Episode 270 - The Denunciation That Led to the Yeshiva's Closure and the Victory.

00:01 We are listening to the Frierdiker Rebbe’s diary about the journey from Lubavitch to Serebrenka [?], and he continues to describe the trip. “As we traveled through an avenue of trees, my father, the Rebbe Rashab, drew a breath and said that he was very tired—oيسגעמאַטערט—and instructed us to go slowly. He rested his hand on the carriage, closed his holy eyes, and rested for about a quarter of an hour. My heart tightened at the weakness of his health. Afterward, my father opened his holy eyes and instructed us to travel at our usual pace. He turned to me and said: It is stated in Sefer Yetzirah, ‘G-d made one thing opposite the other’: good opposite evil, and evil opposite good; good from good, evil from evil; good distinguishes evil, and evil distinguishes good; good is stored away for the good, and evil is stored away for the evil. “These four things—the first, one thing opposite the other; the second, what each produces; the third, examining one through the nature of its opposite; and the fourth, the relationship of each to those suited to it—constitute the order of avodah. Whoever wants to approach holiness—and who, in truth, does not want to approach holiness? For everyone truly wants it. It is just that some people’s desire to approach holiness is revealed, while in others it is concealed and must be brought out. A person who has daas is moved on his own to do everything necessary to reveal his desire to approach holiness. Someone who is not moved on his own is awakened from Above, sometimes through experiences of closeness and sometimes, G-d forbid, through experiences of distance, so that his desire to approach holiness will be revealed through the work of correcting himself and refining his character traits. “Every person,” my father continued, “whoever he may be—whether poor in understanding or rich in understanding—must engage in holy service. He has good and evil within him, and this does not mean only the good and evil that are apparent. There are also good and evil that lie hidden and covered over. So that a person may know the true nature of his good and evil thoroughly, without

02:59 mistaking one for the other, Sefer Yetzirah comes to show those who serve Hashem a path in avodah. It tells every person that from the good he finds within himself, he can come to understand the nature of the evil within him, which he must refine and correct; and from the evil he finds within himself, he can come to understand the nature of the good within him, through which he can refine that evil and drive it out entirely. This is what it means by ‘good opposite evil, and evil opposite good.’ “One who serves Hashem must know that good and evil produce offspring. In their very nature, they are like living creatures that produce offspring of their own kind. One must know this because it affects the ways of avodah, both in recognizing one’s condition and in how one goes about the work. A person must examine himself to know how many shortcomings he has already corrected and how many he still needs to correct—that is, how much evil he has already driven out of himself and how much he still needs to drive out. This examination is among the hardest forms of avodah, because one must be very careful not to err on account of self-love and the value one places on oneself. Even someone who serves Hashem with all his heart and all his soul may stumble in this examination. Sefer Yetzirah therefore teaches how to examine oneself without falling into error. This is what it means by ‘good distinguishes evil, and evil distinguishes good.’ “Nor should anyone say: Since He, may He be blessed, desires kindness and has devised ways so that no one be cast away from Him, good will prevail over evil even without a person’s own avodah. Sefer Yetzirah therefore tells us that Hakadosh Boruch Hu grants man free choice: good is stored away for the good, who engage in avodah, and evil is stored away for the evil, who do little in the service of Hashem. Sefer Yetzirah mentions the good first, for the measure of goodness exceeds the measure of punishment. It concludes with evil for the evil, so that a person will take it to heart, recognize the truth, fear the Day of Judgment, and repent while there is still time,

