Episode 272 - The Rebbe Rashab and Zionism.

00:01 The Frierdiker Rebbe continues to describe the ongoing struggle against the Haskalah movement, which strives with all its might to sever Jews from Judaism, devising elaborate plans, denunciations, false accusations, connections, and the like. From the Frierdiker Rebbe’s diary: Monday, 6 Teves 5663—that is, 1903—in Lubavitch, at ten o’clock at night. “Today,” the Frierdiker Rebbe relates, “at five o’clock, the inspector of the provincial schools visited my father, the Rebbe Rashab. The interpreter was Chaim Katzenboigen, and the inspector demanded to know why my father, the Rebbe, opposed the schools of the Society for the Promotion of Enlightenment—both its schools of education and instruction and its vocational schools. My father, the Rebbe Rashab, told him: ‘First, the teachers there deny the Torah, do not observe the mitzvos, and to a certain extent desecrate the religion. Second, the curriculum is contrary to the Jewish religion.’ The inspector said, ‘But the teachers have been approved, and the curriculum has been approved’—meaning by the Russian government. The Rebbe Rashab asked him, ‘Approved by whom?’ The inspector answered, ‘By the government.’ My father, the Rebbe, told him, ‘The government does not interfere in religious matters, nor does it have the right to do so. More fundamentally, the government does not even know that the education and guidance of the Jewish people is a religious matter, not a matter of knowledge as it is among other nations. We, the Jewish people, are obligated to educate and guide our children according to the instruction written in the book of G-d’s laws, which Hakadosh Boruch Hu gave us at Sinai. Our fathers and forefathers upheld it with self-sacrifice, and we, too, uphold it with the same fervor and warmth with which our fathers did, without regard for anything else.’ The inspector said, ‘Are you, Rabbi Schneersohn, setting limits for the government, saying that up to this point it has authority and beyond it it does not? These words reek not only of

03:01 disrespect for the government, but of outright rebellion against it.’ The Rebbe Rashab told him, ‘If someone who says, “I am a Jew, I fear Hashem, the G-d of my fathers, and I love His mitzvos and will be careful to observe them regardless of anything else,” is a rebel against the laws of the government, let those who know religion and law judge the matter. I am not at all concerned with that, for whatever the punishments may be, they do not frighten me in the least. No one has the right to force another person’s beliefs in anything concerning religion.’ The inspector said, ‘The purpose of my visit is not to hear your opinion about the type of teachers and curriculum for Jewish schools. Rather, it is to deliver to Rabbi Schneersohn a message and warning from the provincial director of education, on behalf of the head of education in the Vilna region. At a meeting held about two months ago, they decided to inform the distinguished citizen of longstanding family standing, a merchant of the second guild, Rabbi Schneersohn, that he must cease interfering with the work of spreading enlightenment among the Jews through his campaigning, both spoken and written. If he does not [unclear], he and his household will be expelled from the Vilna region, which includes the provinces of Mogilev, Vitebsk, Minsk, Vilna, and Kovno.’ My father, the Rebbe Rashab, answered the inspector: ‘I have heard the warning, and I answer plainly: No fine or punishment in the world will force me to change my firm conviction that Jewish men and women are forbidden to send their sons and daughters to the schools of the Society for the Promotion of Denial of the G-d of Israel. With Hashem’s help, I will campaign even more vigorously and extensively against the schools of the Society for the Promotion of Enlightenment. And if they expel me from the Vilna region, then in whichever province Divine Providence establishes my home, there I will found my chadarim to educate and guide Jewish children on the foundations of Torah and mitzvos. These will cleanse the Jewish streets of the poison of denial of Hashem and His Torah that the leaders of the Society for the Promotion of Enlightenment are spreading. What astonishes me is that you came to me as a representative of the education authorities,

05:35 yet you speak as a representative of the police authorities. Please convey my words to the provincial director and to the head of education in the Vilna region. No one has ever heard of refuting a reasoned argument with the force of a fist. I have said, and I say again, with good reason, that the education and guidance of Jewish children is a religious matter; the teachers must be religiously observant, and the curriculum must be arranged according to religion. And the leaders of education answer me with the force of a fist?’” The Frierdiker Rebbe continues in his diary: Thursday, 4 Shvat 5663, Lubavitch, four o’clock in the afternoon. “This morning at six o’clock, my father, the Rebbe Rashab, returned from the journey he began on Wednesday, 18 Teves, to visit the holy resting places of our teacher the Baal Shem Tov, the Maggid of Mezritch, the holy Malach, the Rebbe of Berditchev, the Alter Rebbe, and the Mitteler Rebbe. At ten o’clock, my father gave me various notes he had written during that journey. Some concern Chassidus and the ways of Chassidus, and others concern general matters of thought. While my father was in Nezhin—that is, at the resting place of the Mitteler Rebbe—Rabbi Shlomo Aharon Aharonson visited him. Their conversation concerned the Zionist organization and the Zionist approach, which my father, the Rebbe Rashab, opposed in his general letter of 5668. Rabbi Aharonson, however, wanted to defend the Zionists. The conversation with Rabbi Aharonson took place on Monday, 1 Shvat, at the home of Rebbetzin Mrs. Chana Chisha [unclear], widow of my grandfather, the Rebbe Maharash. My father was kind enough to record, in his own holy handwriting, Rabbi Aharonson’s arguments in favor of Zionism and the answers my father, the Rebbe Rashab, gave him. I,” says the Frierdiker Rebbe, “copy them here in his own words.” This is what he writes: “Our Sages said, ‘Not like that man, whom they pushed away with both hands.’ By pushing him away, they separated him from the Jewish people, and he did what he did. So too, by distancing and rejecting the Zionists, we separate

