Episode 266 - The Rebbe Rashab's Support of the Workers for the Sake of Saving the Jews.

00:00 We continue with the account of how the Rebbe Rashab helped the Jewish people. At this point, the Rebbe Rashab receives a letter from R.M.M. Monosson, his representative in Petersburg. There, he is facing the forces of evil among the Jews themselves, who are trying to bring the Haskalah movement into Jewish life. Monosson writes the Rebbe Rashab a letter in which he expresses despair. He says that their strength is enormous, while ours is very small. “When my father, the Rebbe Rashab, read R.M.M. Monosson’s letter, he was deeply distressed, and tears flowed from his holy eyes. He sighed and said: ‘Yes, it is high time to put an end to the wickedness of the Society for the Promotion of Enlightenment altogether. But given our present situation, when only a very few people are involved in communal affairs, we must thank Hashem for His kindness: over the three years since Shvat 5659, thank G-d, they have accomplished nothing in any of the three matters with which Baron Ginzburg threatened us then. He said that within a month they would obtain permission to teach an abridged Chumash in vocational schools, that Russian would be taught in the Talmud Torah schools, and that within three years the traditional teachers of Jewish children would be replaced by educated teachers. Thank G-d, Who thwarted the plans of those who rose against the purity of Jewish education.’” The Rebbe Rashab went on to tell his son, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak: “R.M.M. complains that they are strong and we are weak. But what is their strength? I can see plainly that they are strong when it comes to speaking against observant Jews. They are strong when it comes to desecrating the Torah and mitzvos. They are strong when it comes to insulting rabbis and accusing our brethren in the Pale of Settlement—who trade in the villages and markets and keep taverns and the like—of giving Jews a bad name. That is where their strength lies: in spreading accusations.” The Rebbe Rashab continued: “Surely you remember the conversation I had with Baron Ginzburg

02:43 in the presence of Feinberg and Levkovitch and four others. The main speakers were Feinberg and Levkovitch. They criticized the livelihoods of Jews in the Pale of Settlement, both in large cities like Minsk, Vitebsk, Homel and Chernigov, and especially in the small towns. Levkovitch described various scenes, and the group of political communal activists [unclear] sitting there laughed with delight. I,” said the Rebbe Rashab, “could not restrain myself, and I said: ‘As communal activists, you ought to weep over the suffering of the Jewish people, not laugh at them—at people starving within the Pale of Settlement. You imitate the faces of men trading in bundles of pig bristles and women trading in onions or chickens, all hoping for a few coins, and you laugh heartily at Jews struggling with poverty and hunger. Leave such things to the writers of Novoye Vremya.’” The Rebbe Rashab continued telling his son: “You surely remember how angry Baron Ginzburg became when I told Feinberg that, had he not happened to find favor in Rivkin’s eyes when Rivkin came to inspect the town of Lyuzna in 5651 to establish a vocational school there on behalf of the Society for the Promotion of Enlightenment—and chose Feinberg to be its director—he, too, would now be one of the market people of Lyuzna. But now Baron Ginzburg has appointed him secretary of the Society for the Promotion of Enlightenment, he lives in Petersburg and earns a comfortable living, and he laughs at Jews struggling to obtain a piece of bread. It is a shame and a disgrace to humanity, especially for those who claim to be communal activists. We must grieve twice over for our Jewish brethren: for their economic condition, and for those who supposedly defend them and seek their welfare in government circles.’ They sat there thunderstruck, unable to utter a sound. Neither they nor Baron Ginzburg had ever heard words like these. No one had ever told him or his circle of servants,

05:21 the directors and officials of the Society for the Promotion of Enlightenment, of their sin against the Jewish people and their offense against honesty and truth. Feinberg and Levkovitch gave me piercing looks but did not say a word. The other people present also fell silent, and Baron Ginzburg said, ‘I have known you for many years as a restrained and courteous man. Where is your courtesy? After all, we are sitting in Petersburg, not in the marketplace of some small town.’” The Rebbe Rashab told his son Yosef Yitzchak: “I answered him: ‘Yes, we are sitting in Petersburg and not in a small town. But why don’t you visit the small towns and see, on market day, Jews dressed in rags, shivering from the cold, their faces flushed with agitation and the desire to live? Zey viln lebn—they want to live. Market day is the source of their livelihood and their children’s livelihood for entire weeks. Five Jews rush at a bundle of flax or pig bristles, and five Jewish women rush at a bundle of onions. They are all hungry and thirsty and faint with exhaustion, for they have not eaten even a piece of bread all day. If you saw the gaunt bodies of the children, their skin stretched tight over their bones, lying about in an unheated home, barefoot and without clothes, waiting for their parents to return from the market, I am certain that even the most pampered minister would shudder and weep bitterly at such a terrible state of affairs. You have not seen such a sight, but these gentlemen have.’” He meant Levkovitch and Feinberg. “‘And who knows? Perhaps they themselves were once among those children waiting for the piece of bread their parents would bring from the market to still their hunger. How dare they laugh at the bitter plight of the Jewish people and portray it as something comical? Such a portrayal belongs only in the pages of Novoye Vremya, not in the home of a Jew. If only,’” the Rebbe Rashab continued telling them, “‘you would visit the Jewish towns throughout the Pale of Settlement, and the villages of White Russia

