37. The Chossid Who Saw The Alter Rebbe Being Arrested

00:15 Dear ‹foreign language›, good ‹foreign language›. You know that is the biggest ‹foreign language› in Chabad is coming up now, ‹foreign language›. So I wanna tell you a few things that will happen about ‹foreign language›, not the whole story. The whole story is a long story. But I'll tell you a little few parts of the story. The Alter Rebbe, as you know, taught Hasidis, and he made so many Jews, millions of Jews, excited about doing mitzvahs, learning Torah through learning Hasidis. 'Cause you can only get excited about learning Torah, doing mitzvahs when you learn Hasidis. The Alter Rebbe wrote the Tanya, and h- hundreds and thousands of people learned his sefer, and they became so much more excited about learning Torah and, and doing mitzvahs and davening. But the misnagdim who didn't like Hasidim, they didn't like what Alter Rebbe was doing. They were very upset because they thought Alter Rebbe... More and more people are coming to Alter Rebbe. More and more people see how great Alter Rebbe is, and they didn't like it. They were jealous. So they went to the government of Russia and said, "The Alter Rebbe is a bad person. He wants to overthrow the government." You know what that means? He wants to get rid of the king, of the tsar, and he's gonna become the next tsar, the next king. What a ridiculous thing they said to the government. The Alter Rebbe wants to be the king of Russia. Why would a rebbe wanna be the king of Russia?

01:44 But that's what they said. And so the Alter Rebbe was in a lot of trouble because the government said, "Oh, really? We have to go and search and investigate. We have to go look and see what he's doing. He's a dangerous man." They came to arrest him. S- One day, the day of Sim- after Simchat Torah of the year ‹foreign language›, right? Today we are ‹foreign language›. This was ‹foreign language›. Now, I wanna tell you something that happened before when the soldiers came. The soldiers came right after Simchat Torah. But the Rosh Hashanah before... You know, first Rosh Hashanah, then Yom Kippur, then comes Sukkot and Simchat Torah, and the, the general came the day after Simchat Torah. But on Rosh Hashanah before that, the Tzemach Tzedek once told his son, the Rebbe Maharash, "On Rosh Hashanah, my grandfather, the Alter Rebbe, would take me under his tallit. Whenever he blew the shofar, the tekiah of the shofar, he would put his tallit over his head and he would put me under his tallit." And the Tzemach Tzedek said, "I saw what's going on in Shamayim." Tzemach Tzedek was a little boy, but he could see. "And I saw that there was a terrible, terrible thing going to happen to my grandfather. In Shamayim it said that something bad is gonna happen that year, but I couldn't see the end of it, how it's gonna turn out. Is he in the end gonna be saved?" And that was very scary. So indeed, after Yom Kippur

03:29 and then Sukkot and then Simchat Torah, the officers showed up one day. The big general also joined them, and they took the Alter Rebbe out of the house. They put him in a black coach. A black coach was used by the Russian government only for very, very dangerous criminals, really bad people. So why would they take the Alter Rebbe and put him in such a black coach that was so scary-looking? 'Cause they thought Alter Rebbe was a dangerous man, too. He wants to kill the k- the king and, and become the king himself. So they traveled from the Alter Rebbe's city, Lyozno. They were going to the capital of Russia, Peterburg. And on the way, they would stop in a few cities. They traveled for, oh, for quite a few days. Quite a few days, till it came Friday afternoon. And Alter Rebbe, Friday afternoon he would not travel. Even though it was still a few hours before Shabbos, he wouldn't go and travel. So he said to the general, "It's Friday afternoon. I don't travel on Friday afternoon till after Shabbos. Please stop the wagon. Let's stay here on the side of the road over Shabbos." The general said, "No way. We don't do that. You're just a prisoner. You, you're going to prison. We're not gonna listen to you. We're going to Peterburg on Shabbos." And as soon as the general said that, one of the wheels of the wagon, of the black wagon broke down. The general, oh, was a little surprised,

05:05 and he said to someone, "Go quickly to town. Bring a, a, a wood craftsman, a person who knows how to do wood and can create a new wheel for the wagon." And so they got somebody, and he created a new wheel. So then the general said, "Let's go. Now we're moving." But then one of the horses died, suddenly died. So the general said, "Let's bring another horse. Go buy another horse." They bought another horse, and they tied the second horse, and the horses couldn't move the wagon. The wagon stood still. They couldn't move. They pulled and pulled and pulled, and they couldn't move it. Now the general understood that this is the Alter Rebbe. Alter Rebbe doesn't wanna travel on Shabbos, and he, the general, didn't listen to him, so Hashem makes a miracle that the horses cannot pull the wagon. And so the general said, "Okay, okay. I get the... I get it. I get it." We're not gonna go on Shabbos, but can we please go to the next town so we can be in a city somewhere? Rebbe says, "No, no, no. We're not going anywhere." We can go to the side of the road. That, yes. We don't have to be in the middle of the road. We can go to the side of the road, and we're gonna stay Shabbos there. And nobody had a choice. The general, everybody ha- was forced to stay Shabbos with the Alter Rebbe on the side of the road. The Alter Rebbe spent Shabbos

