Episode 269 - Continued- The Maskilim's Informing.

00:01 Continuation of the Frierdiker Rebbe’s diary about the harassment and false accusations by the Society for the Promotion of Enlightenment against Chabad chassidim in particular and the Jewish people. Friday, 23 Adar, five o’clock in the afternoon. The Frierdiker Rebbe writes: At three o’clock a policeman came and brought me a sealed notice, stamped with the seal of the Criminal Investigation Office, and I was to sign the accompanying certificate. The accompanying certificate listed every office through which the notice had passed. This was its wording: From the office of the head of criminal investigations attached to the provincial governor, to the office of the chief of police, the police commissioner. From the office of the chief of police to the district department attached to his office. From that district department to the district police office in the city of Orsha, Mogilev Province. From the district police office in Orsha to its regional department. From the regional department to the police in the town of Lubavitch. To deliver the enclosed notice from the Criminal Investigation Office, number such-and-such, to the hereditary honorary citizen, merchant of the second guild, Mr. Yehuda Schneersohn; to obtain his signature and return this certificate. I, the narrator, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak, read the accompanying certificate. Reb Zeligson[?] stood beside me trembling, his face pale, and said, “A new calamity has come upon us.” I asked the policeman to make me a copy of the accompanying certificate, including all the dates recorded on it. I signed as required and accepted the notice. I opened the envelope, which was sealed with five wax seals, and took out the notice. It was a printed sheet bearing a special Criminal Investigation Office form, with the following written in by hand: “Contents: On such-and-such a day, at a sitting of the investigative committee sent by the Criminal Investigation Office to investigate the case of the hereditary honorary citizen, merchant of the second guild, Mr. Yehuda

02:23 Schneersohn of the town of Lubavitch, Orsha District, Mogilev Province, who is suspected of several offenses against the laws of the state, the investigative committee found it necessary, in accordance with the law, to confine the suspect in the jail attached to the Lubavitch police station for the duration of the investigation. While sitting in the dark, the suspect submitted a request to be given a candle and a table so that he could write, or to be moved to a room with a window. The investigative committee read the request and, since— The investigative committee read the request and decided that it had no bearing on the course of the investigation. It deferred a decision on the request until the investigation was completed, as required by law, so as not to disrupt proceedings. And the outcome, upon completion of the investigation and questioning, as recorded on the first day of the investigation and questioning, was that there was no substance to the accusation. Toward evening the hereditary honorary citizen, merchant of the second guild, Mr. Yehuda Schneersohn, was released. Since the matter addressed in his request had passed, the request remained without result. [unclear], Tzvi. Conclusion and order: The hereditary honorary citizen, merchant of the second guild, Mr. Yehuda Schneersohn, is to be notified through the provincial and district police, with transfer certificates and an acknowledgment of receipt, of a copy of the contents and the decision concerning his request. The notice is to be enclosed in an envelope bearing five seals, as required by law. Upon the return of the acknowledgment of receipt, it is to be added to the file, which is to be sent to the archive as required by law.” When I showed the notice, the envelope, and the copy of the transfer and receipt certificate to my father, the Rebbe Rashab, he laughed and said: “How much order and composure there is in such conduct. Even if things are sometimes a little delayed, everything is orderly.” Continuation of the diary. Monday, 11 Sivan. Yes, that is, about three weeks later. Eleven o’clock at night. At five o’clock in the afternoon, I, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak, was sitting in my room in the Tomchei Temimim office, speaking with three guests—Rabbi Avraham Kovkov of Minsk, Rabbi Ze’ev Mirkin of Kropka, and Rabbi Lev Pazin of Litevsk[?]—about the yeshiva’s income, which had risen this year, 5662, compared with last

04:40 year. I was urging them to do more in their work. Rabbi Yaakov Koppel Zeligson came in and told me that two men were waiting to see me, saying that they had an urgent matter. The guests left, and the two men entered. As soon as I saw their faces, I recalled Perl Mutter’s[?] account from 5 Iyar of this year, and understood that this was the result of the reports made by the teacher Gitelson. I asked them to sit down. One began speaking to me in Jewish—that is, Yiddish—and showed me his identification card, which established that he was from the Criminal Investigation Office. His companion was from the same office. He said they both knew the tenor of the Rebbe’s public farbrengens and what went on in the yeshiva he had founded and directed. He had arranged to be here in Lubavitch when the chassidim gathered for Shavuos; he had seen the Rebbe, heard the niggunim, tried to attend every gathering of yeshiva students, and visited most of the lodgings. Yesterday, when this colleague of his arrived as well, they decided to investigate their assignment discreetly, without it becoming publicly known, and without even the Rebbe, your father, knowing about it. I saw that the second investigator, the Russian, did not understand what his Jewish colleague was saying, so I said, “If you are speaking Yiddish for my benefit, you can speak Russian instead.” The Russian investigator thanked me for this. “A confidential report was received at the Criminal Investigation Office,” the Russian began, “stating that the yeshiva founded by the Rebbe Schneersohn of Lubavitch and directed by his son Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn harbors young men evading military service, and that the yeshiva director, the younger Schneersohn, uses various schemes and forgeries to exempt these young men from military service. The report is signed by people whom the Criminal Investigation Office trusts. Our assignment is to investigate the matter.” “As I have observed,” said the Jewish investigator, “the yeshiva is run in an orderly fashion. It surely has a list of its students and their ages dating back to its founding. We therefore wish to see the list of students who have reached military-service age and their documents.” I told them, “I can

