Uvarov did not stop with that letter. He also wrote to the offices of the Third Department, enclosing the Israelitische Annalen and a Russian translation. Knowing that Minister Benckendorff, the head of the Third Department, hated the Jewish religion and was an enemy of the Jews, he also wrote him a personal letter. He drew his attention to the situation in the region: although these parts of the country had been placed under Governor Dyatkov and had upright provincial officials, there was still a Jew from Lubavitch about whom newspapers abroad were writing that he would prevent the government’s orders from being carried out—a very grave insult. Surely the minister would take the necessary steps to ensure that the Jews did not prevent government officials from carrying out the emperor’s orders for the benefit of the citizens, including the ungrateful Jewish citizens. In his letter to Benckendorff, Uvarov recalled the arrest of the chassidim’s leader fifty years earlier. He had been held in a prison reserved for rebels against the crown, and had nearly been sentenced to death as one of them, because it had been established that he supported a force of Jews in Turkey, along with other offenses punishable by death. But because Emperor Paul suffered from a mental illness—sometimes dark melancholy and sometimes the opposite—people found various ways to seize the moment, and he ordered this rebel against the crown released. Since an error made by a ruler stands, the rebel came to Petersburg a

06:02 second time and was held under strict arrest. But when Emperor Alexander ascended the throne, three of the king’s confidants—Nikolai Dolgorukov, Jan Lubomirski and Golitsyn—persuaded him to release the rebel, and that led to the spread of the chassidic sect. Today, according to Dr. Lilienthal, three-quarters of the Jewish people belong to this sect. Without a doubt, the minister knows better than he does how much distress and harm such a large population could bring upon the entire government. Yes. In short, all the wicked joined forces. This Uvarov, the Interior Minister—or the Minister of Education—made an impression. His letters made a great impression, especially the letter to Benckendorff, which stirred up his hatred of the Jews. He corresponded with the governor-general in Vitebsk and with the provincial officials of Vitebsk and Mogilev, asking them to investigate the Rebbe Schneersohn and his influence on Jews in general and chassidim in particular. The chassidim’s committee, known as the Committee of Communal Activists, had contacts in the offices of the Interior Minister, the Third Department and the Minister of Education. Ever since Dr. Lilienthal had come to Riga, the committee had been particularly interested in learning everything going on in the offices of the Minister of Education regarding the spread of enlightenment. Hashem brought a young man named Pavlov their way. There is a note about Pavlov here at the bottom: because he was devout in his faith and appreciated knowledgeable people, when Chaikin—a chossid and member of the activists’ committee—explained to him the wrong the maskilim were doing to the Jewish religion, he helped the committee out of the integrity of his heart. So young Pavlov helped the committee, and through him they obtained various copies, including copies of Uvarov’s letters to the Interior Minister, to the Third Department and to Benckendorff. Among the copies the committee received was a detailed report from Dr. Lilienthal to Deputy Minister of Education Pavlov about the conference held in Vilna. That conference was held secretly. They had not sought permission for it from the local police, as the law required, because... They argued that the police treated

09:12 the chassidic sect favorably, and that its leading members, Shlomo Balkash and another Jew who clung to the old ways, along with a supporter of the enlightenment named Nachman Parnas, were respected by the police, visited them regularly and had influence there. “As the minister graciously said to me”—this is Lilienthal writing about why he had not sought a permit, police permission, for this conference—“I therefore called a secret conference on the strength of the document issued to me by the offices of the Minister of Education, bearing His Honor’s signature, so that the two Jews, Balkash and Parnas, would not find out and prevent us from consulting together and working out how to carry out the government’s wishes for the benefit of the Jews.” Lilienthal writes that the conference was attended by learned Jewish elders who recognized the good intentions of the exalted government, admired its ministers and wholeheartedly wished to help them put those good intentions into practice. “There will, however, be many obstacles in our path. According to a report by one of the participants, who visited several districts where chassidim live and also visited their leader, the Rebbe of Lubavitch, the Rebbe is firmly opposed to the government’s order to establish schools. The government must therefore use its great power and every means at its disposal to compel the leader of the chassidim not to oppose the implementation of its order.” All these various denunciations reached the chassidim’s Committee of Communal Activists. The committee used the copies it had received as needed, and managed to hold up two denunciatory reports that the benighted Hershel had sent to the Third Department and to the governor-general in Vitebsk. But they could not stop the third copy, which he had sent to the provincial governor of Mogilev. It reached Deputy Governor Sovetsky, who, without informing the governor, decided on his own to investigate the matter secretly, hoping to be rewarded and receive great thanks as well. He then spoke with his brother, an estate owner in the town of Sventsyany in Vilna Province, who found him a capable secret agent for good pay, as he would report

