Episode 265 - The Battle Against the Society for the Spread of Enlightenment.

00:01 Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak continues to describe the course of daily life for his father, the Rebbe Rashab: how he works on behalf of the Jewish people and against all those who seek to destroy things among the Jewish people. Here he speaks about the Rebbe of Slonim, who is also working for the good of the Jewish people. From the Frierdiker Rebbe’s diary for Monday, 29 Teves 5662—that is, eighteen hundred and twelve... eighteen hundred... nineteen hundred and twelve. Nineteen hundred and twelve, yes. In Lubavitch, at eleven at night. “At seven,” writes Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak, “at seven in the evening, the Rebbe of Slonim arrived.” He had visited Lubavitch once before, and his concern now was the establishment of the Machzikei Hadas society. For about two years, the Rebbe of Slonim had been involved in Machzikei Hadas, primarily to establish classes for ordinary people in Shulchan Aruch and Aggadah, as had been customary since time immemorial, so that they would uphold the traditional system of education handed down by their fathers. The Rebbe of Slonim was raising an outcry against the new-style cheders, the so-called “reformed cheders.” He published an open letter in Yiddish explaining to parents that these reformed cheders should not be called “reformed,” but “dangerous.” “It is dangerous to the soul,” the Rebbe of Slonim writes, “even to look at the teachers in these dangerous cheders.” These teachers have no fear of Heaven whatsoever, and placing a Jewish child in their hands is a danger to life. At seven thirty in the evening, my father, the Rebbe Rashab, received the Rebbe of Slonim for a meeting. The subject of their conversation was indeed the establishment of the Machzikei Hadas society. “Tomorrow,” said the Rebbe of Slonim, “Tuesday, 21 Teves, a large meeting is scheduled in Minsk.” The distinguished Rabbi Eliezer of Minsk had written to the Rebbe of Slonim that if he obtained the Rebbe Rashab’s approval and participation, he hoped most of those assembled would agree with the general direction of the work. “My father,” relates Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak, “the Rebbe Rashab, gave the Rebbe of Slonim his approval and promised

03:09 him that, when necessary, he would write a general letter on the matter.” Then, on the instructions of his father, the Rebbe Rashab, “I,” relates Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak, “sent a telegram to the Kovakov brothers[?] in Minsk, asking them to see to it that the members of Anash would take part in the meeting in support of establishing Machzikei Hadas, and would also lend their support to the Rebbe of Slonim and the distinguished Rabbi Eliezer.” The Rebbe of Slonim was invited to the evening meal with his father, the Rebbe Rashab. During the meal, the Rebbe of Slonim related that when he was a boy, he was in Warsaw when the Rebbe of Lubavitch, then the Rebbe Maharash, passed through. The Rebbe Maharash stayed in Warsaw for only a few hours, having arrived on a train from Paris. From Paris he had traveled through Vienna toward Petersburg. As the Rebbe of Slonim recalled, it was said at the time, in great secrecy, that the Rebbe of Lubavitch was occupied with a communal matter involving people’s lives. The Rebbe of Lubavitch, the Rebbe Maharash, stayed at the large hotel on the broad square. The rabbis and the wealthiest people who had come to greet him had prepared a large house with living quarters for him, but the Rebbe Maharash declined their offer. He said that, for reasons known only to him, he would stay for a few hours at the hotel—that is, the large Polish hotel—and that word had already been sent from Vienna to prepare three large rooms for him there. Some of the rabbis and leading members of Anash among the Warsaw chassidim were received for yechidus by the Rebbe of Lubavitch. From them, it became known in whispers that two government ministers from abroad—no one knew from which country—had arrived together with the Rebbe of Lubavitch. Some said that the provincial governor, the city governor, and the deputy commissioner visited the two ministers, after which the ministers went to visit the commissioner. It was only with great difficulty that they were able to travel, because of the enormous crowd gathered in the square. The crowd waited for hours until the Rebbe left for the train station. At the train station, the Rebbe of Alexand—of Slonim saw the holy face of the Rebbe Maharash. That was what he related during the meal. The Rebbe of Slonim left at half past midnight for Krasnaya, to catch the express train that passed through Krasnaya at three in the morning. He arrived in Minsk that morning for the conference.

