Chapter 236 - The Tzemach Tzedek's Second Victory Over the Maskilim.

00:01 The resignation of Goldberg[unclear] and Bashkovitch[unclear] from the rabbinical conference caused a great stir throughout the Jewish world. The Committee for Communal Affairs publicized it widely, and the Jews began to stir and grow agitated. The provincial governors decided they had to report this agitation among the Jews to the government ministers in Petersburg. Then came the rabbis’ response to the proposals for reform put forward by the maskilim. The maskilim wanted to destroy Judaism, but they were not doing it all at once. They proposed all kinds of changes to the prayer book, to the course of study, to what the children would and would not learn, and so on. The rabbis then responded to these proposals. All the rabbis said that the conference delegates—the maskilim who had been chosen for it—were, for the most part, not qualified to resolve such questions. Nor could their proposed solutions be relied upon. As far as they knew, the rabbis wrote, these questions had already been resolved by prominent rabbis at the conference held in 5603, and they agreed with their position. In other words, Judaism should remain the same traditional Judaism it had always been. But the Tzemach Tzedek was not satisfied with the rabbis’ response, and he prepared a systematic booklet. First, it addressed the prayer book itself and how it should be arranged. Second, could one teach Tanach by selecting only passages one liked and saying nothing about those one did not? It also addressed the Rambam and the translation of the Torah. The Tzemach Tzedek prepared a systematic booklet with clear answers on the principle that Hakadosh Boruch Hu created the world, gave the Torah, and watches over everything people do. He gave the Torah so that it would be studied and would teach the person studying it. When the booklet containing his response arrived at the government’s Office of Foreign Faiths, it was given to Mandelstam to read and translate

02:50 into the language of the country—that is, Russian—and also to explain its contents at one of the conferences. Mandelstam invited Stern and Pinsker to read the booklet with him. As they read it, their hearts sank: five years after the rabbinical conference of 5603, the Rebbe of Lubavitch had not only failed to change his mind or budge from his position in the slightest; he had strengthened it and was expressing it in clear language. Mandelstam also invited Vorbil, Eichenbaum, and Lifshitz, in addition to Stern and Pinsker, to discuss the booklet written by the Tzemach Tzedek. They decided to take a number of steps to ensure that it made no impression on anyone: to add all sorts of things to it, falsify it—in short, to do everything possible, including telling lies, so that the Tzemach Tzedek’s position would not be accepted. At the same time, the Tzemach Tzedek sent a copy of the booklet to the Committee for Communal Affairs in Petersburg, to the gaon Rabbi Dovid Luria, to the gaon Rabbi Yitzchak Aizik of Homil, and to the governor-general of Vitebsk, Count Golitsyn, whom we already remember as being favorably disposed toward Chabad. We draw our attention once again to this Count Golitsyn, since we have already encountered several Golitsyns, all favorably disposed toward the Jews. This Golitsyn was one of the officials to whom the Rebbe, the Tzemach Tzedek, sent his booklet. He was the nephew of the Count Golitsyn who had been minister of education under Emperor Alexander I, and he had been brought up in a liberal spirit. While still a schoolboy, he had often heard his uncle the Count speak about the momentous incident involving the Jews’ rabbi who had been brought to Petersburg as a rebel against the crown. His uncle, the elder Golitsyn, spoke highly of the rabbi and also of his son, who was exceptionally learned in science—that is, Rabbi Moshe, son of the Alter Rebbe. Before leaving Petersburg to take up his post as governor-general

