ר' זלמן שניאורסאן ותנועה מהבעל שם טוב

00:07 Reb Zalman Schneerson. Most of the zichronos we're gonna be sharing over here about Reb Zalman Schneerson were related by HaRav Gringlas from Montreal, which was Niskarav Tichsidis by Reb Zalman Schneerson. So Reb Zalman Schneerson from Velizh, or known as Reb Zalman Lodger because he lived in Lodz in Poland for many years. So he was born to his father, Reb Leib Schneerson, which was the Rav of Velizh, which w- which his father, Reb Leib, was the son of Reb Schneur, the son of Reb Nachum, the son of the Mitteler Rebbe. So our Reb Zalman Schneerson already at a childhood excelled in his Kishronus, especially in his memory. At a young age, he moved to Velizh when his father became the Rav there, and in his trips to Lubavitch, his father would take him with him. One of his trips to Lubavitch was in the times of the Rebbe Ma'arash. So the Rebbe Ma'arash tested the kid on Gemara Shomain Yankov, Baal Peh. After the test, the Rebbe Ma'arash asked him, "Do you wanna be a lamdan or a gvir?" Or a wealthy man. So the boy answered he wants to be a lamdan. So the Rebbe Ma'arash told him, "So if so, give me your watch and your golden chain that was attached to the watch." So the boy answered, "No, I, I don't wanna give that." So the Rebbe Ma'arash smiled and he said, "You're gonna be a lamdan and a gvir." And the Rebbe's bracha was Niskama, was a lamdan and a gvir. He

01:32 got married at 12 Rish Nun Tes. This was already in the times of the Rebbe Rashab. And the Mesader Kiddushin was the Rebbe Rashab himself, who even said a few Maamar Machsidus during the chasuna and during the Sheva Brachos. After his marriage, he moved to Vitebsk, where he went into the business of, uh, renting forests, exporting, uh, wood. During that time, he would daven every day between six to eight hours, and he wouldn't eat anything before davening. And when the Rebbe Rashab even told him that he must eat something before davening, he couldn't get himself to do it. One thing that he did do is that right when he finished Shemoneh Esreh, when he was still wearing his tallis and tefillin and he didn't yet, and he didn't yet start tachnun, he would take out of his pocket a, an egg or a piece of cheese, which are shehakol, and he will eat, and afterwards he would start the avoda of the rest of the davening, which would take about three hours. His, uh, the Ma'ariv of Motzei Shabbos by him was a big avoda and would, used to take a very long time, especially when he would say the Veyinoiam and Ve'ata Kodesh after Shemoneh Esreh. Just Veyinoiam Ve'ata Kodesh, says the Rav Gringlass, will take him about an hour and a half, and he would say it with tremendous crying to an extent that you couldn't even hear the words clearly from all the crying. Also, the Havdalah was a big avoda by

02:52 him. He would say each word with a unique Geshmake tune, and afterwards he would say Veyitun Lcha in a special tune, and then he would learn Gemara in a high speed. The mesechta that he would learn after Veyitun Lcha was Masecha Sukkah. And Rabbi Gringlass says that, "I recall him saying that that's what a tzaddik used to do every Motzei Shabbos." And the reason for that is 'cause every Shabbos, the end of Shabbos is similar to the end of Yom Kippur, to Neilah. And it's written that on Motzei Yom Kippur, you need to be dealing with the matters of the Sukkah, so that's why he learned Masecha Sukkah. Afterwards, they would, uh, serve him a cup of hot water, and Reb Zalman would sit by the table and relate, uh, Chassidishe stories. His avoda in Kidush Levana was also very unique and special. He would go down to the street, and if the Levana wasn't seen from the street, he would walk all the way until the city square, which was a far walk, where he would say Kidush Levana over there, and Kidush Levana would take him about an hour and a half, and his eyes were closed, and he would shake similar to the way he would shake during Shemoneh Esreh. He would say Kidush Levana in a very quiet voice, and you couldn't hear anything he was saying even if you stood right next to him, except for when he came to saying the Shalom Aleichem. And that's what he would do