06:46 give you a copy of the student list and their documents, but then the matter will become public, which is against your wishes. So I suggest that over the next two days I gather all the documents under various pretexts[?], and hand the list and documents to one of you. It would be best to do the handover at night, when no one is in the yeshiva office. You can then examine and investigate the list and documents and get to the bottom of the matter. For every young man you find who is of military-service age, is not on the list, and is hiding to evade his duty of military service, I will pay a fine of one hundred rubles, in addition to whatever penalty the law imposes on him.” My firm words, delivered calmly and with complete composure, made a strong impression on the two men. They agreed and left, intending to return on Wednesday night. Wednesday, 13 Sivan, one o’clock after midnight. Although I am very tired from the day’s work gathering the material needed to prepare a report on everything done in the general efforts to save the public since Tammuz 5661, when my father, the Rebbe Rashab, was abroad in the town of Homburg, for the conference that will take place, G-d willing, on Tuesday, the 19th of this month, I cannot, despite my exhaustion, refrain from recording what happened today and its outcome, through Divine Providence and in a miraculous manner. This is what happened. The Jewish investigator came to me at half past eleven to read the list of students and their documents, and told me about an incident that had occurred in his presence. He and his colleague had wanted to investigate the school of the Society for the Promotion of Enlightenment. His colleague inspected the teachers’ premises and found that the military-service exemption certificates of two of the teachers were suspicious. He took them with him to the provincial capital, where the matter would be clarified. From the head teacher, Gitelson, he obtained a signed pledge not to leave town, and deposited his certificate at the office of

08:56 the police until the matter is clarified. He went on to tell me, “We have spent the past two days investigating the yeshivah students who have passed the age of military service [?], and I already have a list of them all. I will return the list and the documents you are giving me tomorrow night.” I told him that tomorrow at four o’clock my father, the Rebbe Rashab, would be traveling with his family to the summer house in Serebrenka, near the Znominka [?] station, between Rudnya and Liozna. He then said, “In that case, I will return them to you at ten o’clock.” And then, the following day, Thursday, 14 Sivan 5662, in Serebrenka: I have just returned from a visit to the old, abandoned garden. Most of its aged trees have large, deep hollows that fill one with fear of the snakes or scorpions living there. The paths between the rows of trees are full of thorns and thistles, and everywhere you turn in the courtyard and garden there is neglect and ruin. It is no wonder that I am so fond of Serebrenka in general and its garden in particular, for many good memories of the summer of 5660, when we lived in Serebrenka, are bound up with it, as recorded in my notes from that year. How pleasant it was to walk the paths we walked then and sit on the benches where we sat then, which bring back the details of the words and conversations I heard. What the heart feels, the pen cannot put into words. In the evening, at half past six, I longed to go to the garden. For about an hour and a half I delighted in walking back and forth and sitting in the garden, gazing at the sky and immersing myself in my memories, until I heard the voice of my daughter, little Chana, may she live—born on 25 Menachem Av 5659—calling, “Father, Father, where are you? Father, Father, answer me!” She repeated her call two or three times. That call matched what I was thinking about at the time: my father the Rebbe Rashab’s explanation of the maamar he had delivered last Shabbos morning, Parshas Naso, before davening: “And Hashem descended upon Mount Sinai.”

