19. A Dangerous Mission

00:16 Hi, Tayeha Kinderlech. Today is Yud Gimmel Tammuz. It's a yom tov. The Friediker Rebbe came out of prison, and we're all celebrating. It's a very happy day. The Friediker Rebbe went on Mesirat Nefesh. You guys know what Mesirat Nefesh means? He put his life in danger. He was almost... He almost died. They almost killed him because he taught children Torah. He made sure that all the Hasidim teach children Torah, even though the Russian government didn't like it. And he did this with-- He was very brave. But because of him, now you can learn Torah, and I can learn Torah, and we have schools and cheders all over the world because the Friediker Rebbe fought. He was fighting against these evil Russians who didn't want Jewish children to learn Torah. Now, the previous Rebbe had a story where he was actually involved in a very dangerous mission, in a very dangerous work to save the Jewish people from a very bad thing that the government was planning to do against the Jewish people. What was the story? This was way before the story of Yud Beis, Yud Gimmel Tammuz. When the previous Rebbe was a young man, his father, the Rebbe Rashab, was still alive. He was the Rebbe. Now, the Tsar of Russia, the Tsar is the king. The last Tsar of Russia was a very stupid man. Very stupid. He drank mashke a whole day. He was drunk all the time. He couldn't run the country. When you're a king, you're supposed to run

02:10 the country, make laws, make sure that everybody is happy and everything goes well and nobody does bad things. You're the king, right? But when you're drunk a whole day, you can't, you know, look after the country. You can't, you know, run the country. You should go stay in your room a whole day. But who's gonna run the country if you're the king? So who ran the country? You know who? Another Russian person. He was a minister. Minister, very important man in the government. And the Tsar says, "Listen, I'm gonna drink a whole day mashke, and I'm gonna be drunk and stupid a whole day. You can run the country for me." So he would run the country for the Tsar, but he was a very, very, very big anti-Semite. He didn't... You know what anti-Semite means? He didn't like Jews. He hated Jews. And not just hated Jews, he, like, really, really couldn't stand the Jewish people. And that was very dangerous for the Jews that he was given all the power. The Tsar told him, "You can run the country for me. If you need me to sign something, you just decide if we should do this or not, and I will sign and say, 'Yeah, let's do it.' You need my signature, I will sign it. But you will make all the decisions." And that was very bad for the Jews. And he decided indeed... Let's call him Ivan, this, this, this powerful minister, right? This powerful minister, Ivan, he was a mean

03:41 guy. And he one day decided to actually make a law, a new law that doesn't allow the Jewish people to do mitzvahs the way they always did. And especially, they can't teach their children Torah the way they always taught, the way we learned from Moshe Rabbeinu, the way we learned from, uh, Har Sinai. On Har Sinai, when Hashem gave us the Torah, He taught us how to teach Torah to the children. Teaching Torah in a very heilike way, in a holy way. But they wanted to change this. The Russian government wanted to change that. It says Jews have to be like the Goyim. And they, the Goyim, are gonna tell us how to teach our children, and that was terrible. Very bad. So they were very afraid. The Rebbe Rashab told the Friediker Rebbe, called over his son, who was a young man. He says, "I want you to go to Peterburg." Peterburg is the capital of Russia. "And you better find a way that this law does not become law, that they don't approve it, they don't make it a law, because this would be terrible for the Jewish people. If they're gonna tell us Jews how to teach Torah to our children, that would be terrible. We need to listen to Moshe Rabbeinu. We need to listen to Hashem. We need to listen to the tzadikim. We need to listen to the Rebbes, the Rabbeim. They know what Hashem wants, not the Goyim. The Goyim should tell us what Hashem wants or what

