#8 R' Pesach Molastovker (and 2 Niggunim)

00:00 This episode is sponsored in honor of Rabbi Nosson Ben Esther Tears were asking and tears were answering. And since then, he kind of lost the mochin that he had before. He didn't have the same mind that he had before. And since then, he used to daven a few times a day because he would forget that he davened. And he said, when he told him that you're davening more than once, he said, "Davening has to affect the whole entire day. Therefore, it's just better to daven a few times than not daven at all." Reb Mendel Futerfas once related, Reb Pesach Molostovker was a healthy and strong person, and as much as he was strong, his son, Reb Berel, was a few times stronger than him. And his son lived in a nearby city. There was a forest between his city and the city of Reb Pesach. And that forest was known to be a dangerous place to travel through because there was, uh, robbers who were attacking anybody who traveled through. Therefore, anybody who traveled through the forest always traveled with a group, not alone. However, uh, Berel, Reb Pesach's son, since he was a strong person, he wasn't afraid of them, so he used to travel by himself. This Berel used to celebrate, he used to spend the Purim seudah every year by his father. One year, Reb Pesach was sitting by the table waiting for his son, Berel. Berel wasn't coming. Eventually, Reb Pesach called out, "I'm waiting to see Berel." A while passed

04:12 and Berel didn't come, so Pesach called out again, "I want to see Berel." Another while passed, and Reb Pesach called out, "I really want to see Berel." And a while passed, and Berel walked into the house. When he sat down for the seudah, he said that as always, he walked by himself in the forest, and then all of a sudden, a big robber attacked him and wanted to kill him. "I was fighting with all of my koach, but I felt that he was stronger than me, and it felt as if I'm about to give up. All of a sudden, I got this boost of new kochos, and I continued to fight. And a while later, all of a sudden, randomly, I got another boost of koach. And then a third time it happened." Basically, each time Reb Pesach called out that he wants to see his son, that gave his son, Berel, a boost of koach, and he was able to overcome the robber and come. The Chassid Reb Zalman Duchman once related that the Chassid Reb Pesach Molostovker related to Reb Zalman Duchman's grandfather, the Chassid Reb Mordechai Yael Duchman, that, "I've never fell into the trap of Rabonos, of being a Rov. And if it happened once that my brother fell into that trap, I grabbed him and saved him." Once, Reb Pesach came at a early morning hour to the city of Hamel, and he walked into the house of Reb Levi the Shaychet. And Reb Pesach said to Reb Levi, "Levik,

05:35 you go to the butcher shop. Please ask your wife that she should prepare for me a cup of hot tea, 'cause without this tea, I will not be able to daven." So Reb Levi, uh, did so. He asked his wife to prepare Reb Pesach a cup of hot tea. And when Reb Levi came back home after a day of work, Reb Pesach asked him, "Why didn't you prepare for me, why didn't you prepare for me this cup of hot tea like I asked?" So Levi said, "What do you mean? They actually served you a big cup of tea, and you drank up the whole thing." Rabbi Pesach answered him, "Ich veis nisht. I don't know. If you say that I drank it, mistamei I drank it." The Frierdiker Rebbe related that a chossid, Reb Pesach from Astovker, was one of the young chassidim of the Alter Rebbe. When he was in Yechidus, the Alter Rebbe told him, "You need to be a ba'al daas." The Tzemach Tzedek related to the Rebbe Maharash that Reb Pesach had very sharp chushim, very sharp senses by nature. Everything that he was learning, he was learning it in a very sharp way. Each tzvara that he was mechadesh was right away shloging it up with a new tzvara that he came up with, and the Alter Rebbe turned him into a ba'al daas. The Frierdiker Rebbe continues that when Reb Pesach came out of Yechidus, he was mesamech for a few hours in what the Alter Rebbe told him,