11:21 He explained the difference between the drawing down brought about through the work of Torah and mitzvos and that brought about through the service of the heart in prayer. The drawing down through Torah and mitzvos is like an older son engaged in his father’s business, increasing its wealth and assets. But the drawing down through the service of the heart in prayer is like a young child who longs for his father and calls, “Father, Father, answer me!” Now, hearing my little girl’s call, I felt within myself the explanation of my dear, holy father the Rebbe, which he had graciously given me toward evening on the second day of Shavuos, as recorded at length in my notes: the young child’s cry, “Father, Father,” brings Hashem pleasure and awakens His innermost delight far more than the pleasure He derives from the older son who achieves great success and amasses wealth through his dealings in his father’s business. The cry “Father, Father, where are you? Father, Father, answer me!” moved me to tears. I followed my daughter’s voice. She hugged me and told me that Grandpa, Grandma and Mother were waiting for me for the evening meal, “and she too”—she added with childish pride—“will eat with us.” Her younger sister, little Chaya Mushka, was already asleep. She had slept the whole way from Lubavitch and did not even know that we had arrived at the summer house. And she laughed happily. I told my holy father about the inscription I had found today on a stone table, half of which had shattered into pieces. On its southern corner was engraved, from left to right, a cross, “1642, 17 of the sixth.” That is to say, this table was already standing here some 260 years ago. This confirms the account of Reb Gershon the blacksmith, whose forge at the foot of the hill has been in his family for over 130 years. At the Maggid’s suggestion, they moved it then from the town of Liozna to the village and estate of Lapshina, belonging to the Lithuanian prince Lapshin. And when

13:30 General Sheremetev conquered the region and found two cellars full of coins and pieces of silver, he changed its name from Lapshina to Serebrenka. My father, the Rebbe Rashab, spoke about the Alter Rebbe’s efforts to settle Jews in villages and in inns at crossroads—kretshmes. Here the Frierdiker Rebbe goes back several days, to before they left for the summer house, and writes as follows: Over the course of four days, almost all the guests who had come for Shavuos and Shabbos remained and were received in yechidus by my father, the Rebbe Rashab. He set aside times for yechidus twice a day, from eleven until two and from five until ten at night, and had intended to leave for the summer house at eleven in the morning. But the elder chassidim Reb Mendel Yitzchak, the shochet and bodek from Liozna; Rabbi Shmaryahu Leib Levkin of Kropka; Rabbi Sholom Shlomo Gitlin of Minsk; Rabbi Avraham Abba Sirkin of Sosnitza; and Rabbi Aharon Sholom Chefetz of Vidz asked my father the Rebbe to kindly repeat the maamar “And Hashem descended upon Mount Sinai,” because those reviewing it, led by the students Avraham, Dovid and Tzvi of Klimovitch, did not yet know it well. My father, the Rebbe Rashab, granted their request and repeated the maamar at eleven in the morning. Meanwhile, some thirty more guests arrived, and they too went in for yechidus. At half past three, my father, the Rebbe Rashab, visited his mother, Rebbetzin Rivkah, in her apartment and drank a cup of hot tea there. At four o’clock we set out for Serebrenka. As usual, the courtyard was full of people—guests, students and many townspeople. Some stood in the hall looking through the windows; others crowded around the windows of the small hall. More arrived by the hour, until the courtyard filled up. The coachman could barely restrain the horses, which were frightened by the crowd, especially when people called out, “Travel safely! Come back safely!” We traveled through the streets of Chila [?], Chila [?] and Zoritsa [?], and through the villages of Slobody [?], Slobody Shas [?], and Chaimovka.

16:00 Chaimovka is an inn at a crossroads. Its first owner, some seventy years ago, was named Reb Chaim, and the inn has been called Chaimovka after him ever since. Then came Shubkhas [?] and the town of Rudnya, about seven parsaos along the main road from Moscow to Petersburg by way of Smolensk and Vitebsk. After that, one turns about half a parsa from the road and arrives in Serebrenka. This is the sixth time I have traveled with my father, the Rebbe Rashab, to a summer retreat: in 5655, 5656, 5657 and 5658 to Blivka [?]; in 5659 to Zeilesia [?]. In 5660, my wife, may she live, and I were in Kishinev visiting my honored father-in-law; in 5661 my father, the Rebbe Rashab, was abroad; and this year makes the sixth time. My father the Rebbe’s practice while traveling to a summer retreat is to read Tikkun Leil Shavuos a second time. After traveling about four parsaos, he instructs the coachman to stop, washes his hands and recites Tefillas Haderech. On this journey too, my father began reading Tikkun Leil Shavuos as we left town. Once we had passed the Chaimovka inn, he instructed the coachman to stop, washed his hands and recited Tefillas Haderech while seated, with his holy eyes closed. I have already noted in my writings that my father would recite Tefillas Haderech seated in a carriage but standing on a train. The Frierdiker Rebbe continues: Although the investigation by the secret-police officers ended well, I am still troubled by it. After my arrest last month, and after I had already received notice that I was cleared, officers from the secret-police office nevertheless came again. It seems the matter is not yet over. I am also troubled because I have concealed it all from my father, the Rebbe Rashab. Ever since ten o’clock, when the secret-police officer returned the documents and the list of students to me, I have wanted to tell my father all about it. But I could not find a suitable moment, so I left it for our journey. Now, though, seeing the exhaustion on my father’s holy face, I could not bring myself to speak

18:34 and tell him, knowing it would distress him, as it did last month.