Episode 286 - The Activities of the Frierdiker Rebbe (Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok) in Russia.

00:01 We now turn to the leadership of the Rebbe Rashab’s son, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak, also known as the Frierdiker Rebbe. The Frierdiker Rebbe drew together and put into action all the influences he had received from his father, his grandfather, and the generations before them, back to the Alter Rebbe, the founder of Chabad. It was the Frierdiker Rebbe who was responsible for reviving Jewish life and sustaining it in Russia through the difficult years it endured. To understand this better, I’ll now read the introduction that describes the background to the Frierdiker Rebbe’s work. The difficult situation of Russian Jewry under the czarist regime is well known. We’ve spoken about it, of course, during the years of the Tzemach Tzedek’s leadership, during the leadership of the Rebbe Maharash, and during the leadership of the Rebbe Rashab. On the one hand, the Haskalah movement was attacking Jewish life and trying to sever Jews from their Judaism. To that end, it used informers and false accusations to the czarist government. That government included quite a few people who hated Jews, though we must also say that it included quite a few who were friendly to Jews. The czarist government made life miserable for religious Jews, and that is where we find ourselves. Like all the Chabad leaders throughout the generations, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak, too, literally risked his life on behalf of Russian Jews in government circles. As is known, the Chabad leaders had held the status of distinguished citizens since the time of the Alter Rebbe. It had been awarded to the Alter Rebbe for his patriotism during the war against Napoleon. Like his forebears, the Frierdiker Rebbe made extensive use of this privilege in his work for Russian Jewry. Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak frequently traveled to Petersburg and Moscow on these matters, and his efforts were usually successful. During the Russo-Japanese War in 5664, that is, 1904, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak played a major part in his father the Rebbe Rashab’s efforts

02:56 to supply matzos for Pesach to Jewish soldiers on the Far Eastern front. During the events that followed the Russo-Japanese War, and during the pogroms in the Pale of Settlement, the Rebbe Rashab undertook many significant efforts, as we’ve already recounted. Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak traveled on his father’s behalf to Germany and Holland, met with diplomats and bank directors, and persuaded them to take an interest in the plight of persecuted Russian Jews in order to put an end to the waves of pogroms. This effort was successful. In the course of this communal work, the Frierdiker Rebbe met with senior government ministers. It is interesting to note what he answered the czarist minister Melnikov [unclear], who once said in the Rebbe’s presence, “I would wrap the Jews in pages of the Talmud and burn them together.” The Frierdiker Rebbe said—and we’ve told this story before—“I lost my patience, and from the depths of my heart I said to him: ‘Where, then, would the ministers get their Smirnovka? And how would they make up the shortfall in the funds under their control, from which they take money for the time being until they have a chance to skin a Jew? A thousand Jewish hides bring in ten million bottles of Smirnovka, something all the ministers take into account.’” That is what the Frierdiker Rebbe said to Minister Melnikov [unclear]. In 5668, 1908, the Frierdiker Rebbe took part in the rabbinical conference held in Vilna. A year later he traveled to Germany and met with Jewish leaders. On his return from Germany, he worked on preparations for the rabbinical conference of 5671, that is, 1920. The Frierdiker Rebbe’s energy and efforts on behalf of Russian Jewry, and his determined struggle against certain decrees of the Russian government, aroused dissatisfaction in government circles. During the years 5666 to 5671, that is, 1906 to 1921, the Frierdiker Rebbe was arrested four times in Moscow and Petersburg. Each time, the investigations found no wrongdoing and he was released, but with a warning about the future. This did not stop him from continuing his work for the community. In 5677 and 5678, he took a leading part in conferences of rabbis

05:41 and communal activists held in Moscow and Kharkov. With the passing of his illustrious father, the Rebbe Rashab, on 2 Nissan 5680, that is, 1920, he assumed the leadership of Chabad and immediately began, with renewed energy, to establish yeshivos and chadarim throughout Russia. He even reached Georgia, and fought Hashem’s battle with strength and courage against those who were destroying Jewish life—the Bolshevik Yevsektsiya, the Jewish section of the Russian secret police. Great upheavals were taking place then in Russia and throughout the Jewish world. Rivers of blood were shed across Russia because of the war and the revolution, in which, as usual, the Jews were among the greatest victims. The Frierdiker Rebbe stood virtually alone, facing tasks beyond human capacity. He began to reorganize communal Jewish life in Russia and had to fight on two fronts. On the one hand, the Jews’ material situation was very bad. Poverty and great suffering prevailed everywhere. On the other hand, Jewish life was in grave danger because of the Yevsektsiya’s harmful activities. As he waged this one-man struggle to preserve Jewish life in Soviet Russia against overwhelming forces, the Rebbe understood that Russia’s center of Torah study had to move to another country. And so the Lubavitch yeshiva, Tomchei Temimim, was founded in Warsaw. In 5681, that is, 1921, with the Rebbe’s help, a number of students and heads of yeshivos managed to reach Poland and run the large yeshiva there. It developed and grew enormously. As in Russia, the Lubavitch yeshiva in Poland organized a large number of yeshivos and branches throughout the country, where many hundreds of students studied. Meanwhile, the Frierdiker Rebbe continued his work in Russia without any fear. He founded yeshivos, Talmud Torah schools, and other religious institutions in different parts of Russia. He was not intimidated by the Yevsektsiya’s threats in those days. His center was in Rostov, but for various reasons he left and moved to Leningrad. From Leningrad he directed his wide-ranging activities and at that time founded