08:33 them and bring them down.” In other words, Aharonson argues that they should be drawn close so they will not be separated from the Jewish people. That is his first point. Second, at any rate, a number of people who had been completely distant from the Jewish people and did not want to be called Jews have now, through Zionism, drawn closer and take pride in being called Jews. Third, Aharonson asks: Do we have the strength to fight them? And if something cannot be brought to a successful conclusion, it is not worth beginning. My father, the Rebbe Rashab, answers him: “When our Sages said, ‘Not like that man, whom they pushed away with both hands,’ that was before his disgrace became known, when his evil was hidden and buried within him. Had they drawn him close, he would not have revealed his evil or carried out the deeds he carried out. Even within himself, the evil would have become more and more concealed over time, and it is possible that the good that was apparent in him would have overcome the hidden evil. As is known, what is revealed has the power, over time, to overcome what is hidden and transform it. Thus, by drawing him close, they would have brought him closer to the Sages, the evil within him would have remained concealed, and certainly it would not have led to action. But that is not the case with the Zionists. The Zionists have already come out openly and forcefully with their approach. Their approach is nationalism, and they cannot give it up, for it is the very foundation of political Zionism. Without it, they cannot achieve their goal, as explained. So if we draw them close, it will not be they who draw close to us; rather, we will draw close to them. True, on some matters of little importance they will accept the words of those who fear Hashem, but only in order to deceive. On fundamental principles they will yield nothing, and through their cunning they will ensnare many innocent souls. They will point to this and proclaim in all sorts of ways that the religious Jews, too, are together with them. This is the exact opposite of what our Sages intended regarding that man, whom they should not have

11:04 To push them away with both hands, when they should be treated in the opposite way. You also say that, at any rate, they brought people who had been distant from the Jewish people closer. I ask, says the Rebbe Rashab: In what way did they draw closer? Did they begin observing the Torah and its mitzvos? No. On the contrary, through the Zionist movement they grew even more distant from observing Torah and mitzvos and from faith in Hashem. The Zionists did far more harm than the Society for the Promotion of Enlightenment. That society offered the people something in addition to Torah: they planted the harmful idea in their minds that secular education was also necessary and indispensable. And since that education was a rival to Torah, especially as they drew it from false sources, over time secular studies gained the upper hand over Torah. Those involved in them became heretics and cast off the yoke of Heaven and the yoke of Torah, as we see even among those who were already older, and especially among the young people engaged in secular studies. Still, an older enlightened man, or someone educated in the cheder, knows the Torah of Hashem and its teachings. He knows that he has strayed from the path of Torah and mitzvos and is not living as a Jew should, Heaven forbid. There is hope that at some point he will take it to heart and return to Hashem, for even though he has sinned, he remains a Jew with a Divine spark within him. Since he knows full well that he is acting contrary to Hashem’s will, and that he is not living as a Jew should, he may one day awaken and feel bitter anguish over how far he has gone. He may realize how wrong and bitter it was to forsake Hashem and resolve to follow the path of Torah and mitzvos, as Hashem our G-d commanded us through His faithful servants. Especially when he is in distress and beset by many troubles and misfortunes, Heaven forbid, it is quite possible that he will do teshuvah. As the saying goes, “Jews need calamity to bring them to teshuvah.” So it was during the pogroms in Kiev, when several students were moved to put on tefillin and the like. Though it did not last long,