04:07 even when he was on the cold winter nights. Afterwards, he would return home with the minyan that came with him, and he would tell them some, uh, Chassidishe stories while drinking a cup of hot water. His sons related that when the date in a month started to get late and the Levana was still not seen, it was covered with clouds, Reb Zalman was in tremendous sadness and pain. And, uh, when he would get to those last few nights of being able to do Kidush Levana, they would wake him up in the middle of the night soon as they saw the Levana, and he would right away in the middle of the night go down and do Kidush Levana. During the time where he lived in Lodz, says Rabbi Gringlass, he would go each weekday around 10:00 in the morning to a Chassidishe shtiebel, which was not a Chabad shtiebel in the Kamienov Street, which was not far from his house, to daven about 10:00 in the morning. During that time of his life, he would not... It was already in the later years, and he wouldn't daven as much Bearichos as in his younger years. So he would daven with the minyan, very slowly with the minyan. He actually had his own special minyan of 10 Chassidim who waited around for him, who, uh, davened with him every day. They were not Lubavitcher Chassidim. They, they were from the shtiebel, and they would daven with him every day in his late hour, and they would

05:22 finish around midday. And as a thank you for waiting for him and davening with him, he would bring them every day after davening a mezuzah-nes and some mashke, and he would sit around with them and tell them stories. And Rabbi Gringlass says, "I once walked in there, um, 'cause I needed to deliver something, some message to him, and I found him over there sitting in the head of the table, and he's telling those Chassidim who are not Lubavitch, who are not familiar with Chassidus, telling them about this, this sefer called Hemshech Taf Res Samach Vav, which is a sefer that has 371 pages, and it starts off with a question on a Mishnah on, on, on Rosh Hashanah, and it continues with ma'amarim throughout the whole entire year and a half, until in the end of the whole sefer he- He answers the question after all this ma'amurim, he answers the question that he asked in the beginning of the sefer, and the people sitting around the table were listening and mesmerized about this concept that he had, this hemshech of ma'amurim. Sometimes, says Rabbi Greenglass, Reb Zalman will daven in a late hour in the old bismadrish of the city. And once it happened that he asked one of his sons if he could go to that bismadrish and find out who davens at a certain corner in the bismadrish. Why? Because he said that he felt that when he davens in that corner, he feels a very wonderful, unique feeling, a very uplifted

06:39 feeling in his davening. So it must be that the one who usually davens there is a holy person. So go find out who davens there. He would care very much to warn people not to speak during Chazaras HaShatz. And he used to walk around the shul during Chazaras HaShatz and tell people, Mitarnishred and Mitarnishred, you're not allowed to speak. And he had attached to his siddur a paper with his own handwriting where he quoted different paragraphs from all of our Ma'amur Chazal about the severity of speaking during Chazaras HaShatz and Kriyas HaTairah. On the night of B'dikas Chametz, says Rabbi Greenglass, I watched him during B'dikas Chametz with tremendous avidah. It will take a very long time. We'll literally lie down under the beds and behind everywhere. And it will take a very long time. And the reason is because from time to time, since for him it was also a spiritual avidah, he would burst out crying. And the crying very much disturbed his physical ability to check for Chametz. So that's why he dragged for so long. On Sukkot, says Rabbi Greenglass, his avidah by saying Hallel and the Na'anuim and the Lulav and Esrog was very unique and special. Every morning of Sukkot, he would close himself up in his sukkah for a while. Then during the Na'anuim, he would sing a unique t'nua, a unique nigun between the words. He would only use an Esrog from Calabria. And one year, he got an Esrog which was not very mehudar. It was