05:45 and all will be well with him.” As we traveled, we could see in the distance two men on foot, sitting on a rise beside the road to rest. When we came closer, I looked at them and recognized the chassidim Peretz HaKohen and Menachem Mendel HaKohen, the teachers from Beshankovichi [?]. I told my father, the Rebbe Rashab, and he instructed us to slow down and pass by them. As we passed, we saw a magnificent sight: Peretz and Menachem Mendel sat beneath a shady tree, wearing their talleisim ketanim and with yarmulkes on their heads. Their outer garments, shoes, hats, and walking sticks lay beside them. Menachem Mendel leaned on his elbows, which rested on his thighs, his eyes closed as he listened to his friend Peretz. Peretz, too, sat with his eyes closed, reviewing a maamar of Chassidus aloud in the distinctive tune used for reviewing maamarim, gesturing with his hands as one does when studying a subject in depth. My father, the Rebbe Rashab, instructed us to stop for a few moments. They did not notice, and we traveled on. My father told me that they were reviewing the maamar “Mi Madad Besha’alo Mayim,” delivered on the second day of Shavuos. I told my father, the Rebbe Rashab, that Reb Peretz and Reb Menachem Mendel had told me that this Shavuos marked thirty-three years since they began making the journey to Lubavitch. They first came to Lubavitch in 5631, and ever since, every year—even in years when my holy father was not at home—they have walked to Lubavitch. They aim to arrive for the Shabbos before Shavuos, stay until after the first Shabbos following the Giving of the Torah, and then walk home. As we passed through the town of Rudnya and reached the highway that runs through the market square, the rabbis, the shochtim and inspectors, prominent householders, and three teachers—Rabbi Rachmiel, Rabbi Yehoshua, and Rabbi Nosson Yitzchak—were already waiting there with their pupils, about fifty boys, to greet my father, the Rebbe Rashab, and offer him their blessings. My father instructed us to stop for a few moments. He spoke with the rabbis and those standing beside them, blessed them with a restful summer and a good livelihood, and traveled on. Apparently, writes

08:52 the Frierdiker Rebbe, the sight of Peretz and Reb Menachem Mendel made a deep impression on my father, the Rebbe Rashab. When we left the town of Rudnya, he said: “Five thousand six hundred and sixty-one years, nine months—this is a leap year—thirteen days, fifteen hours, and so many moments this patch of ground waited until Peretz and Mendel would come and sit there to review words of Torah, thereby fulfilling and revealing the will of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. This was in the primordial thought of [unclear], which was concealed in the light of Ein Sof, to illuminate the worlds before the tzimtzum. At the same time, Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s knowledge Above does not compel the free choice that He gives to each and every person. “We cannot measure the pleasure that is caused Above by such acts of studying Chassidus, and it is hard to imagine the envy with which the supernal partzufim regard these teachers. Chassidic teachers who engage in avodah are the Avraham Avinu of every generation. They spread awareness of His Divinity in Jewish homes. The Mitteler Rebbe drew teachers very close, just as he did rabbis. The Mitteler Rebbe said: Teachers prepare Jews to be vessels for G-dliness.” We are turning off the highway, that is, the main road, and traveling along a soft road. As we pass the avenue of trees, we can see the house standing on the hill—our residence amid the green meadows of Serebrenka [?]. May Hashem, may He be blessed, grant that our arrival bring success. Reb Gershon the blacksmith had already prepared hot drinks and milk on the high platform facing the courtyard square. After drinking a cup of something hot, I went to see the garden, as I have already related. Now I am sitting and writing. The air is pleasant, and everything is quiet and restful. The diary continues on Thursday, 21 Sivan 5662, in Lubavitch. Two o’clock in the afternoon. Yesterday, Wednesday, in the middle of the third meeting, at six in the evening, a messenger arrived from Lubavitch with a letter announcing that at the hour of

11:51 At two in the afternoon, when all the students had taken their places and the head supervisor was on the platform in the large hall, the police official, the pristav, suddenly appeared with his deputy, the uryadnik, and three policemen, and ordered the learning to stop. He recorded the names of all the students and everyone else present at the time. When he finished, he asked two of those standing there to sign the report. He ordered the hall cleared, shut its windows from the inside, locked the door, affixed the seal of the police office, and instructed them to make sure the wax seals were not broken. The police official said he had received an order from the police in Orsha, issued in the name of the provincial police office on the instructions of the provincial education office, to order the police in Lubavitch to close immediately the rooms for the study of Torah established by Rebbe Schneersohn under the name Tomchei Temimim. These were not legally permitted classrooms taught by certified teachers, he said, but a yeshiva, which was prohibited by law. He was also to obtain a signed undertaking from the hereditary honorary citizen, second-guild merchant Yosef Yitzchak, son of the Rebbe Rashab Schneersohn, that he would not leave town without police permission until his case was decided. The secretary, Zelikson, writes the letter and encloses the note the police chief gave him to send me, for me to sign and return no later than tomorrow—that is, by noon today. The fifteen members of our committee listed above were deeply shaken. My father, the Rebbe Rashab, reassured them and said: “This is the way of true Torah: the opposing faction fights it by every means at its disposal. We must not be disturbed by this at all. With Hashem’s help and in the merit of our ancestors, our Rebbeim, I will maintain the Tomchei Temimim yeshiva. With His help, we will expand it and increase its student body threefold and fivefold over what it has been until now, without regard for anything. I stand firm,” said the Rebbe Rashab, “and will not deviate even a hair’s breadth