05:08 they want. We shouldn't listen to them." So the previous Rebbe asked his father, "And how long should I try? I mean, this is a very difficult mission to..." So the Friediker Rebbe asked his father, "How long should I try? What if I can't do it, and I try and try and try? How long should I try? How long should I stay in Peterburg before I give up?" The Rebbe, the father said to him, "You stay there till Mesirat Nefesh." Wow. You know what that means? He said, "You stay in Peterburg until your life is in danger. And even if your life is in danger, you continue to work, even though, chas v'shalom, you might die because you tried so hard to change the law against the Jewish people." So the Friediger Rebbe says, was very shocked. "Wow, I should give up my life even for this? That means I should try so hard that even if I get killed because I'm changing the law, even then I should still try?" Well, you know that the Jewish people are not supposed to die to do mitzvahs, only for three things. There are only three averos that a Jew may not do at all, even if a goy wants to kill him. He can't worship an idol, worship an other, uh, other gods, getchkes. You're not supposed to. And even if a goy says to a Jew, "I'm gonna kill you if you don't worship this," the Jew should not worship the getchkes, should not worship the

06:50 idols. Or if somebody says to a Jew, "Go kill this person. Kill this person. If you don't kill him, I will kill you." Are you allowed to do that? No. But all the averos, if your life is in danger, then you, you don't do the ave- the mitzvah. You don't have to, if it's to save your life. Let's say if somebody's very sick and on Yom Kippur, and they can't fast on Yom Kippur because they're gonna die if they fast, then you're not supposed to fast. You're supposed to preserve your life. Or if a woman is giving birth to a baby and she has to go to the hospital on Shabbos because the baby's coming out, and it can be very dangerous if she's not in a hospital, then you're allowed to drive on Shabbos. So the Friediger Rebbe thought to himself, "My father says I should try and try and try to change this law from, from the government, even if it means that I'm g- have to give up my life? Even if, chas v'shalom, I'm in danger, I should still continue to try? Wow, it must be very, very important then." So he traveled to Peterburg, and when he came to Pe- Peterburg is the capital where the king's palace was and all the big important ministers lived. All the offices of the great important people from the government had their office in the buildings in Peterburg. It was the most, the biggest city, the most important city in all of Russia.

08:22 The Friediger Rebbe came to Peterburg, and he started looking around and asking people questions, "Where is the office of this minister, this very, very important minister, that he makes all the decisions of the law, and where is his office?" Now, he, this minister, as I told you before, was a very mean person, and he didn't like Jewish people, and he's the one who tried to make this law against the Jews, that they can't do certain things. They're not allowed to teach Torah to their children the way they always teach. They're not allowed to do certain mitzvahs the way they do. He's gonna change the Torah, chas v'shalom. But how... He wants to know. The Friediger wanted to know, "Where's his office? I have to go to his office." So somebody showed him the building. "This is the building. You see the building not far from the palace of the tsar? That building. His office is on the second floor." The previous Rebbe went straight there. But to go there, the guard by the door... You know, by the door, there were guards, soldiers, and say, "Hey, you can't come in unless you have a permit. You have to have special permission to come into this special building. This is a very important building. All the most important people from the government, uh, have their offices here. You can't just go in. Not anybody can come in like that. Do you have a, a paper that shows that you have the right and permission to go

09:54 in to see, uh, uh, one of the ministers?" And the Friediger says, "No, I don't. Okay, I'll find... I'll get one." He found out that this very important minister, right, that the government, that the tsar appointed to run the country, he has a person who is a professor. Professor means he's like a very smart man that teaches people ideas, and he is the teacher of this minister. And he heard that this professor is not a bad guy. He's not so bad. He doesn't l- he doesn't hate the Jewish people so much. So the Friediger Rebbe made an appointment with him. That means he went to meet him. He went to his house, and he said to him, "Listen, I would love to meet your student, this minister, this very important minister that runs the country. I'd like to meet him. How can I meet him? I know you're his teacher and he likes you." And he answered, "You know what? I have a piece of paper because I'm his teacher and he loves me, that if anybody has this piece of paper in his hands, he can get into the building. They'll let you right through. I'm willing to loan you, to give you as a loan. You can borrow it from me. Take this piece of paper, and when you show this paper to the guards, they'll let you in. But I want you to know, if they catch you, and they find out that I gave you this paper, which I'm not supposed