13:41 they did, nevertheless, awaken to observe the mitzvos. Had there been someone observant there to draw them close and strengthen that awakening in their hearts, they would have continued on that path. Perhaps it was because their teshuvah was not yet complete that they later returned to their former ways. All this is because he knows that every Jew must observe Torah and mitzvos, and that he himself, by not observing them, is not living as a Jew should. So there is hope that he will return to Hashem in one of the ways mentioned above. But the Zionists devised something far more harmful: they offered nationalism as a substitute for Torah and mitzvos. As Mandelstam says in his open letter, a Jew is not defined by observing the mitzvos; rather, anyone who is a Zionist is a Jew, even if he does not put on tefillin or keep Shabbos. Heaven forbid, he is still a Jew. Last year, the newspaper Hashiloach wrote that even someone who observes none of the Torah’s mitzvos, may Hashem protect us, and even someone who denies the fundamentals of faith, Heaven forbid, is a Jew if he is a Zionist. The newspaper Hamelitz quoted this at the time and did not agree with such an appalling position. The conclusion that emerges from all the Zionists’ articles is plain to see: their entire aim and effort is to instill in the Jewish people the notion that Torah and mitzvos are merely a means of holding the community together, not a genuine obligation. This idea can easily take hold among our young people, who are receptive to it. Once it becomes established in their minds, they consider themselves entirely exempt from Torah and mitzvos, thinking that there is no need for that means of preserving the community—especially since they have another. They reason that if there were only one Jew in the world, there would be no need for Torah and mitzvos at all; only because there are many Jews, may Hashem increase their number, are Torah and mitzvos needed to preserve the people. And now Zionist nationalism has come to take

16:25 the place of religion, presenting itself as the means of preserving the community. Thus, someone who joins the Zionists does not consider himself obligated at all to observe Torah and mitzvos, and there is consequently no hope that he will return to them someday. Even if you were to pound him in a mortar, he would not do teshuvah, because by his reckoning he is a proper Jew as long as he is a loyal nationalist. It is therefore clear, on logical grounds, that the Zionist idea not only failed to bring those who were distant closer to the Jewish people, but drove them further and further away. Moreover, Heaven forbid, it led Jews who had been sound in their beliefs to uproot from their hearts any sense of the sanctity of Torah, faith in Hashem, and the observance of practical mitzvos. It did so by taking from them the very premise that Torah and mitzvos are binding and implanting in their hearts the idea that Zionist nationalism makes them Jews in every respect. Consequently, anyone caught in their corruption, and anyone connected with them, descends into the abyss, with no hope of bringing him back. The leading Zionists, of course, act deliberately; the lesser ones follow them without understanding. With great intent, cunning, deceit, and wicked schemes, the leaders have carried out and continue to carry out their harmful work. Through thousands of articles and tens of thousands of appealing phrases in Yiddish, Hebrew, and the language of the country, they mislead people into accepting their central premise: that Jewish identity consists entirely of nationalism—that is, Zionism. Anyone with even a little understanding knows that Herzl’s and Nordau’s turn toward Zion did not come from any Divine feeling awakened in their souls. G-d-fearing Jews love the Holy Land because of the Divine feeling within them: they desire Hashem and His service, and therefore long for the place Hashem chose, “Who chooses Zion” and Jerusalem. Their love for that place is a deep, intrinsic, heartfelt love. They would literally kiss its dust; coming there is all they wish for in life. If only Hashem grants us the merit of reaching the Holy Land, for which every heart and soul longs. But the Zionists, and Herzl and Nordau in particular, are not like this. The proof

19:12 is that when Herzl was in the Holy Land, he grew even more distant from Hashem and openly violated Torah and mitzvos: he entered the holy city of Jerusalem after Shabbos had begun and went onto the site of the Beis Hamikdash. Even out of ordinary human feeling, he should not have done such a thing—publicly desecrating Shabbos in the holy city and at the site of Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s sanctuary! To do what is evil in Hashem’s eyes! May Hashem protect us. Rather, he did it deliberately, to demonstrate the Zionists’ position that Jewish identity is entirely a matter of nationalism and that Torah and mitzvos have no place at all. The head of the Zionists—Herzl—set up the idol of nationalism, which is rebellion against Hashem and denial of Torah and mitzvos, even at the site of Hashem’s sanctuary. He was saying, “I am going to desecrate Shabbos specifically at the site of the Beis Hamikdash.” There is much more to this letter. For now, I am skipping ahead to the continuation of the Frierdiker Rebbe’s diary. Thursday, 23 Sivan 5663, Serebrenka [unclear]. Seven o’clock in the evening. Today, for about four hours, from two until six inclusive, I reported to my father, the Rebbe Rashab, on the effect of his letter concerning Machzikei Hadas in 137 places—some large cities, some small towns, and some settlements with only a few families. Several letters complained about the establishment of Machzikei Hadas societies, and some expressed outright opposition. Since last Rosh Hashanah, when the Rebbe Rashab published his Igeres Hakodesh concerning Machzikei Hadas, with specific regulations and a plan of work and outreach, I have made progress with that plan. I entered into correspondence, the Frierdiker Rebbe relates, with people suited to this work. By the time we returned successfully from our trip to Vienna to Lubavitch before Pesach, 297 replies on the subject had been received. The continuation, with Hashem’s help, will follow.