06:00 The diary continues: Wednesday, 22 Teves, at ten at night. In the mail received that week by the Tomchei Temimim office were many letters requesting copies of my father the Rebbe Rashab’s letter for the festival of liberation, 19 Kislev. This letter had already come to be called “the Rosh Hashanah maamar of Chassidus.” I instructed the secretary, Yaakov Koppel Zelikson, to fulfill the requests—that is, to send copies of the letter. Requests for copies of this Igeres Hakodesh came from Bobruisk, Homel, Minsk, Chernigov, Sosnitsa, Potshov[?], Kherson, Nikolayev, Poltava, Togzonok[?], Rostov, Don, Riga, Bender, Kalarash[?], Lukach[?], Kamenchuk[?], Kharkov, and Roman. Some requested a hundred copies; others requested seventy-five, fifty, or twenty. Altogether, the number of copies came to more than nine hundred. The price for copying was set as follows: ten kopeks for each copy in the handwriting of Reb Shmuel Sofer, seven for Reb Mordechai Pinchas’s, and five for Reb Shlomo Freytzon’s or Reb Akiva Reuven’s. Reb Shmuel Sofer had so far sold copies of the Rosh Hashanah maamar of Chassidus for 260 rubles, including about three hundred copies in his own handwriting rather than made on a copier, which cost forty-five kopeks each. The secretariat purchased a thousand copies from Reb Shmuel Sofer for sixty rubles, and he was to finish copying them within a week. So imagine what kind of work that was—a thousand copies of the same letter. Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak continues writing in his diary several weeks later. Thursday, 18 Adar II 5662, in Lubavitch—eighteen hundred... nineteen hundred and twelve, as we said—at four in the afternoon. Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak relates: “My father, the Rebbe Rashab, is greatly distressed over communal matters affecting the Jewish people.” The reasons are that, over the winter, incidents

08:53 concerning the Pale of Settlement had multiplied. In addition to the incident involving the dentist, which we have already related, there were twenty-eight more incidents of this kind in various places, each recorded in my notes at the time it occurred. Thank Hakadosh Boruch Hu that all of them ended well: matters returned to how they had been before, and in some cases the situation even improved. But all this required tremendous effort and great expense. As for education, in Shvat 5659—three years earlier—my father, the Rebbe Rashab, wrote his last letter to Baron Ginzburg, asking that the Society for the Promotion of Enlightenment review its program and accept the Rebbe Rashab’s proposals concerning the male and female teachers and the method of instruction. Baron Ginzburg refused. My father, the Rebbe Rashab, then began a defensive struggle, conducted peacefully and calmly on two fronts. The first was local work: sending special representatives to every city and settlement where the Society for the Promotion of Enlightenment had founded a school, to engage the rabbi and the respected householders of the city, open their eyes to the conduct of the male and female teachers, and point out to them the harmful methods of teaching and education. The Rebbe Rashab’s representative would arrive disguised as a traveler and say he was there on private business. Needless to say, he did not mention that the Rebbe Rashab had sent him. In most cases, the representatives succeeded and, with Hashem’s help, accomplished a great deal, as detailed in the reports from 5662. So that was one approach: sending representatives to different places to rouse public opinion against those dangerous cheders. The second approach was a defensive campaign within government circles, in the offices connected with education and with the various religions. For about three years, the Society for the Promotion of Enlightenment—that same society that wanted to turn Jews away from their religion—had been trying to obtain a license to teach an abridged Chumash in the vocational schools it was founding. The second thing was to require the

11:42 All the melamdim to know secular subjects. The third thing was to require the teaching of Russian in the cheders. Following the Rebbe Rashab’s instructions, and with the efforts of the communal activists led by Rabbi M. M. Monson, their evil plan was, thank G-d, thwarted. Thank G-d, the Society for the Promotion of Enlightenment accomplished none of these things. But from the month of Kislev, Mr. Harkavy of Moscow, the chairman of the Society for the Promotion of Enlightenment in Moscow, involved himself in the matter. He is a serious man with a strong will, as I have already described him. Thank G-d, despite working diligently for about five months, he has still accomplished nothing. But he has greatly harassed my colleagues and the Chabad communal activists, especially the head of the committee, Monson. Since I was in Petersburg, Monson has been writing bitterly that he is weighed down by the burden of the work. Baron Ginzburg and his associates, particularly Harkavy, wield great influence. “And as for us,” he writes, “what are we? What strength do we have?” In the last letter received from Monson yesterday, he again writes about the Society for the Promotion of Enlightenment’s extensive involvement in education. Feinberg, the secretary of the Society for the Promotion of Enlightenment in Petersburg, boasts that a senior official in the Department of Religious Affairs promised to help the society achieve its aims in all three matters mentioned above. Monson sees that the Society for the Promotion of Enlightenment is very powerful, while our strength is very limited. He therefore feels compelled to tell the Rebbe Rashab that it has occurred to him that Heaven is holding us back, since we cannot avert the harm the society intends to do. When my father, the Rebbe Rashab, read Monson’s letter, he was deeply distressed. Tears flowed from his holy eyes. He sighed and said, “Yes, it would have been fitting long ago to put an end to all the harm intended by the Society for the Promotion of Enlightenment. But given our present situation, when only a very few people are involved in communal affairs, we must thank

14:40 Hashem for His kindness: during the three years since Shvat 5659, they have, thank G-d, failed to accomplish anything in any of the three matters Baron Ginzburg threatened us with back then. He said at the time that within a month they would obtain permission to teach an abridged Chumash in the vocational schools, teach Russian, and replace the melamdim with teachers educated in secular subjects. Thank Hakadosh Boruch Hu, Who thwarted the plans of those clever men against the purity of our children’s education.”