05:39 in Vitebsk and Mohilev, he asked his young nephew to protect the Rebbe Schneersohn of Lubavitch from his enemies, the misnagdim, and from his blind persecutors, the educated men—that is, the maskilim. Here, in a footnote, he writes that three men from Vitebsk—Milkin, Zlotkin, and Briskin—were informers against the Tzemach Tzedek and his family. They sent their denunciations to the Committee for Jewish Affairs and to the secret police in Petersburg. When Count Golitsyn arrived to take up his post as governor-general in [unclear], he replaced the officials over the course of several months, and a different spirit began to prevail in all the government institutions. In any event, the Chabad Committee for Communal Affairs in Petersburg gave the Tzemach Tzedek’s booklet to the broadly learned Yerachmiel of Seibo, whom we have already heard about, for translation into Russian, German, and French. Besides translating the booklet into those three languages in learned yet clear, simple, and readable prose, Yerachmiel of Seibo added explanations to illuminate and clarify its contents and the sayings it quoted from the Talmud and the works of the Rishonim. He drew on several works of wisdom and science so that every point would be logically understandable and convincing. The translations thus became not only accomplished scholarly renderings that brought out all the intellectual richness of the Hebrew original, but also scholarly works of the finest kind. Yerachmiel of Seibo showed the Tzemach Tzedek’s booklet to his friends, a group of educated young men. They praised both the translation as a whole and, in particular, his notes. They gathered to discuss the booklet’s contents in depth, expanded on its subjects with further explanations, and Seibo rewrote the booklet with their additions, explanations, and notes. He gave the translation to his uncle, the chossid Rabbi Chaim of Seibo, a member of the Petersburg Committee for Communal Affairs. Meanwhile, in parallel, Mandelstam and his fellow maskilim translated the Tzemach Tzedek’s booklet, which they had received from the Office of Foreign Faiths, into the language of the country. But they did it in pointed language, emphasizing the exalted standing of the Jewish religion

08:27 and its superiority over the Christian religion. They also tried not to add anything to what the booklet said, but made an effort to give it an air of haughty, boastful self-importance. When they finished the translation, they all gathered to discuss it, debated it, added and deleted material, until they had achieved what they had plotted. Then they gave a brief report claiming that nothing in the booklet offered a substantive answer to the proposals, apart from its statement that the matter had already been discussed at the conference of 1843. It expressed surprise at the questions. They also stressed that the booklet was written in language offensive to the Christian religion. All this was the work of our maskilim. Then, in the first report that Governor-General Count Golitsyn sent to the office of the minister of the interior on July 10, 1846, concerning the condition of the districts under his administration, he noted, in connection with the Rebbe Schneersohn of Lubavitch, his conduct in communal affairs: he took a keen interest in improving the general condition of the Jews and watched over their moral condition. Based on the information gathered by the office of police official Kuchinsky and the office of police official Vyachek, no political wrongdoing had been found on the part of the respected citizen, the Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneersohn, whose conduct was upright. A copy of Golitsyn’s report was sent from the office of the minister of the interior to the central police department and to the office of the Committee for Jewish Affairs. But this report about the Tzemach Tzedek did not please the minister of the interior, Sarganov, who hated Jews. Rather, it made him angry at Golitsyn’s liberal outlook. The report had a particularly adverse effect on the ministers Benckendorff, head of the police’s Third Section, and Kiselyov, head of the committee overseeing Jewish affairs. In a private letter to his uncle Golitsyn, honorary president of the Senate, dated July 17, 1846, the younger Golitsyn spoke at length in praise of the Rebbe Schneersohn, based on what he had heard from the landowners Glinka, Azmidov, and Shukhovsky, whose estates were near Lubavitch. The elder Count Shuvalov and the physician

11:07 Heibenthal[?] was told that the Rebbe was a good man. He therefore recommended lifting the surveillance the secret police had maintained over the Rebbe for some six years. Interior Minister Sarganov was a stern man, but to a certain extent he was also an honest one. He was a devout Christian who respected people of other faiths, and deep down he held the great Torah scholars in esteem. It seems I was mistaken when I said he hated Jews. Ever since the Tzemach Tzedek bought part of Prince Shzarnyov’s estate and established a Jewish settlement there, he had won Sarganov’s sympathy. But Minister Kiselyov and Minister Benckendorff hated Jews and looked unfavorably on the great Torah scholars. For seven years, from 1836 to 1843, Lilienthal and his associates Rothenberg and Mandelstam had brought them all sorts of false accusations against the Torah and its great scholars, especially the community of observant chassidim and their leader, the Tzemach Tzedek. They led Kiselyov and Benckendorff to suspect the great Torah scholars in general, and the Rebbe in particular, of rebellion against the government. The assembly of 5603, which we have already discussed, and the Tzemach Tzedek’s efforts to defend everything concerning religion in general, and Kabbalah and Chassidus in particular, made a negative impression on Benckendorff and Kiselyov. Benckendorff even demanded that the interior minister instruct Dyakov, the governor-general in Vitebsk, to place the Rebbe Schneersohn under closer surveillance. So after all this, when Governor-General Galitzin’s report in favor of the Tzemach Tzedek arrived, it made Benckendorff and Kiselyov uncomfortable. They asked the interior minister to convene a special meeting at which they could present and discuss a matter of great urgency. At that meeting, Benckendorff and Kiselyov presented the issues at hand. They expressed their displeasure with Governor-General Count Galitzin’s liberal approach, and their distrust

