R' Yitzchok Yoel - the Rov of Kremenchuk

00:06 Rabbi Yitzchok Yoel Raphallovich, the Rob of Kremenchuk. Chassidim relate that when Reb Yehoshua Temarkin, which was Rabbi Yitzchok Yoel's father-in-law, which was the previous Rob of Kremenchuk, passed away. So the city were looking for a for the city. At that time, his son-in-law, Rabbi Yitzchok Yoel Raphallovich, was there in the city, and he was a young, younger man. He was twenty-two years old. He just got married. He was the son-in-law of the previous Rav, and everybody recognized his great and However, the in the city were not satisfied with appointing a twenty-two-year-old as the Rob of Kremenchuk, and they turned instead to one of the most famous of the generation, the Malbim, and they offered him the job. Rabbi Yitzchok Yoel traveled to the Rebbe Maharash then, and the Rebbe Maharash surprisingly told him in Yechidus, "Go to Kremenchuk and become the Rav instead of your father-in-law." So Rabbi Yitzchok Yoel asked the Rebbe Maharash, but they said that the, the Malbim was already chosen for this position and he's actually on his way to Kremenchuk. And the Rebbe Maharash answered, "Er fart, farter, aber du ves zein der Rav dorten." He's traveling, let him travel, but you will be the Rav there. And this was cryptic. Nobody really understood what the Rebbe meant. However, a short while later, the Malbim passed away, and, uh, everybody understood what the Rebbe Maharash meant, so they all turned to Rabbi Yitzchok Yoel now that the Rebbe Maharash told him to become the Rav, and everybody knew him as

01:48 a big and he became the Rav. The Fedig Rebbe once related about this, that Rabbi Yitzchok Yoel became the son-in-law of Rebbe, of, of Reb Yehoshua Temarkin, um, in a young age. And then his father-in-law, Rebbe, Reb Yehoshua, passed away, and he was appointed to be the Rav. The salary for the Rabbonus was not enough to support him and his family. So Rabbi Yitzchok Yoel entered Yechidus with the Rebbe Maharash, and he complained that he doesn't have Parnassa. So the Rebbe answered him, "Parnassa? Sefiras HaMalchus asks Zohar for Parnassa. Zohar asks for Parnassa from Moychin in general, and specifically from Binah. Sefiras HaBinah asks for Parnassa from Chochmah, and Chochmah asks for Parnassa from the source of Parnassa." And then the Rebbe added, "Do you see the sun?" This was during the sunset time. And the Rebbe said, "The sun also asks for Parnassa, and it receives it." And the Rebbe finished off, "Until your old age," I think he means like for the rest of his life, "you will not be missing any Parnassa." The Fedig Rebbe also once related that Rabbi Yitzchok Yoel Raphallovich, the Rob of Kremenchuk, was once by the Rebbe Maharash on Rosh Hashanah, and he heard the Rebbe Maharash blowing a teruah of twenty-four sounds, and he didn't understand why, and he was, during Tekiahs, trying to figure out in his head why twenty-four sounds. And he was thinking maybe he should go into the Rebbe Maharash to ask, and he didn't tell anyone about it. When he entered

03:32 Yechidus with the Rebbe Maharash, the Rebbe Maharash told him, "What do you think? Machshava zaris means only when somebody thinks of shtusim, of nonsense? No. Even if you think of something holy, but it's not the proper thing to think at that moment, it's a different topic, that's also machshava zaris." Fedig Rebbe also once related that at the year of Taf Resh Mem Zayin, my father, the Rebbe Rashab, was very busy with learning Imrei Binah of the Mitteler Rebbe, specifically Shaar HaKriyah Sh'mah, chapters twelve and thirteen, which discuss the concepts of helim vegiluy, koach upayol, etzem ve'sfashtus, which are deep concepts of Chassidus. And my father, the Rebbe Rashab, wrote a whole letter with a shailah to the Chassid in Kremenchuk, the famous maskil, Reb Chaim Ber Wilenski, asking him some question in, uh, Imrei Binah. Well, Reb Chaim Ber did not answer the Rebbe Rashab. When the Rob, Rabbi Yitzchok Yoel, came to Lubavitch, my father, the Rebbe Rashab, told him, "I wrote a letter to Reb Chaim Ber and he didn't answer me." So when Rabbi Yitzchok Yoel returned to Kremenchuk, he gave a chelek. He, he rebuked Reb Chaim Ber. "How come the Rebbe sent you a letter with a question and you, and you don't answer him?" So Reb Chaim Ber answered, "The Rebbe asked me a question in, in Chassidus and in Imrei Binah." So Rabbi Yitzchok Yoel asked, "So why didn't you answer him?" So Reb Chaim Ber said, "Don't worry. The Re, the Rebbe will manage without me." So

05:04 the next year, when Rabbi Yitzchok Yoel came back to Lubavitch, he told the Rebbe Rashab what Reb Chaim Ber said, that the Rebbe could manage without him. So the Rebbe Rashab told him, "When I asked him that shailah, my intention wasn't that he should teach me that piece in Imrei Binah. My intention was just to find out how could somebody explain that piece in Imrei Binah only with human sechel." In other words, the Rebbe obviously manages to understand Imrei Binah by himself, but he has his own godly kochas. He wanted to hear how a Chassid who heard of it and got an explanation with his own human sechel understands it. Even though in the first years, Rabbi Yitzchok Yoel was just, uh, getting a salary as a Rav, and we already mentioned before that he asked the Rebbe Maharash for Parnassa, and the Rebbe Maharash said that, uh, he will have-- he will not be missing any Parnassa. So that, so that, that happened, and eventually he became very wealthy. 'Cause one day he saw a sign on the street of some big company from France. That, um, that manufactured, um, certain type of shoes, and they were looking for agent to be their agent in Russia, in the whole entire Russia. So Reb Itzchok Yael applied, and he got the job, and he became the agent of that company in the whole entire Russia. And he opened up right away ten branches all over the country and became very wealthy. After the Rebbe Rashab's

