R' Eliyohu Abeler (and a geshmake Niggun Hisva'adus)

00:05 If you enjoy this podcast, please consider clicking on the show notes, support the show and go to the page where you could support us monthly. This program takes us a lot of time and effort, and it would very much give us a chizuk to continue. Yasher koach. The Fidele Rebbe related by a fabregin. Chassidishe Baalabatim in previous generations implanted in their children, boys or girls, Ibergige ben kait, devotion, and his kashrus to the Rebbe. That all of their inyonim, their family matters, their parnassa, they always asked and did based on the instructions of the Rebbe, and this had a good influence also on themselves and on their families. The Chosid Rebbe Eliyahu Abelar grew up by his father, a Chassidish Yid, a simple Yid, a store owner in Polotsk from the Chassidim of the Mitteler Rebbe. It was once in the early years of the Nasius of the Tzemach Tzedek. The Rebbe, the Tzemach Tzedek, was then being oisek a lot in that the Yidden should settle in villages out of the city. When Rebbe Eliyahu's father complained to the Tzemach Tzedek about his shvere matzav in Parnassa, so the Rebbe told him that he should go and settle in a village next to Polotsk. They said to the Rebbe that he doesn't have the means to be able to move, and he doesn't know, he doesn't have the ability to start a new business over there. So the Rebbe told him, "I will lend you three hundred ruble, and the Ibishter will bring for

01:37 you a successful place. But you, you shouldn't ruin it because all those people that I lend the money, the, the loan is matzliach for them and for descendants ledor v'dor. So Rebbe Eliyahu's father traveled back home, and he met one of his friends, and that friend told him that his parets wants to sell a whole property, which also included a mill, a place where you grind flour. And this friend of his offered him, "Let's make a shutfst. Let's be partners. You will buy the mill, and I will buy the property." And that's what they did, and they were very much successful. And from that small village, eventually that developed into-- that evolved into the shtetl of Abel. A few years passed, and that little village became a Yiddish village, and they ran a beautiful life, ve'gashmiyus, ve'ruchniyas. The Chosid Rebbe Eliyahu was very simple when it came to learning. However, he was very much mekusar to my zeide, the Rebbe Maharash. When the Rebbe Eliyahu asked after his hasanah, the Zeide, the Rebbe Maharash, what business he should go into and whether he should settle in his hometown, Abel, or whether he should move to the nearby bigger city of Polotsk. So the Rebbe Maharash told him that he should stay in Abel, and he blessed him that he should have much hatslacha. And Taki was very much matzliach in health, parnassa bar khova. Once, Rebbe Eliyahu came to Lubavitch, and my zeide, the Rebbe Maharash, told him, "Eliyahu, I am jealous of your nisyonos."

03:13 He, by nature, was a very warm person. He was tall and a yefei toyar. Physically, he had it very good. He was very successful. Throughout the years, he bought many, uh, many properties, forests, and he will deliver the wood to Riga. He will travel there every year to Riga to sell his, uh, wood, his merchandise. Since he had business connections with the-- with all the people who own properties around, so very often he will meet them and their families, and very often he would ha-he would have to sit down and schmooze with them, eat with them. And since all these, uh, property owners around were all Goyim, that brought upon him many big nisyonos. When he was seventy years old, the Fidele Rebbe relates, he told my father, the Rebbe Rashab, that throughout his whole life, he had very strong, very hard nisyonos, which bothered him a lot. But the kiruv and the blessings of the Rebbe, the Rebbe Maharash, helped him that thanks to the Ibishter, he was never, ever nichshal. He would say that when he will come to Olam Habah and they will torture him until that from his chumriyus, from his chemer, nothing will be left, then he will ask permission to enter the Rebbe. From here, says the Fidele Rebbe, we see the amount of influence of the words of the Rebbe. Rebbe Eliyahu did not wait to get a schar when it comes to Olam HaEmes. Gashmiyus, he wasn't missing, and he didn't have any musag in ruchniyus. The

04:47 only hope that he had was that after whatever punishments he will get up there and he will have no chumriyus left, his neshama will be zoche to be mekusar to his Rebbe. This was the lifestyle, the desire, and the hope of the Chassidish mehunachem in previous generations. In a letter, the Fidele Rebbe relates that once the Rebbe Maharash told in Yechidus the Chosid, Rebbe Eliyahu Abelar, "Eliyahu, I'm jealous of you. You go to the market, you see many people, and then when in the middle of the business deal, you speak with the other Yid, a Yiddish word, a word from Ein Yankov, and you awaken him, you me'eder him to learn Nigle in Chassidus, this makes a great simcha limaalah. And the payment for being the middleman for influencing other Jews to learn more Torah, the Ibishtar pays with bonei chayye mezeynai. And the bigger the market is, the more work there is, and the parnassa is bigger." "I," said the, uh, Fidele Rebbe, "heard this story from Rebbe Eliyahu thirty years after that. He heard that from the Zeide, the Rebbe Maharash, in the year of Taf Resh Chof Ches, and he told that to me in the year of Taf Resh Nun Ches. And he said it with such feeling and such chayus as if he just heard that from the Rebbe just the day before." I remember the big roshem that this story of Reb Eliyahu made on me, and the big wonder that I was wondering about that effect that the