07:37 and Lithuania in particular, and hear the cry of the Jewish people: “Give us bread! Build factories where we can work, not vocational schools. Give us work and trades, so that we do not starve.”’” Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak continued: “My father, the Rebbe Rashab, spoke with great emotion. Although I remembered what had happened then, and it was also recorded in detail in my notes, I did not dare interrupt him and tell my dear, holy father that I remembered everything about that visit to Baron Ginzburg’s home very well. I thought my father must have some special intention in this holy conversation. A few moments passed, and my father, the Rebbe Rashab, said to me: ‘I have reminded you of all this so that tonight you will write a long letter to R.M.M. Monosson, encouraging him and reminding him of everything that, thank G-d, has been accomplished in these three years. Remind him that Hashem’s purpose has succeeded through us: the one million francs—350,000 rubles—that the Jewish Colonization Association allocated to the Society for the Promotion of Enlightenment at Baron Ginzburg’s request was, through Hashem’s kindness and our efforts, given instead for the construction of a spinning mill in the town of Dubrovna. Several hundred Jewish families in Dubrovna work at the mill and earn their living from it, and it has also benefited the entire region. Write to him,’ my father told me, ‘in detail, and send the letter by registered mail tonight. Tell him that, G-d willing, I will write to him about this after Shabbos.’” We continue. The Frierdiker Rebbe recounts: “Eleven o’clock at night. After leaving my father’s presence before the midday meal, I wrote down his conversation and composed a detailed letter to R.M.M. Monosson as instructed. At seven o’clock I presented the letter to my father, the Rebbe Rashab. He read it carefully, instructed me to correct a few passages, and told me to send it. At ten o’clock that evening, I was summoned to my revered father and teacher, His Holiness”

10:21 And the Rebbe showed me two telegrams that had just arrived. One telegram came from Riga, from Yeshayahu Berlin, who had received a letter from RMM Munozon saying that the business was in danger and he could no longer sustain it. He was notifying him that he was withdrawing from the business. The second telegram was from Shmuel Gurary of Kremenchuk. He, too, had received a telegram from RMM Munozon, saying that recently competition had arisen, that he could not stand up to the competitors and did not wish to cause our father distress. He therefore proposed sending Khurlovsky[?], Rabbi Medivsky[?] from Khorel[?], at his expense, to come as soon as possible. My father, the Rebbe Rashab, told me he was troubled that RMM Munozon was alarming people with his letter and telegrams—Rabbi Yeshayahu Berlin and Gurary. My father told me to telegraph Rabbi Yeshayahu Berlin not to be alarmed: the business was proceeding as usual, and a letter of explanation would follow. Gurary was to be told that the business was in its usual condition, that there was no need to send Khurlovsky[?], and that a letter of explanation would follow. I was instructed to write letters addressing their respective concerns. In other words, the Rebbe Rashab was putting out the fire Munozon had started in his panic. What would happen? We were losing the battle. And here we read the continuation of the Frierdiker Rebbe’s diary, from Sunday, 21 Adar II, at ten in the morning: Last night, at twelve o’clock, His Holiness, my holy father the Rebbe, graciously gave me a letter in his own handwriting, addressed to RMM Munozon, to copy and send with a traveler to Vitebsk, from where it would be forwarded securely to RMM Munozon. He allowed me to copy for myself the words of Chassidus in his letter, this holy letter. This is what it says: “What you write—‘But what strength do we have?’—I cannot accept under any circumstances. We have great strength, and with Hashem’s help, when we proceed with His strength and His power, it is our duty to work and exert ourselves in every matter and not rely on a miracle. For this is Hashem’s will: that we act, and He will help us.”

13:24 “As it is written, ‘Hashem your G-d will bless you in all that you do’—specifically in what you do. In the time of exile, and particularly in these endeavors, what is needed is mesirus nefesh: exertion with tremendous strength, drawing on our innermost powers, and not proceeding according to reason. Reason may tell us what is likely to succeed, but reason alone cannot accomplish anything. Nor do we truly know what is near and what is far, because the way things are being directed now does not follow an orderly, graded progression. In my opinion,” writes the Rebbe Rashab, “this is because we are now in the final stages of the birurim, in the footsteps of Moshiach. When a pot, for example, reaches the end of its cooking, it boils most fiercely, and as it boils, what was at the bottom rises to the top. So too, with the intensity of the birurim in these final days, something that seems to us, according to reason, very far from being rectified may in fact be very close. In light of this, one might suggest that the ways in which the birurim and rectifications take place no longer follow an orderly, graded progression.” And when the Rebbe Rashab writes here in his letter that there is no orderly progression in how things are directed and in the birurim, he means an order and progression comprehensible to reason, the order of seder hishtalshelus. But from the perspective of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, there certainly is an order and progression in the ways the birurim take place and things are directed. As the Maharal of Prague writes, even miracles above nature, which transcend seder hishtalshelus, have an order and progression. The Arizal likewise writes that there are ten sefiros in igulim. This must be so, since everything is directed by Hashem’s intent. Hakadosh Boruch Hu directs everything, though to us it appears not to follow an orderly progression. Therefore, the Rebbe Rashab continues in his letter to Munozon, “For our part, we cannot—and particularly at this time, we may not—use our own reason to determine what is near and what is far. Wherever we find something that needs rectification, we must exert ourselves with tremendous strength. Hashem will do His part and help us. This is what Hashem desires:

15:58 “That we, specifically, exert ourselves, and He will help us.”