13:45 of the substance of his political reports concerning estate owners in general, and the political conduct of the leaders of the Jews and the leader of the chassidim, the Rebbe Schneersohn, in particular. They therefore demanded that the interior minister take the necessary steps to restrain Galitzin’s liberal outlook and strengthen the surveillance of the Rebbe Schneersohn of Lubavitch and the Jewish communities under his authority in the provinces of White Russia and Lithuania. As a result of that meeting, the interior minister’s office conveyed his request to Governor-General Galitzin: within a few months, he was to prepare a detailed report on the political standing of the estate owners in the Vitebsk and Mogilev provinces, on the Jewish communities, and especially on the Rebbe Schneersohn, leader of the Chabad chassidim. Galitzin complied with the interior minister’s request and prepared a detailed report on everything requested, dated 17 October 1846. When Benckendorff received a copy of Galitzin’s report, he wrote his decision on it: “I do not trust the political loyalty of the estate owners who come from Sweden and Poland. As for the tzaddik Schneersohn, refer the matter to General Frank Freigang, head of the Fourth Department of the secret police administration in the Third Section.” Freigang assigned the task of investigating the Tzemach Tzedek to a senior official, the head of the secret police in Vilna. He also ordered an investigation into Galitzin’s attitude toward the Jews of the chassidic sect in the provinces of White Russia and Lithuania, especially his attitude toward the Rebbe Schneersohn, as well as a detailed examination of the large number of people who visited the Tzemach Tzedek. The official, named Yurkovsky, who headed the secret police in Minsk, arranged the investigation in accordance with Freigang’s instructions, together with an official named Maslov, a member of the Minsk city administration. But some time later, Benckendorff fell ill and died. In his place, Minister Orlov was appointed. He was a devout Christian who liked and respected people of faith, a man of firm resolve, a generous heart, and a love of fairness. Meanwhile, Freigang’s report arrived, based on information received from the secret police official in Vilna,

16:22 confirming the contents of Galitzin’s report of 17 October 1846. When Freigang’s[?] report came up for review, Minister Orlov took an interest in the matter. He ordered that all the papers concerning the Rebbe Schneersohn be brought to him and read them in order. He concluded that informing and hatred alone had led to the distortion of justice in the case against the Rebbe Schneersohn of Lubavitch. Orlov wrote to the interior minister that, in his opinion, the Rebbe Schneersohn was a victim of informing and hatred. If the interior minister agreed, he proposed seeking Governor-General Count Galitzin’s opinion on whether to keep the Rebbe Schneersohn under secret-police surveillance or whether the time had come to lift it. The interior minister agreed and wrote to Galitzin accordingly. Galitzin replied on 7 March 1847 that, according to the information he had received from the governors of the Vitebsk and Mogilev provinces, the honorable citizen Rabbi Schneersohn of Lubavitch had conducted himself well, and it would be proper for the secret police to lift their surveillance of him. When this opinion arrived, Orlov approached Education Minister Uvarov and asked for his agreement. After receiving it, Orlov, through the head of the Fourth Department of the Third Section, instructed the heads of the secret police offices in Vitebsk and Mogilev on 19 March 1847 to lift their surveillance of the honorable citizen, the Rebbe Schneersohn of Lubavitch. He informed the interior minister’s office, and the interior minister notified Galitzin that, following an investigation into the honorable citizen Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneersohn of Lubavitch, he had been found politically loyal and upright. The special secret-police surveillance, which had lasted some six years, had been lifted. When Galitzin received this news, he was overjoyed. He shared his great happiness with Dr. Eibenthal[?] and Count Shuvalov. He also wrote a private letter to his elderly uncle Galitzin to tell him

18:45 the good news. Two weeks later, Galitzin received a reply from his uncle, blessing him for his efforts to do a good deed and bring truth and justice to light. “In my opinion, though,” his uncle wrote, “your protection of the Rebbe Schneersohn will be needed even more than before. While he was under secret-police surveillance, the police could testify in response to any political suspicion. Now that their surveillance has been lifted, who will testify to the truth and to his integrity, to save him from those who persecute and hate him?”