06:17 heilike words of the Rebbe had on Reb Eliyahu 30 years later, to an extent that Reb Eliyahu became a completely different man. He was a poshet habalabos. He knew a little bit how to learn, not much. He lived in a village close to the city. He was a machnis ohrach, and he gave a lot of tzedakah. And since he was a businessman in the city and in a mill, so he had a few people working by him, and he had a shul and l'havdil a mikveh in his, uh, property, and he had plenty of parnassa. Back then, 30 years ago, at the, uh, year of taf res chaf Ches, when he went into yechidus, he was 45 years old, and that's when the Rebbe Maharash told him that. And when he came out of yechidus at the age of 45, he said, "I came out cooked, gekacht. For 20 years, I traveled to the Alter Rebbe." And when he said Alter Rebbe, he meant the Tzemach Tzedek. "I heard Chassidus as much as I was able to understand. Baruch Hashem, I heard Chassidus. I was in yechidus. The Rebbe gave me a seder and a nhogah, but such a vort that the Rebbe Maharash told me then, that I never heard from the Rebbe. The Rebbe is telling me, to Eliyahu Abele, 'Eliyahu, the yishuvnik.' The Rebbe is telling me, 'Eliyahu, I'm jealous of you.' My head started to spin. After that yechidus," related Reb Eliyahu, "were then about 30 people, and it was a

07:37 whole farbrengen, and I decided right then and there to hire for myself a melamed to start learning at the age of 45. I decided that I have to turn Eliyahu into a mensch. An expensive medical recipe," said Reb Eliyahu, "the Rebbe gave me. It stuck to me like a bandage that is smeared well with cream and stretched out on my body. When I came back to Lubavitch, I let everybody know in the city of Polotsk. And, uh, the way it was then, a few minyanim of Chassidim came to hear the news and to hear whatever I brought back from Lubavitch. The Chassidus d'Maamorim I couldn't chazer be'alpeh. Just a few words that the Rebbe said then, that the malachim in shamayim, the highest dargos, are jealous even of the biggest am ha'aretz who does a mitzvah with yiras shamayim. That is something that I did remember from the ma'amar and that I repeated to the whole crowd who gathered. I also remembered that the Rebbe said then that the Aibishter is called Melech Yisroel. Yisroel is rosh hayoteivim, yei shishim riboi osios haTorah. There are 60,000 neshamahs and 60,000 osios, and each neshamah has its letter in the Torah, which that is the chayus of that neshamah. And each letter in the Torah has its neshamah, and this neshamah comes down to this world in order to be megaleh, to reveal its letter in the Torah. So hazoi, a Yi- a poshete Yid who is standing in a market and is doing business be'emunah, the

09:07 malachim in shamayim are mekaneh him, are jealous of him. More than that I didn't remember, but what I did was I did bring the kasav that had the whole ma'amar in it that I had a copy of, and the people learnt it and melted from pleasure. And then when I told all the people who came what the Rebbe told me in yechidus, that a, a most simple Yid could accomplish a lot when he goes in the market, et cetera. And I was quite shy when I was saying that, but I related the Rebbe's heilike words as the Rebbe said it to me, that the Rebbe said to me that he's jealous of me because I go in the market and I influence people to learn, et cetera. These words burnt the Chassidim in the crowd so much like a hot porridge placed under a saddle. An immediate result of that was, and in our minyan in our village right away sat a new shiur Gemara and in Likutei Torah, and the Rebbe's vort right away spread out in the whole entire area. From that day," said Reb Eliyahu, "every day throughout my life I remember this. And throughout the years, I was mechayech, habalebued hundreds of Yidden with this vort. Many, many Yidden got chayus from this ma'amar and became Lebedicher Yidden. Also, Yidden which are businessmen, storekeepers, started to learn Gemara and Chassidus. And when I met them again sometime later, their faces looked completely different." "How glorious was the face of Reb Eliyahu

