Episode 273 - Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok Tells How He Was Born.

00:01 Continuing the reading from Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak’s diary, amid the persecutions and false accusations of the Society for the Spread of Enlightenment. The Chabad yeshivah, Tomchei Temimim, of course continues on its path. Tuesday, 28 Sivan 5663, in Lubavitch, ten o’clock at night. The Frierdiker Rebbe writes: “I worked hard today testing the students in their study of Chassidus. I devoted about three hours to a meeting of the students’ committee, and spent many hours examining the correspondence of Tomchei Temimim in order to compile a list of its students, where they live, and the particulars of their circumstances. What is their spiritual condition? What are their abilities? What is their material situation? If only I can finish it, so that I can return to Naos Deshe in time for the walk.” In other words, his father, the Rebbe Rashab, is now in Naos Deshe, but he has returned to Lubavitch to attend to the ongoing work. “For I regret losing these pleasant hours, which are the reward for my labors in all communal matters, in addition to the heavy work of running Tomchei Temimim.” He continues: “At eleven-thirty at night I recited Shema, took off my clothes to rest, and then the attendant Reb Menachem Mendel Kantor knocked on the door and said, ‘I’ve brought you an urgent letter from the Rebbe.’ On hearing this, a tremor passed through my whole body and I nearly fainted. I gathered my strength, opened the door, and took the letter. When I read its last line, my spirit calmed. In this holy letter, my father, the Rebbe Rashab, writes, first, that he appoints me as his shliach to go to the holy resting places of my revered grandfather, my teacher and Rebbe, the holy Rebbe Maharash, and of the holy Tzemach Tzedek, and read the pan enclosed with the letter. Second, my father writes that I should send a telegram to Eliezer Ginzburg in Moscow concerning the three families, Lifshitz, Kozinets, and Klibanov, who are being expelled from NZY, as described in Yitzchak Rubinstein’s letter from the barracks. Third, my father writes that I should hurry with my work and return as soon as possible, and that Reb Chaim Meir Rozin will come with the carriage early in the morning.” The next day, Wednesday, 29 Sivan, the eve of Rosh Chodesh Tammuz.

03:11 “I slept for about three hours, and by three-thirty I was already sitting in the courtyard. Twice I went into the great hall. All the students were asleep. The old, silent man from Horodishch was also asleep in the room adjoining the great hall. The building and courtyard were clean, and the air was good. The silent man from Horodishch is a strange person. He has been at the synagogue for about two years, and no one knows his name; nor has he ever spoken to anyone. He came to Lubavitch after Pesach in 5661. He came to me and, without saying a word, handed me a note. The note said that he was an old man of eighty-seven, that he could no longer work and had nothing to live on. He therefore asked that I allow him to serve the students sleeping in the great hall, bringing them water for washing their hands in the morning and the like, and that the yeshivah pay him fifty-five small coins a week for it. I asked his name, but he did not answer. I granted his request, and since then he has worked diligently from five until six each morning. At four in the morning I went to the mikveh. I passed the large beis midrash and, through its open windows, heard the sweet sound of Tehillim being recited by the members of the early risers’ group, most of whom are craftsmen, butchers, and wagon drivers. The saying passed through my mind that the angel Metatron fashions crowns for Hakadosh Boruch Hu from the prayers of the Jewish people. And our teacher the Baal Shem Tov, who raised the standing of the ordinary men and women of the Jewish people, fashions crowns for Him from the Tehillim of the early risers’ group. Reb Chaim Rozin has now arrived, and I am traveling to the holy resting places to carry out my mission. May Hashem help me succeed, spiritually and materially, in fulfilling the wish my revered father, the Rebbe Rashab, has entrusted to me.” Later that day, when Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak is already in Serebryanka [unclear], the place where the Rebbe Rashab is vacationing, he writes: “Ten o’clock at night. At seven-thirty

06:23 I returned from the Ohel. I davened, and by ten o’clock I was already in my room at the Tomchei Temimim office, finishing the arrangement of the material I needed for my report. My revered grandmother, the Rebbetzin, invited me to have lunch with her, and during the meal she told me about: 1. Her father, the holy Rabbi Aharon. 2. Her revered mother-in-law, the Rebbetzin, and how she conducted herself with her sons, the rabbis, and with the elderly chassidim. 3. Rabbi Aharon Belinitzer [unclear]. 4. The gabbai, the chossid Reb Chaim Dov Ber. A fifth account concerned the attendants: Hershel Dargiler managed all the courtyard’s affairs, supplying the household of our Rebbe and the homes of his sons, the rabbis, with firewood and vegetables, and slaughtering animals. Hershel Der Schwarzer did the courtyard work: looking after the animals, heating the ovens, supplying water, and other simple tasks around the courtyard. With particular seriousness, she told me about my revered grandfather, the Rebbe Maharash, and how he conducted himself when visiting the Ohel of his father, the Tzemach Tzedek. Before traveling there, he would ask her whether she had anything to ask of her father-in-law, the Tzemach Tzedek, or any request to make of him. When she told him something, my grandfather, the Rebbe Maharash, would return from the Ohel and tell her, ‘This is what Father answered me,’ or, ‘This is what Father said.’ Once, she asked him about something. What was it? She did not tell me. It concerned one of her relatives, and from what I understood, it was a matter of a spiritual nature. The Rebbe Maharash told her that he could not relate this to the revered soul of his father, because in the World to Come, the higher world, speech is something spiritual—not as spiritual as thought, but spiritual nonetheless. There is a great difference between using speech to say something good and using it to say something repulsive, even when there is no choice and one must speak. In the World of Truth, where everything’s true nature is visible, speech, too, is like something visible to us,

