Chapter 246 - The Meeting Between the Man and the Rebbe Maharash on the Train in Lubavitch.

00:02 The continuation of the fascinating and astonishing story of the man on the train, as he tells it to the Frierdiker Rebbe. On June twentieth, your grandfather, the Rebbe Maharash, came to Petersburg. He stayed about two weeks and did a great deal for the good of the community. On August sixth, the Kadima Central Committee met to discuss the dire economic situation of the Jewish people in the southern cities. We decided to send a special emissary to your grandfather to inform him of the present situation and ask for his help. That mission fell to me. Early on the morning of August eighth, I arrived in Lubavitch. Knowing that your grandfather was accustomed to rising early, I went straight to his courtyard and handed one of the attendants a sealed letter for the Rebbe. Less than half an hour later, I was called into the Rebbe’s room. I laid out the whole matter before him in every detail, and he questioned me closely about each point. After about two hours, he stopped and said that, because of his weak health, he had to go for a ride through the countryside twice a day, at nine-thirty in the morning and six-thirty in the evening. He therefore had to stop now, but we would meet again before eleven. As I left your grandfather, I saw with my own eyes a carriage harnessed to two galloping horses. On the driver’s seat sat a coachman in his distinctive clothes, wearing a red sash and a feathered hat, as was customary for Russian coachmen. At ten-thirty I went back to the Rebbe’s courtyard, but your grandfather had not yet returned from his ride. I entered his shul to wait. Hundreds of eyes were watching me, and I caught snatches of conversation about me as people speculated about why I had come. But no one ventured to approach and speak to me, apart from a few individuals who greeted me with “Shalom aleichem.” Meanwhile, the door of the shul opened and a man came in. Everyone there immediately became excited, and all together they went over to greet him with “Shalom aleichem.” Some even kissed one another, and a pleasant warmth and affection showed on every face. The simple love and affection

03:10 I saw on the people’s faces for the man who had arrived interested me greatly. I turned to one of them and asked, “Who is that man?” “Why, that’s the shadar, Rabbi Gershon Dov,” he answered simply. “Don’t you know the shadar, Rabbi Gershon Dov?” I did not answer, because I did not know what “shadar” meant and wanted to ask the man who was speaking to me. But at that moment the attendant, Reb Bliivik[?], approached me. I remembered him well from my first visit to Lubavitch with my father. Apparently he did not recognize me. “The Rebbe is calling you,” he said. Then he added, with open irritation, “About five other visitors are waiting, including some who have been here since Shabbos, so please do not stay with the Rebbe too long.” Your grandfather greeted me with a bright, cheerful face and said, “I have just come from the Ohel. My father, the Tzemach Tzedek, does not think the situation is quite so grave, but action must be taken.” He spent a long hour discussing with me how to carry out our efforts: whom we should meet and what to say to each person. He instructed me to jot everything down briefly. When he saw that I was writing in the language of the country, he said it was not right to do so, because young people nowadays had to watch every step with even greater vigilance. When he finished speaking to me, he wrote two letters in the language of the country, one concerning Professor B. and the other to a certain assistant to the Minister of the Interior, Mr. Z. He asked whether they conformed to the rules of the language, so that their contents could not be misunderstood, and entrusted them to me. After a few moments of silence, he turned to me and said, “When Moshe Rabbeinu went up to Heaven to receive the second Tablets, Hakadosh Boruch Hu told him, ‘Carve for yourself,’ which Rashi explains to mean that the leftover stone would be his. And you know,” your grandfather told me, “that even the material left over from quarrying precious stones is valuable enough to make a person rich. Through this passage in the Torah, Hakadosh Boruch Hu showed us a way to conduct ourselves in life and in worldly affairs: when a person

06:06 undertakes something good, he should be given some payment for it. You,” your grandfather said to me, “are working on behalf of the community, and you deserve payment.” He began to explain the matter of spirituality to me and said, “I saw that when I told you I had come from the Ohel and that my father thinks the situation is not so grave, you laughed inwardly. It is not that you do not believe in spirituality. Rather, you are so immersed in material affairs that you have no conception of spiritual matters.” Your grandfather spoke with me at length then and told me many stories. He concluded with these words: “Remember and do not forget that the measure of goodness is greater than the measure of punishment, which is the measure of evil. If even of Yishmael, who was a wild man, the Midrash Rabbah says, ‘Throw a stick into the air and it will land on its root,’ how much more so will a chossid, the son of a chossid and the grandson of a chossid, return to his roots. How long can a person go wandering?” he continued. “Fifty, fifty-five years? Hot blood and desires must have their limits. Remember who you are, and do not forget your family roots. May Hashem protect you and make you wealthy. Tell your father that I want to see him at once.” When I left your grandfather, about an hour and a half remained before the train departed from Rudnya station for Vitebsk and Petersburg, and in that time I had to travel by wagon from Lubavitch to Rudnya station. Worn out by the wagon ride, I reached the station about ten minutes before the train’s departure. The ticket agent did not want to give me a ticket all the way to Petersburg. He said he would not have time to calculate the distance to Petersburg and the fare and write out the ticket, since he was not used to such large calculations. So he gave me a ticket only as far as Vitebsk. The agent in Vitebsk, he said, was surely accustomed to larger calculations and would be able to write a ticket all the way to Petersburg. “No one travels from here, from Rudnya, to Petersburg,” the agent said, “except the Rebbe of Lubavitch. They notify me several days in advance, and I prepare the ticket,

08:57 and when he arrives, I only have to write in the date and stamp it.” I traveled on. When I reached Dinaburg and stepped out of the railway car into the station to have a hot drink, I saw policemen checking the passengers’ papers. They also inspected some people’s belongings and searched the pockets of their clothes. Piles upon piles of papers were heaped on a table, and several officials sat reading through them. I remembered your grandfather’s words about the need for caution and began thinking how to escape, or at least find a secluded corner where I could tear up his two letters and my notes about the steps he had advised us to take on behalf of the community. But I quickly regained my resolve, and as an old chossid I decided that they surely would not search me. I turned to an attendant and asked him to give me a glass of cognac to add to my hot drink. About two hours remained before the train to Petersburg departed, and throughout that time they checked passengers’ belongings and papers, including those of people sitting at the large and small tables. Apart from a few high-ranking officials in uniform, policemen passed me back and forth countless times, but none approached me. I saw that it was a miracle. When I returned to the train, I learned that several people had been detained. Some had been arrested and sent to the Honburg[?] fortress, while others were being held until their cases could be clarified. No one knew why. Only when I arrived in Petersburg did I learn the reason. I also learned that my colleagues had already been worried about me, fearing that I too had been caught. When I told my colleagues at a secret meeting everything your grandfather had advised us to do to improve the economic situation of the Jewish people, about the two letters he had given me, and what had happened to me at Dinaburg station, they were all astonished.