08:05 green and it had a stain on it. But since that was the only Calabria Esrog around, so he used it. On that Sukkot, he was sad the whole entire Sukkot. And he said that the Esrog is correspond to the heart, the place of teshuva. And when there is a stain on the Esrog, that's a sign that, chas v'shalem, there is a stain in the heart. And that whole entire Sukkot, his davening was full of crying. I was by him once for Simchas Torah, says Rabbi Greenglass, and before Hakafot, it was a farbrengen. And for health reasons, he wasn't allowed to drink mashke, and even wine he didn't drink. So I remember that he said, today is Simchas Torah, and medav zaim b'simcha, we have to be happy. So he called a bocher, his name was Shraga, which was a big Talmud Chacham, and he asked this Shraga to bring a Tanya, and he should open up the perek lamed gimel, and he should start reading. So Shraga started to read a few lines, which perek lamed gimel in Tanya describes the reasons a yid should always be very much b'simcha. After a few lines of reading, Reb Zalman stopped him and says, genug, genug, it's enough. And he started to dance from excitement around the table with tremendous speed, as if he was a very young bocher, and his face was flam fire. And everybody who were watching were very amazed how somebody in his age and in his health condition could run around like

09:25 that as if he was a young child. His sons tried to stop him, but they couldn't. And all of that was without even a drop of mashke, just from hearing a few lines in Tanya. When he would say ma'amurim, when he would chazer siddis, it was a very unique experience. Reb Zalman would explain the ma'amurim in a wonderful way, and it was a tremendous spiritual pleasure to see it and listen to his ma'amurim, says Rabbi Greenglass. Sometimes when he would chazer a ma'amur that spoke about matters of avodah, it would be hard for him to say it smoothly because he will burst out crying in the middle. At the time when he lived in Vitebsk, a group of anash used to come to his home every Shabbos after Mincha to hear from him a ma'amur. So when I was in Lodz, says Rabbi Greenglass, so the minhag was that every Shalashiddis who would sing nigunim, and during the suda, Reb Zalman would read perek kuf yutes in Tehillim and many prokim in Tanya, and then he will eat quickly. And afterwards he will chazer a ma'amur for two or three hours every Shabbos, sometimes even longer. And during the chazara, he didn't hear and didn't see anything around him. And to this chazering of the ma'amur that happened in Lodz, many non-Chabad Chassidim would also come, and also the tmimim from Tevchet Tmimim in Warsaw would also come. Whenever a shliach or a shadar from Tevchet Tmimim will come as a guest to the city,

10:48 so then he would honor him to say the ma'amur instead, and he would listen very attentively to it. And it was a wonderful scene to see such a big Chassid, the tremendous amount of bitul and sincerity of the way he listened to the ma'amur no matter who chazered it. Once, Rosh Chodesh Nisan was on Shabbos. That means that the Motze Shabbos was Beis Nisan, the Yom HaHilul of the Rebbe Rashab. So when it was Bein HaShmashois, when it was almost night already, that Shabbos, Reb Zalman, instead of chazering a ma'amur ba'al peh, he asked that he should bring him a ma'amur of the Rebbe Rashab. And he asked a Chassid over there, his name was Reb Mendel, which was the Rosh HaShiva of Tevchet Tmimim in Lodz, that he should read the ma'amur from the inside in honor of Beis Nisan. Afterwards, Reb Zalman sang the nigun that the Rebbe Rashab would sing during his davening. And during the nigun, Reb Zalman was in tremendous dveikus. And after the nigun, he said, it's known that through a nigun, you could connect to the ba'al ha-nigun, to the Rebbe of the nigun. But how can you connect when you are in such a dirt? And he burst out crying, and he couldn't calm himself down for a while. Reb Zalman would put a lot of effort to influence the young Chassidim who came to his house to learn Chassidus from him, that they should get used to think ma'amur Chassidus ba'al peh. They should think ba'al