06:48 that he has to become a ba'al daas, and he went to the son of the Alter Rebbe, the, the Mitteler Rebbe, that he should explain to him what the Alter Rebbe meant. So the Mitteler Rebbe explained to him that a ba'al daas is somebody who makes first a true hachana in order to understand that which he wants to learn, to be maskil. And the Mitteler Rebbe continued, "The big hachana of a ba'al daas is by each person based on his mahus. There must be a hachana. Without a hachana, you cannot be a true mekabel. A true mekabel is when there is an absorption, a klita, and the proof that there was a proper absorption is if something grew. There is a tzmicha, both tzmicha in havanah ve'asakah, and also a tzmicha in avoda ve'piah, because both havanah and avoda come davka after yegiya." Reb Shmuel Grenim once related that a chossid, Reb Pesach from Astovker, used to say, "Throughout the whole year, I gather all the shailas in chassidus that come up in my mind. I plan that when I walk into the Rebbe for Yechidus, I'll be able to ask the Rebbe all my shailas. However, the moment that I walk into the Rebbe's room, all the shailas are mesiyachiv, are answered in my head right away bederech mimeila." And Reb Grenim explained, each kushya in Torah comes from klipa. So when Reb Pesach used to walk into the room of the Rebbe, where the Shechinah is shoyrer begalui, so then his nefesh felt

08:16 a lichus, and mimeila the klipus were nisbatel, and mimeila all the shailas were nisbatel. The Misnagdim in Reb Pesach's city were very jealous of Reb Pesach's davening and avoda. So what did they do? They got some kishuf machers to, uh, do some kishuf on Reb Pesach, that he should put into his head machshavos zaros. And take it, that's what happened. And Reb Pesach was wondering how come that such machshavos came into his head, machshavos that he wasn't shayach to at all. So he traveled to the Alter Rebbe, and he said to the Alter Rebbe that he has these machshavos zaros that are shelo lefey erach hisdarga. And the Alter Rebbe recognized that this is probably from kishuf. So the Alter Rebbe took an apple. He looked at the apple for a little bit, and then he gave it to Reb Pesach and he said, "Pesach, say that you don't want the apple." So Reb Pesach said, "How can I say that I don't want the apple? If it's a lie, I do want the apple." So the Alter Rebbe took back the apple. He looked at it for a little more time, and then a- again he said to Reb Pesach, "Say that you don't want the apple." So Reb Pesach said, "I can't. I do want the apple." The Alter Rebbe took the apple a third time, looked at it again, and again he said to Reb Pesach, "Say that you don't want the apple." This time, Reb Pesach said, "Take it. Now I

09:29 take it, don't want the apple." So the Alter Rebbe gave him the apple. He ate from it, and he was nesraba from the kishuf. The chossid, Reb Zalman Cheikin, which was a tamid movak of Reb Pesach, once walked into Yechidus by the Rebbe Rashab. This was when Reb Zalman Cheikin was already an older chossid. So the Rebbe Rashab got up in his honor, and he asked him to sit down. But Reb Zalman refused, and he said that he wouldn't sit as long as the Rebbe's standing. So the Rebbe told him that, "I will sit down only after you sit down." So when Reb Zalman saw that the Rebbe is not gonna give in, so he didn't have a choice, and he sat down in Yechidus. Only then the Rebbe Rashab sat down. After they sat down, the Rebbe asked Reb Zalman Cheikin that he should tell him something from the chossid, Reb Pesach from Astovker. So Reb Zalman told the Rebbe Rashab two stories. One story was that when Reb Pesach came to his 50th year, he started to wear a zeidene zupitze. He started to wear silk. One time, two neshamas from Shamayim came to him, requesting that he should fix them. But Reb Pesach refused, and he turned those neshamas to the Tzemach Tzedek. That was one story. The other story Reb Zalman Cheikin related was that Reb Pesach used to daven usually be'yechidus, and on weekdays, he used to come to shul just to hear Chazarat Hashatz, and on Shabbos, he used