11:25 to, you know what's gonna happen? They're gonna kill me and kill you, 'cause it's a very bad thing to do in the government, to go in and to lie and say that you have a piece of paper. This is not your paper. It's my paper, but I'm giving it to you. So be careful. Don't get caught." And so the previous Rebbe took the paper, went to that very special building, and when the guard asked him, "Do you have a permission to come in here?" He showed that piece of paper. And when they saw the paper, they said, "Oh, okay, you can go through." And he went straight to the second floor. Now it was dangerous because Friediker Rebbe looked like a real Yid with a beard and payos and a hat. And they didn't like Jewish people there. They didn't like... But he went anyways. And then he asked one of the people that were walking through the hallway, "Tell me, where's the office of this and this minister?" He said the minister's name, the person who is in charge of the country, who was going to make this law against the Jewish people. And this person said, "Oh, his office is right there. You see that door over there? You go down the hallway, and there is his office." The Friediker Rebbe looks at that door, and now it was very dangerous to even ask someone where the office is because, "Hey, who are you? You're, you're just a Jew. You're coming here. What

12:59 are you doing here? We don't like Jewish people here." But he did this anyways, even though it was dangerous. And the guy told him where to go. He went there, and as he's getting closer to the door, somebody walks out of the office, that same office that he wa- wanted to go to, and the person comes out and walks the other direction and goes away. Apparently, this was the minister himself. He walked out of his office for f- for a little while. He had to go somewhere. So the Friediker Rebbe saw this, so he opened the door of the office without permission, and there was no one in the office because the minister just left, walked in, and looked at the desk. He saw a pile of papers, all types of laws that the minister was going to ask the government to sign and make a law. And one of them, on top of the page, he found the law against the Jewish people, that the Jewish people cannot teach Torah to their children the way they do, they teach, and they're not supposed to do certain things, certain mitzvahs the way they do. And he took a stamp. The stamp said that this law is not approved. It will not happen. There were two piles of papers. One pile was all the laws that is approved and is going to be, uh, signed by the tsar, and then it's gonna become law. And then there were papers that was officially not going to be

14:32 approved. The other ministers didn't agree with that. So the Friediker Rebbe took the paper that had this law against the Jewish people, put a stamp that says n- "No, it's not approved. We're not going to do this. We're not going to tell the Jewish people how to teach Torah to their children. We're gonna let them do it the way they always did it, in the holy way, in the special way, the way Hashem told them at Har Sinai, the way Moshe Rabbeinu and all the rebbes and tzadikim have been telling us to do it." And so that piece of paper, Friediker Rebbe quickly put on the side, on the pile of all the laws that was not approved, and that's it. He disappeared. He quickly walked out of the office. He was so lucky that the minister didn't come in. Shortly after he left the office and left the building, the minister came back into his office and didn't notice anything. He didn't realize what had happened. Had the previous Rebbe been caught in that office, if that minister had come in in the middle while the Friediker Rebbe is stamping the papers without permission, you know what would have happened? I can't even tell you. He would have been put in prison and much worse. They would have killed him. He went on Mesirus Nefesh. He t- he, he was, he, he was, he, he became v- he did something very dangerous, but he saved the Jewish people. When he came back to Lubavitch,

15:58 he said to his father, "The mission was accomplished, and yes, I did it at great danger to my life, but Hashem saved me, and I was able to fulfill my mission." Now, many Hasidim who heard how the Fri- the Rebbe Rashab is sending his only son... You know, the Friediker Rebbe was the only son of the Rebbe Rashab. He was the only child. And he sends him on such dangerous missions. You know, Chas v'shalom, if the Friediker Rebbe would be killed by the government because he did something so terrible, we wouldn't have the previous Rebbe. How could a father... You know, a father loves his children, especially if it's an only child. You know, the love of a father to an only child. If you don't have any other children, you have only one child, then you love him even more, right? How could the Rebbe Rashab do this to his only child, send him on such a dangerous mission? But the Rebbe Rashab said you need Mesirus Nefesh. When the government's trying to, uh, stop us from doing Torah mitzvahs and they put us in danger, then we need to show courage and be brave and not to listen. And the same thing with the Yetzer Hara. We're not supposed to listen to Yetzer Hara. We're supposed to tell the Yetzer Hara, "Go away," and not to be afraid. And then Hashem blesses us that we are successful.