09:20 and repulsive speech smells like excrement. He therefore could not convey her words. Indeed, when he returned from the Ohel, he told her that he had not conveyed what she had asked, for the reason he had given her, but that he had aroused mercy on her behalf. She related that the elder Rebbe Maharash, that is, his grandfather, would usually go for a carriage ride outside the town twice a day. He would get down from the carriage and sit among the trees; the souls of our forefathers would reveal themselves to him, and he would speak with them. Several times he told her things about the future that they had told him. At three o’clock I left Lubavitch and arrived in Strelna at five. About an hour after my arrival, I had the honor of walking with my father, the Rebbe Rashab, until seven-thirty. I will record the holy conversations and what was related during the walk tomorrow.” And on Wednesday, 6 Tammuz, at ten o’clock at night, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak writes: “At ten in the morning I presented my father, the Rebbe Rashab, with the general report on the founding of the Machzikei Hadas society, and in particular a detailed report based on sixty—based on sixty-three letters received from forty-six places in category three, together with a list of those who wrote them and details about them, and a list of the names of the students there. During our walk, my father, the Rebbe Rashab, spoke at length about the report as a whole, and especially about the forty-six places that wrote of strengthening the regular times and orderly study of Chassidus. He said to me: ‘The forty-six places writing about the necessity of strengthening the study of Chassidus are, it seems, cities of refuge.’” And on Wednesday, 13 Tammuz, at ten o’clock at night: “During our walk, I repeated before my father, the Rebbe Rashab, the maamar ‘And a Spring Shall Come Forth from the House of Hashem and Water the Valley of Shittim,’ which he had said to me yesterday, on my birthday, in keeping with the practice followed for nineteen years, since 12 Tammuz 5654. My father, the Rebbe Rashab, corrected my mistakes. ‘This maamar,’ my holy father told me, ‘is the beginning of the kuntres that I am thinking of arranging’”

12:21 So that they could study it in the cities of refuge. In addition, my father, the Rebbe Rashab, was delighted by the telegram from Eliezer Ginzburg announcing that permission had been granted for the three families—Lipschitz, Kozinets, and Klibanov—to reside in Nizhny Novgorod, as we related earlier. He said, “What the defense attorney Schlossberg cannot accomplish with his celebrated wisdom, Eliezer Ginzburg can accomplish with his good heart.” On Sunday, 23 Menachem Av, in Strelna, at ten at night, the Frierdiker Rebbe writes: “From 5:30 to 7:30, during our walk, my father, the Rebbe Rashab, discussed the meaning of the maamar ‘Whoever prolongs the word echad, his days and years are prolonged,’ which he had delivered the previous Shabbos, Parshas Eikev.” It was the seventh maamar in the series beginning with “A Spring Shall Come Forth from the House of Hashem,” which, as I have already written, I recited before my father on 12 Tammuz. My father, the Rebbe Rashab, told me that when he finished “A Spring Shall Come Forth from the House of Hashem,” after several installments, he would write it up as a kuntres for public study, so that ordinary householders would be able to understand it too. My father, the Rebbe Rashab, delivered “A Spring Shall Come Forth from the House of Hashem” in seven installments. And now it is Thursday, 18 Elul 5663, 1903. Again in Strelna, at ten at night. When I went in to my father at four in the afternoon, he said to me, “A good Yom Tov to us. Each year on 18 Elul, a light is revealed to us from our Torah, illuminating the paths of our avodah.” Then my father, the Rebbe Rashab, delivered a maamar of Chassidus beginning with the words “Arise, shine, for your light has come.” It was a maamar he himself had heard in yechidus from his father, the Rebbe Maharash, on Shabbos Parshas Savo, 18 Elul. When my father, the Rebbe Rashab, finished the maamar, he had mashke, kümmel, and the special mezonos he would eat brought for me, and said l’chaim. After saying a few more words,

15:38 he placed his holy hand on my head and blessed me. At six o’clock he ate his evening meal and then went for a walk. During the walk, he spoke about the Baal Shem Tov and told of the Baal Shem Tov’s holy name, Yisroel. He spoke about his childhood and about the time the Baal Shem Tov was revealed. He said that the revelation of the Baal Shem Tov was loftier than the revelation of Eliyahu Hanavi. When my father returned from the walk, he gave me permission to publish the maamar “A Spring Shall Come Forth from the House of Hashem.” So now I am sending my handwritten manuscript to Shmuel Sofer to copy on the copying machine: two hundred copies for Anash and one hundred copies for the students, may they live.