08:27 a special organization that helped Jewish craftspeople and workers keep Shabbos. A Jew who kept Shabbos then and did not go to work would be fired immediately, so the Frierdiker Rebbe worked to give Jews a way to earn a living independently. The Rebbe sent rabbis, teachers, and preachers throughout Russia to strengthen Jewish life. He often helped rabbis and institutions by sending money he had raised as loans from people close to him, since organizing financial aid was very difficult at the time. The Rebbe’s struggle against those who wanted to uproot the Jewish religion, the successors of the Haskalah movement, became difficult and bitter. The Yevsektsiya, that Jewish section, decided not to allow the Rebbe to continue his activities and waged a campaign of intimidation against him, accompanied by threats. We’ll give a few examples of the Yevsektsiya’s threats. One morning, while the Rebbe was leading the prayers, three Cheka agents entered, pistols in hand, to arrest him. The Cheka was the secret police. The Rebbe calmly finished his prayers without showing any agitation and went with them. When he stood before the investigating committee, he told them that no pressure in the world would make him stop his religious activities. One of the committee members threatened him with a pistol and said, “This little toy has already made many people change their views.” The Frierdiker Rebbe answered coolly, “This little toy can frighten a person who has many gods and one world. But since I have one G-d and two worlds, your toy has no power to frighten me.” And the Rebbe shlita, Melech HaMoshiach, relates: “My revered father-in-law, the Rebbe, told me...” That is, the Rebbe is speaking about the Frierdiker Rebbe: “Once he went for a walk with his father, the Rebbe Rashab, in the city of Rostov. His father, the Rebbe Rashab, was discussing a deep subject in Chassidus with him. He became so engrossed in his father’s words that he did not notice his father had stopped. He kept walking, immersed in his thoughts, until his father called to him, and then he came back

11:02 To his father. When he returned to his father, the Rebbe Rashab told him, “The difference between human intellect and Divine intellect is that human intellect begins by understanding a matter, and through understanding comes to faith. Divine intellect begins with faith, and through faith comes to understanding.” “Much later, many years later,” the Rebbe continues, “when my revered father-in-law, the Rebbe, was summoned to the GPU”—that is, the secret police—“in the city of Rostov...” Here the Rebbe adds, in parentheses, that the GPU building stood on the very spot where his father had been standing during the conversation we spoke about. At the GPU, they asked him several questions. Among the things he told them was that very saying he had heard from his father about human intellect and Divine intellect. And the fierce struggle against the Yevsektsiya and the suppression of Jewish life went on. All around were noise and turmoil; worlds were crumbling, and lofty ideals of purity and morality were being dashed against the rocks. Life in every sphere was in chaos. Yet amid that noisy, lawless turmoil walked young Chabad men, courageous and fervently devoted to their Torah, who wanted nothing to do with what was happening around them, because they were busy—very busy. They were occupied with the world of Jewish education and halachah. They had no time to spare for trifles. A spirit of self-sacrifice enveloped them and gave them no rest. At every turn in Russia of those days, there was a spirit of disbelief in the living G-d and His Torah. That spirit of disbelief spread everywhere, and the whole world was gripped by mortal fear: any deviation whatsoever from that corrupt and wicked Communist path could bring a death sentence; any word spoken out of line could bring imprisonment and exile to Siberia, as is well known. A dictatorship unlike any other, with a vast secret-police force, presided over this new order, watching every man and woman closely lest they, G-d forbid, stray from the path. But the young Chabad men, fervent

13:53 in spirit, acted as though none of this concerned them at all. They continued on their path, even though they knew that in doing so they were defying the dictatorship and could be arrested on charges of counterrevolutionary activity. They were not afraid and did not retreat from their established, well-worn path, for they had been raised in a spirit of sacrifice and mesirus nefesh. They would not deviate from that path even by a hair’s breadth. And if they could not continue openly, they went underground and continued there. The story of the mesirus nefesh of Chabad-Lubavitch chassidim is quite well known. What was the secret of their steadfastness? It is a great wonder. They lived in a dictatorship that, throughout its rule, had crushed every political party, large and small, without exception. Yet under such a harsh, life-threatening regime, a handful of people managed to stand up against it and, with tremendous passion, establish and maintain yeshivos and chadarim in defiance of Soviet law. Still more remarkable is how they managed to survive, for they could not disguise themselves so that no one would recognize them as Chabad chassidim: they did not change their clothing. They walked openly throughout the country with their beards, peyos, and chassidic dress, changing nothing. The question is, where did they draw this extraordinary strength? Who gave them this strength for mesirus nefesh? The answer is the Lubavitcher Rebbe. He was the wellspring of mesirus nefesh, and therein lies the secret of his chassidim’s remarkable success in their vital work.