06:27 nasius, uh, started, Reb Itzchok Yael was one of the, the chief supporters of the Rebbe Rashab, both financially, the Hasconus Tziburis, and also in the fight of the Rebbe Rashab against the, those who were fighting against religion. Reb Itzchok Yael Rafalovich once related, "Once when I was in Lubavitch, they invited me to eat on Shabbos in the house of the Rebbe Rashab. And by the seudah, they served different foods to the table, but I couldn't eat them because I suffered from a certain stomach condition, so I had to be on a special diet. The Rebbe Rashab noticed that I'm not eating, and he asked me, 'Why aren't you eating?' So I answered, 'The Rebbe knows that I have this condition and I have this special diet.' So the Rebbe Rashab answered me, 'Shabbos food doesn't hurt.' So if the Rebbe said, I ate, and I ate everything there, and it didn't hurt me. Nothing happened. So the next Shabbos, I was back home, and I told my wife, 'From now on, Shabbos, you can cook whatever you want, and, um, there's no reason to worry.' The Rebbe Rashab said that Shabbos food doesn't hurt, and I ate all the regular foods that Shabbos. But then I got a terrible, terrible pain. I was literally in a life danger. So it seems," ended off Reb Itzchok Yael, "that only when the Rebbe said it, it helped." Reb Shaul Ber Zislin, which was from the first Temimim and later on became a mashpia, so he related that

07:59 when he was still a bachur, the year of Taf Resh Samech Beis, he learned in Zhembin, which was the, the branch of the yeshiva. And for Shavuos, our mashpia, Reb Shmuel Grenim, traveled to Lubavitch to the Rebbe. But he didn't give us, the talmidim, permission to travel to the Rebbe for Shavuos. However, me and two other friends decided to go to the Rebbe for Shavuos without permission. When we came to the train station in Krasnoy, we saw over there our mashpia, Reb Grenim, who did not give us permission, and he was over there sitting and speaking with the famous Rabbonim, Reb Itzchok Yael Rafalovich, the Rav of Kremenchuk, and Reb Elazar Moshe Madievsky, the Rav of Kharal. Reb Grenim was upset at us, how come we left without permission? However, Reb Itzchok Yael Rafalovich was in a good-spirited mood and was a generous man, and he spoke to us in a very friendly way. Eventually, when Reb Grenim and the other two Rabbonim went on the wagon, we looked at them from far. And the truth is, we didn't have any money to continue traveling. And then suddenly, Reb Itzchok Yael, the Rav of Kremenchuk, asked us with a smile and a loud voice, "Nu kinder, vos rechen tir? Nu kids, what did you decide?" Meaning, what are you gonna do about the rest of the way? So we answered that we decided to walk by foot the rest of the way. So Reb Itzchok Yael turned to Reb Grenim and said, "Nu, Reb Grenim,

09:26 pago alai o pago alaich", and let him come on. Meaning, let's split the price of these, uh, three bachurim, half on me, half on you, and let them come on to the wagon with us. And that's what happened. In the farbrengen of Simchas Torah, Taf Resh Peh Alef, this was already in the nasius of the Tzemach Rebbe. Reb Itzchok Yael Rafalovich was there by the farbrengen. And by the farbrengen, Reb Itzchok Yael turned to the Tzemach Rebbe and he asked, "Rebbe, zog Chassidus. Shu se a maimar." And the Tzemach Rebbe didn't answer. After a while, Reb Itzchok Yael asked again, "Rebbe, zog Chassidus." And again, the Tzemach Rebbe didn't answer. When he asked for a third time, the Rebbe, Tzemach Rebbe answered, "If you wanna hear some haskala in Chassidus, if I would just open up my mouth, all of you will all close your mouths. The twenty-five years that I served my father, e-even a rock will change from that, and especially that I am my father's son. But this is if you're asking me to say haskala. If you want to say Chassidus, this is what Chassidim say, that in order to say Chassidus, for twenty-four hours before you say Chassidus, your kishkes have to tune over inside you before you say Chassidus." At the end of his life, Reb Itzchok Yael became very weak, and he couldn't continue with his job as a Rav anymore, and he moved to Yerushalayim, to Eretz HaKodesh, and he passed away at the age of, uh,

10:54 seventy-eight, Tes Vav Tammuz, Taf Resh Tzadik Vav. Finish off with Nigun Reish in the Sefer HaNigunim, a geshmake nigun sung by Reb Eli Lipsker, alav hashalom. Ya-na-nai-nai, na-na-nai-nai, ya-nai-nai, na-nai-ya-ai, na-nim-nim. Ah-nai-nai-nai, na-na-nai-nai. Ah-ha-ha-ai-dai, ah-hoi-oi-oi-oi. Ya-na-nai-nai, a-nai-nai-nai, ya-nai-nai, na-nai-ya-hoi. Ah-ha-hoi-dai, ai-ai-nai, ai. Ya-na-nai-noi, ya-na-na-nam, ya-nai-nai