10:52 to leave the shul only after the Chazarat Hashatz of Mussaf. One Shabbos, he changed his minhag, and instead of leaving the shul after Mussaf, he left the shul quickly right after Keter, before the Chazarat Hashatz was over. And when he asked him why, he said, "Because one of the chashuve people who are sitting in the mizrach yesterday did a very big aveira, and I couldn't handle it, so I ran out of the shul." And when Reb Zalman Cheikin told those two stories to the Rebbe Rashab, he noticed that when the Rebbe Rashab heard the first story about the neshamas coming from Olam Ha'elyon to be fixed, it didn't look like the Rebbe Rashab was very impressed by that. But when he related the second story, that Reb Pesach felt the aveira of that person in the shul, from that, the Rebbe Rashab was very mispoh. Shmuel Grenim related that the explanations of Reb Pesach in Chassidus were focused mainly on the topic of Yesh meAyin, the bitul ha'yesh to the ayin and the bitul of the olamos. Later, when he became older, when Reb Pesach wasn't able to daven long hours anymore, he used to travel on a horse and buggy from one shul to another the whole morning just to hear Kidusha and Barchu. There are two nigunim known from Reb Pesach from Astovker. One nigun is Nigun Mem in Sefer HaNigunim. In Sefer it describes this nigun as follows. So the Pesach used to sing in Russian as it is in this nigun

12:16 of the tune. So to the of the words that are in Russian express to an extent that a person does not feel at all anything holding him back there's nothing that could hold him back from being always in a cave of . The loose translation of this nigun is, "Why should I play when I have nothing? I have a hat. Here is a hat without the upper part. I have a jacket, here without any sleeves." As you can tell from the words, it's quite cryptic. We will play it sung by Harav HaChassid, Rav Eli Lipsker from Crown Heights. Another nigun known from Rebbe Pesach is a nigun famously called the or . And the story is told that Rebbe Pesach of Mostovker was once in Lubavitch by the Tzemach Tzedek, and there was a there from the city of Bobruisk who came then for the first time to Lubavitch. And him and Rebbe Pesach happened to be in the same pundoc, in the same inn. When Rebbe Pesach heard that this is from Bobruisk, which is where Reb Hillul Paritcher lived at that time. So Rebbe Pesach told to this , "I will teach you a nigun and give it to Reb Hillul as a present from me." And he taught him a nigun. When the came home to Bobruisk, first he wasn't brave enough to go over to Reb Hillul, which was the Rav, the tzadik, was a famous Hasid, to go and teach him a nigun. So a while later, this happened to

15:53 be by a bris of one of the Hasidim. And Reb Hillul was also there at the bris, sitting at the head of the table. This was sitting over there with his friends, and they started to sing While they were singing, this remembered the nigun that he learned from Rebbe Pesach of Mostovker, and he told his friends that, "I have this nigun that Rebbe Pesach taught me that I should give it over to Reb Hillul." So some people went over to Reb Hillul, and they told Reb Hillul there's a over here from Lubavitch that has a shlichus to him from Rebbe Pesach. So Reb Hillul called over the and he asked him to sing the nigun, and he did. When the finished singing the nigun, Reb Hillul said, "Their nigun is mit kop." That's why it's called a kop or Reb Hillul's kop. And Reb Hillul started to have a whole discussion of what should they do with the nigun. Because Reb Hillul's minhag was that the three nigunim that he will sing at the end of Neilah on Yom Kippur, he used to sing them later on when he came to Lubavitch before the Tzemach Tzedek said . And since it was already after Sukkos, and he already had the three nigunim from Yom Kippur, he didn't know what to do with this nigun. And he said, "The first nigun from the three nigunim, I can't change it. To sing Rebbe Pesach's nigun as the second nigun when I come to the Tzemach Tzedek, it

17:14 wouldn't be for Rebbe Pesach. It wouldn't be honorable for Rebbe Pesach. And therefore, we should sing it as the third nigun, the nigun that right before the Tzemach Tzedek says the ma'amar." We will also play this nigun sung by Rav Eli Lipsker from Crown Heights.