12:04 36. Following this, in the month of Marcheshvan 5600—that is, 1840 by our reckoning—a man settled in Lubavitch who said he was a native of Zamut and was about fifty years old. He and his wife were G-d-fearing and came to the synagogue morning and evening to pray. The man, whose name was Lipman Feldman, was exceptionally skilled at making tallow candles. He proposed to the holy Rabbi Boruch Sholom, the Tzemach Tzedek’s eldest son, that they go into the business together. The Tzemach Tzedek agreed to his son’s doing so, and Rabbi Boruch Sholom entered into business with Lipman Feldman. Lipman became a familiar presence in the Tzemach Tzedek’s household and in the homes of his sons. Lipman’s candles gained a reputation in the town and the surrounding area, and he earned a good name by donating candles to the town’s three synagogues and to the yeshiva students. In addition, he supplied candles free of charge to the Tzemach Tzedek’s household and to the homes of his sons and family. His wife, who was called, at least according to her, Basya Miriam, also distributed free candles to poor women every Friday. Lipman Feldman hired workers to do the work according to his instructions, while he himself was a regular visitor to the synagogues, the homes of the Tzemach Tzedek and his sons, the yeshiva, and the lodgings of the visitors who would gather from time to time for farbrengens, to review the Tzemach Tzedek’s teachings and tell stories of chassidim. Lipman would tell them that, since he was a simple man who could not study on his own, he enjoyed being present at such gatherings. Everywhere he went, people made room for him and honored him for his G-d-fearing conduct and good character, particularly his treatment of the poor, and of everyone in general. Every year, during the months of Teves and Shvat, a fair was held in Lubavitch. Because the town was near the border of inner Russia, many merchants came to the fair, even from distant places: Vilna, Königsberg, Krakow, Warsaw,

14:46 Kyiv, Moscow, and elsewhere. A few days before the fair, Lipman left Lubavitch for a while, leaving the candle business in the hands of a relative, a craftsman who had arrived several days earlier. Lipman returned from his journey in Adar I. His relative handled the candle-making, while Lipman, as was his longstanding custom, spent many hours in the synagogues and among the visitors. He took an interest in the visitors’ concerns, their questions, and the advice they were given. He attended all the chassidim’s gatherings, and only when his relative traveled through the surrounding area with merchandise did Lipman occupy himself with making candles. In Adar II, the chassidim in Vilna learned, through one of the young chassidim who was secretly spying among the maskilim, that they had denounced the Tzemach Tzedek to the authorities. He also brought a copy of the denunciation. They sent the young man, Shlomo Moshe, to Lubavitch with a copy of it to inform the Tzemach Tzedek of the whole matter. When Reb Shlomo Moshe arrived in Lubavitch, he found the renowned chassidic rabbis Reb Yitzchok Aizik of Homil and Rabbi Boruch Mordechai of Bobruisk at a farbrengen in Zalman Bash’s home, where they were also staying.

16:16 Shlomo’s mission was urgent because he had brought the denunciation, but he did not want to distress the Tzemach Tzedek immediately. Moreover, the chassidic [unclear] with Rabbi Yitzchok Aizik and Rabbi Boruch Mordechai happened to be in Lubavitch. Knowing what the chossid Moshe Eliyahu Sherman had told him in strict confidence—that Rabbi Yitzchok Aizik and Rabbi Boruch Mordechai headed the committee for the welfare of the community—he decided to meet with them first, disclose the purpose of his mission, and join the farbrengen. The farbrengen was deeply stirring. Rabbi Yitzchok Aizik and Rabbi Boruch Mordechai reviewed two maamarim of Chassidus they had heard and recounted the holy conversations they had heard during the sacred meals. They spoke at length about the way chassidim had lived in earlier generations and the great suffering they had endured from the misnagdim on all sides. They lamented the terrible situation: the government was hostile to the Jewish faith and was doing everything it could to ensnare Jewish children in a web of religious disbelief. They spoke of the accursed maskilim, may their names be erased, who incited and led people astray, while the Tzemach Tzedek was occupied with Torah study and avodah and was not involved in communal work as had been done in such circumstances in earlier generations. Reb Shlomo Moshe, who belonged to the group of Chabad chassidim in the town of Keidan and earned his living as a broker, was skilled in fine calligraphy and seal engraving. He had an exceptional ability to discern people’s character and was very wise and diligent. About three years earlier, he had moved to Vilna specifically to serve as a secret spy for the chassidim among the misnagdim and the maskilim, and he had been highly successful.