10:36 and his excitement when he related to me," says the Tzemach Tzedek Rebbe, "that this vort from the Rebbe Maharash gave chayus to hundreds of people who started to learn and became Lebedicher Yidden. Reb Eliyahu stressed to me that these 30 years, that every day of those 30 years, he remembers the heilike vort of the Rebbe Maharash and every person that he meets, needless to say, his friends and people that he knows, but even shtam people, shtam Yidden that he meets that he doesn't know, he starts to talk to them about limud haTorah to encourage them to add in their shiurim. And kol atzmosov of Reb Eliyahu, his whole entire body, were basically saying to me that these 30 years, whatever he accomplished in these 30 years, all gave it a good reason for him to be in this world. Because during these years, during these 30 years, he accomplished the purpose of, of why his neshamah came down to this world." At another farbrengen, the Tzemach Tzedek Rebbe related, "The Zeide, the Rebbe Maharash, once said to my father, the Rebbe Rashab, 'Today I had two guests. From one guest, I had a tremendous nachas, koach haruach, and the second guest caused me pain, deep pain.' Who came to Lubavitch then? So who came to Lubavitch then was Reb Eliyahu Abele. He lived in the village of Abele, which was near Lubavitch. This was a period of time that the Rebbeim wanted to turn the villages into bigger shtetlach because then, then there was a

11:58 decree that came out that Yidden should not live in the big cities, so they tried to make the village Abele into a city. And the other Chassid that came to Lubavitch then was the Chassid, Reb Eliyahu Ezer from Polotsk, the one who wrote the Sefer Mishnas Eliyahu. Those were the two guests." When Reb Eliyahu Abeler went into Yechidus by the Rebbe Maharash, so the Rebbe Maharash asked him, "Nu, what's going on by you?" He was a Baal Eisek and a simple Yid, and he answered, "Baruch Hashem." So then the Rebbe Maharash asked him, "And how is it going in your business?" So he answered, "Baruch Hashem. But Rebbe, I'm in tremendous pain from the fact that Yosef, who lives in our village, he is not successful, unfortunately. We collected money for him, and we bought for him a horse and a buggy so he could travel to the city with a little bit of merchandise, and somehow he always gets into trouble. The wheels break, uh, the horse breaks a leg, and then they steal the horse. Anything that could happen to a Shlomil happens to him. Rebbe," continued Reb Eliyahu, "how can I help him?" He sighed, and he burst out crying, and he said, "Rebbe, give Yosef a bracha." The Rebbe Maharash listened, and he answered, "Actually, you could help him a lot, 'cause when one Yid is mitzter with the tzar of his friend and he asks for him, by that he removes from him all the kitrugim, and he breaks all

13:21 the decrees in Shamayim about him." Afterwards, the Rebbe Maharash took out a coin from his pocket, and he gave it to Reb Eliyahu, and he told him, "I wanna be your partner. The Ibisher shall help you, that you should be able to do a favor to a Yid, and it should be bahatzlacha." So Reb Eliyahu started to shake, and he said, "Rebbe, you wanna be my partner? Do you know who I am? I'm that thick choimer that it discusses in Tanya that the only way to fix it is by shvira, et cetera." And this is the Chassid that the Zeide Rebbe Maharash said that he got a lot of nachas from. And when the other Chassid, Reb Eliyahu, came into Yechidus, and the Rebbe Maharash asked him, "Nu, how you doing?" So he said, "Baruch Hashem. I learn a shiur leiyun with young Galait, and they-- we learn very good. And on Shabbos, we daven baavoda. We're marech betfilah, and the young Galait in my city learn Chassidus." He was the mashpia over there. And then the Rebbe Maharash asked him, "And what about midos?" So Reb Eliyahu answered, "Midos are like the gvirisha young Galait, like young Galait from wealthy homes." In other words, not purified enough. So the Rebbe Maharash told him, "The blame goes to the mechanech. The blame doesn't go to them. It's not their fault. It's your fault. The first thing when it comes to chinuch and hadracha, it's midos toives. Not to learn the sefer, rather to teach yourself.

14:47 When you come back home, you should open up a gmach, and each one of these young Galait who have it well beparnassa, each one of these young Galait should take half of his nadan, half of the money they got for their wedding, and put it into this gmach." So Reb Eliyahu answered the Rebbe Maharash, "I don't think I'll be able to get them to do that." So the Rebbe Maharash told him, "If I said, then they will do it. And tell the young Galait that when they will give, they're not giving their own money. It's not their money. And if they're not gonna give, they're not gonna have that money. They're gonna lose it." And the Rebbe Maharash ended, "Next time you come here, please bring me better news." And that was the second Chassid. That's the one that he had deep pain from. And when the Rebbe Maharash ended telling that to his son, the Rebbe Rashab, he said, "If I would give in to my nefesh eleikis, to the desires of my nefesh eleikis, I would kiss Reb Eliyahu Abeler." We will end off with a geshmake nigun Yisroelos.