Episode 276 - The Sanctity of Torah and Elisha, the Genius of Geniuses.

00:01 In connection with the holiness of the Torah and studying Torah in holiness, the Frierdiker Rebbe brings an interesting story that took place in the time of the Alter Rebbe, Rabbi Schneur Zalman. In Vitebsk, near the town of Liozna, where the Alter Rebbe was born and raised, there lived a Torah scholar named Rabbi Elisha, who was called “the genius of geniuses.” Rabbi Elisha was a close friend of Rabbi Avraham Zalman of Bishenkovitz[?]. He had a question—a serious question about Rashi’s commentary in the Talmudic tractate Eruvin, a very complex tractate. It was a genuine question that he could not resolve, and all the city’s scholars worked hard to answer it. Each of them—and there were very great scholars there—offered his own explanation. The Alter Rebbe offered his explanation too. By the way, we call him the Alter Rebbe, but he was a very young man at the time. Rabbi Elisha, the great scholar with the question, was the great-uncle of Reb Leib Segal. In other words, he was a relative, but much older than Reb Leib Segal, whose daughter married the Alter Rebbe. So he was, in fact, a member of the Alter Rebbe’s family. Rabbi Elisha had also been one of the people who examined the Alter Rebbe when, at age fourteen, he came to Vitebsk to be tested. Why? Because Reb Leib Segal, the wealthy man of Vitebsk, wanted his daughter to marry the Alter Rebbe, who was then fourteen. But he wanted to be sure the Alter Rebbe was suitable, so he had him examined. Rabbi Elisha was one of the examiners. The Alter Rebbe’s father was named Rabbi Baruch, and he lived in Liozna or near it, on a farm he had received from his father-in-law, Rabbi Avraham the gardener. And as for the Alter Rebbe, let’s consider for a moment just how great a scholar he was.

02:56 When the Alter Rebbe was six years old, he sat in the orchard on his father’s farm and studied with his younger brother, Rabbi Mordechai. They studied the verse in Bereishis, “These are the descendants of Seir the Horite, inhabitants of the land,” together with Rashi’s commentary. Rashi explains that “inhabitants of the land” means they could taste the soil and tell from its taste which land, which soil, was suited to which crops. But the Alter Rebbe’s younger brother, Rabbi Mordechai, could not understand how anyone could do such a thing. How could you tell whether soil was good just from the soil itself? So the six-year-old Alter Rebbe explained to his younger brother how it was possible. He also told him, “Listen, the fact is that you can even hear water springs flowing underground.” And so the Alter Rebbe told his younger brother—yes, a six-year-old child told his younger brother—“I can hear a strong spring flowing beneath this white mound of stones.” Indeed, in time the spring broke through that mound of stones, forming a large pool of water. A few years later, the pool proved very useful when an epidemic broke out among the animals and they could not drink water from anywhere else. Only those that came to drink from this spring, called the White Spring, Bil Rotche, could drink. This White Spring—the one about which the Alter Rebbe had said, “I can hear the water flowing underground”—made it possible to give the animals water when they could not drink anywhere else. So that is the background. When the Alter Rebbe became the son-in-law of that wealthy man, Reb Leib Segal, whose elderly uncle was Rabbi Elisha—when the Alter Rebbe became the son-in-law

05:36 of Reb Leib Segal, all the great Torah scholars of Vitebsk admired him. Already at fourteen, he was an extraordinary scholar. But all that lasted only until the incident we mentioned at the beginning of the story, concerning Rashi’s commentary in Eruvin. Rabbi Elisha raised a question, all the scholars offered explanations, and the Alter Rebbe offered his. All the scholars of Vitebsk agreed with the Alter Rebbe’s explanation of Rashi. But Rabbi Elisha was not at all satisfied, because he understood the passage differently from Rashi. He argued, “What do you mean? The verse says, ‘And from the wilderness, a gift.’ In other words, the Torah was given as a gift to everyone. The crown of Torah,” said Rabbi Elisha, “belongs to whoever merits it. Rashi was a commentator in his generation, while I, Rabbi Elisha, an ascetic and a great scholar”—that was how he described himself—“am a commentator in my generation.” Now, in that same city of Vitebsk—a major city in White Russia or Ukraine—there lived a chossid of the Baal Shem Tov named Rabbi Ephraim, who was a great Torah scholar. Rabbi Ephraim earned his living from gardening and growing vegetables, work he did together with his children. He was knowledgeable and incisive both in the revealed teachings of Torah and in Kabbalah, and was among the leading voices of Vitebsk’s Torah scholars. Rabbi Ephraim was known to be a chossid of the Baal Shem Tov, and even those who opposed the Baal Shem Tov liked him because of his honesty. The year we are speaking of was 5521, the first year after the Baal Shem Tov’s passing. Rabbi Elisha came to Rabbi Ephraim and complained: “How can they reject my interpretation because Rashi interprets it differently? After all, the Tosafos also interpret things differently from Rashi, and the Raavad interprets things differently from the Rambam. But when I, Rabbi Elisha, interpret something differently from Rashi, they won’t accept

08:27 my interpretation? After all, the Torah has seventy faces.” Rabbi Ephraim, a man of truth, answered him simply: “It says in Yechezkel, ‘And behold, a scroll was written on the front and on the back.’ That refers to the Torah scroll. The Torah is written on the front, and it is written on the back. Since there is a front, there is also a back.” Rabbi Ephraim told Rabbi Elisha, “The interpretations and explanations of Rashi, the Tosafos, the Rambam and the Raavad are among the seventy faces of the Torah. But your explanations, Rabbi Elisha, and everything you say are, what can I do, among the seventy backs of the Torah.”