14:32 from the order, education, and guidance I have established. For the students of the Tomchei Temimim yeshiva will be the central pillar on which the House of Israel relies to awaken observance of the mitzvos and Torah study for generations, until Shiloh comes.” These holy words of my father lifted the spirits of those assembled. By the Rebbe’s decision, the committee’s meetings were suspended for an hour. My uncle, Rabbi Menachem Mendel, and Rabbi Shmuel Michl Treiman would travel to Mogilev via Vitebsk to visit the education office, since, when they were here this past Iyar, its officials had promised that henceforth they would pay no attention to informers’ claims about the Tomchei Temimim classrooms. I would travel to Lubavitch to reassure the students and staff of the Tomchei Temimim yeshiva and arrange for the learning to continue. When I arrived in Lubavitch at half past nine and learned the details of everything that had happened, I called Yaakov the builder and told him to make a ladder at once, with wide rungs, up to the window beside the entrance, to open the window, and to make three steps on the inside as well. By three in the morning, people were already going through the window. I placed a sheet of iron over the wax seal the official had put on the main door so it would not be broken, and by seven in the morning the yeshiva’s regular schedule had resumed. At seven-thirty, when Erik Zelikson came to daven, he said that his neighbor Aharon Zelig had told him that at about four in the morning, on his way back from the field where he had taken his goats, he had encountered a peasant’s wagon. The teacher Gitelson was sitting in it, with an armed policeman to his right, and they were traveling on the road toward Krosna station. An hour later we learned that at midnight two policemen had come to the school, woken Gitelson, and told him to go with them. Early in the morning, they sent him with a policeman to the district town of Orsha. When my grandmother, the Rebbetzin, went to daven and saw the ladder I had ordered made for entering through the window, she was alarmed, fearing that I had broken the law. The police official, though a very

17:14 stern man, was well disposed toward the Rebbe’s household. The police chief in the district town, called the ispravnik, had instructed him to treat the Schneersohn family well, for the other provincial officials also held the Rebbe in high regard. Five in the afternoon. I have just received a telegram from Mogilev saying that the police official has been instructed to remove the seal. I said nothing to anyone. I put the telegram in an envelope and wrote that everything had been settled satisfactorily, that today they had studied and were studying as usual, and that I would wait until the police official removed the seal. He might remove it today; if not, tomorrow morning I would send the letter with Tzvi the wagon driver, who promised me[?] he would travel quickly and deliver it within two hours to Sabrinka[?]—that is, to my father, the Rebbe Rashab. Friday, 22 Sivan, twelve noon. At eleven, the police official and his deputy came to the entrance of the yeshiva hall, removed the seal, and announced that the prohibition had been lifted and the hall could be used as before. When the official entered the hall and saw the ladder by the window, he asked about it; the ladder outside had been behind the office to the right of the entrance, and he had not noticed it. They told him that when I arrived on Wednesday night and found the door sealed, I had ordered a guard posted so the seal would not be broken, and a ladder made so the learning schedule would not be disrupted. The official came to me and said: “Although you guarded the police seal, opening an entrance through the window is a violation of the law. I must draw up a report and notify the police chief in the district town.” He wrote the report, and I signed it. That same day, at six in the evening—about an hour after I arrived and gave my account—I had traveled back to Sabrinka[?] and told my father, the Rebbe Rashab, everything that had happened while I was delayed in town. In another hour my uncle, Rabbi Menachem Mendel, and Reb Shem Treinin[?] will return from their trip to Mogilev, and we

19:51 are preparing for Shabbos, to hear words of Chassidus. And surely, if Hashem wills, there will be a farbrengen and a kiddusha rabba.