12:10 peh ma'amur Chassidus. And he spoke about it at length, and he would explain the greatness of that and how much that helps to purify your mind from having Chassidus engraved in your mind. And he would bring for that, um, examples of Ziknei Chassidim from previous generations that their main hatslacha in Avodas Hashem was from the fact that they got, that they got used to always think Chassidus. "I remember," says Rabbi Greenglass, that "once when I was a young bachur, Reb Zalman took a Sefer Maamarim Kuntrisim, which was a Maamarim of the Frierdiker Rebbe, and he told me to read a few lines from the Sefer. Then he closed the Sefer, and he asked me to chazar those few lines be'al peh. Then he opened up the Sefer again, and he told me to read the next few lines and told me to chazar them be'al peh again to train me to chazar be'al peh Chassidus." A few of the polei Chassidim that came to his house, he would show them what it says in the Hagdah to Imrei Bina. Imrei Bina is a Sefer Chassidus from the Mitteler Rebbe, where the Mitteler Rebbe writes over there that somebody who never put on tefillin, he's considered to be a Pesha Yisroel in- with his body. But then the Mitteler Rebbe writes, somebody who's lazy when it comes to learning Chassidus and understanding Chassidus, he's considered to be a Pesha Yisroel with his neshamah. And he will explain it to those polei Chassidim about the importance of

13:24 learning and understanding Chassidus. A special effort Reb Zalman invested to get us used to knowing a lot of Likutey Torah. He once saw me, says, uh, Rabbi Greenglass, that I was copying the Maamar, the famous Maamar of Yad Ato Moscow of the Rebbe Rashab. Uh, even though, uh, says Rabbi Greenglass, at that, uh, in that period of time I didn't really understand much Chassidus, but somebody told me that that's a very rare Maamar and it's worth it for me to sit down and copy it so I have a copy. So when he saw that, he asked me why am I copying this Maamar, so I told him. So Reb Zalman asked me, "Did you ever hear of the Chossid Reb Shmuel Ber Borislav?" And he started to describe me the great Chossid Reb Shmuel Ber Borislav. And then he said, he finished off saying that all of his godlessness was from the fact that he was a bakki, he was fluent in Likutey Torah. So he asked me, "Do you know Likutey Torah well already? In other words, why are you jumping to, uh, copying Maamarim before you know the basics of Likutey Torah?" In the Taf Res Tzadik Hey or Tzadik Vav, the Frierdiker Rebbe sent the Siddur of the Ba'al Shem Tov to Reb Zalman with the purpose of him showing it to whoever wants to see it if they donate money to Tomchei Temimim in Lodz. But anybody who wanted to see it needed to go to the mikveh, and even then

14:46 they weren't allowed to pick it up or hold it. Rather, one of Reb Zalman's people would, uh, turn the pages and show it to whoever came to see. So R- Rabbi Greenglass says that he was zecher to be one of the people who showed, uh, the people who lined up the Siddur of the Ba'al Shem Tov. When Reb Zalman came to the Frierdiker Rebbe on Yud Tes Kislev of Taf Res Tzadik Tes, and he stood in the entrance to the Yechidus room waiting to go into Yechidus. So Reb Chatzke Fagin, the Frierdiker Rebbe's secretary, said to the bachurim, "You have no brains, bachurim. When Reb Zalman used to come to Lubavitch back in the days of the Rebbe Rashab, we used to surround him in order to squeeze something out of him, and you guys are not, uh, are not using that opportunity." So Reb Zalman overheard that, and he waved with his hands like to make a motion of, you know, it's, it's not a big deal. And, uh, he, he said, "Yeah, there's nothing to hear." "I heard," says Rabbi Greenglass, "that at that visit, the Frierdiker Rebbe showed him tremendous signs of affection and honor. For an example, during the farbrengen, the Frierdiker Rebbe sat at the head of the table, and Reb Zalman sat on his left side, mamesh right next to him. And in the corner of the table, the Rashag sat, and besides for them, nobody else sat by the table." So Reb Zalman Schneerson passed away in the

16:01 ghetto in Lodz during the Holocaust on Yud Beis Tammuz, eight Taf Shin, and he was, uh, buried over there in the city of Lodz. We'll now play a t'nua that Reb Zalman used to like singing, and it's mekubal that this t'nua is from the Ba'al Shem Tov.