06:24 next to a beautiful tree with beautiful branches. Hasidim would go there and look at the tree. It was magnificent. All the trees around were already broken. It's the only tree that's still standing there beautifully, you know, with beautiful leaves and beautiful branches. That's where the Alter Rebbe spent Shabbos. Now I'm gonna tell you something that happened to one of the Hasidim of the Alter Rebbe. It's an awesome story. The Hasidim decided when they saw that Alter Rebbe was taken to prison, they were very afraid what's gonna happen to him, and so they decided that all the Hasidim will fast every Monday and every Thursday, twice a week, a whole day, from when... Unless you're a child or people are sick, people are not strong, so they don't have to fast. But mo- most everybody else should fast Monday and Thursday and spend the day saying Tehillim, crying to Hashem to save the Alter Rebbe. One Hasid, he came from a city called Stradov. Stradov. When he wa- he was watching, he was in the Yerzna, the town of the Alter Rebbe, when they took the Alter Rebbe into the black coach. He watched it. He saw it. Now, when he saw that, he was so scared that he fainted. He fainted. He passed out. He fell on the ground with his eyes closed, and he fainted. People ran quickly over to try to wake him up, but they couldn't. They saw he was alive because his, his, you know, his, his arms had a pulse,

08:10 you know. He was moving a little bit, but he was totally out. They couldn't wake him up. Finally, somebody said, "You know what? I have an idea. Somebody should whisper in his ear and say, 'Oh, the Alter Rebbe was set free. He's free now. They sent him back home.' You'll see. This may, this may be bring him back and wake him up." So somebody did that, and it worked. So he woke up. Says, "Really? The Alter Rebbe came out of prison?" But they had to tell him the truth. But he didn't faint again, but he was very sad. Very sad. This Hasid, before he became a Hasid of the Alter Rebbe, he was a Hasid of another great, great tzadik, Rebbe Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk. Rebbe Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk was also at one point the Rebbe of the Alter Rebbe. This Hasid was a Hasid of Rebbe Mendel of Vitebsk, and then when he met the Alter Rebbe, he was so inspired by the Alter Rebbe that he decided to become a Hasid of the Alter Rebbe instead, and that was the Hasid that fainted. This was the day after Zechus Yisroel when they took the Alter Rebbe out of his house into the black coach. Now, w- in the meantime, the Hasidim tried to do everything they could to help release the Alter Rebbe from prison. Was the night of Yud Tes Kislev. This Hasid that fainted was in his own town in Stradov. The Hasidim, Chabad Hasidim of Stradov, were also fasting

09:48 every Monday and Thursday. And the night of Yud Tes Kislev, m- they didn't know yet Alter Rebbe was gonna come out of prison because we only found that out on Yud Tes Kislev. The night of Yud Tes Kislev, maybe even the Alter Rebbe didn't know. The Alter Rebbe was still in prison. But Yud Tes Kislev is also the Yahrtzeit of the Alter Rebbe's Rebbe. What was his name? The Mezritcher Maggid. So Hasidim, at a Yahrtzeit of a tzadik, they sit down and have a farbrengen to remember all the Torah the Rebbe taught and all how great the Rebbe was. So the Hasidim in Stradov, including this Hasid who had fainted a few weeks before, sat in the farbrengen in honor of the Yahrtzeit of the Mezritcher Maggid. This Hasid was so tired because he had fasted that day. And when they sat down at night by farbrengen, they said l'chaim. He got so tired that he fell asleep at the farbrengen. And when he slept, he had a dream. In his dream, he sees his former Rebbe, the Rebbe that was his Rebbe before, Rebbe Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk. The great tzadik, Rebbe Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk, came to him in a dream. He said to him, "Listen, normally, I only come to a dream of my Hasidim who are still my Hasidim, but you left me, and you became a Hasid of the Alter Rebbe. So normally I wouldn't come to you, but I see how pained you are and how upset you are

11:32 about the Alter Rebbe being in prison, so I came to tell you some secrets, things that are happening in Shamayim." He told this Hasid that tonight, because it's Yud Tes Kislev, the Yahrtzeit of the Maggid, and a neshamah of a tzadik on the day of h- the tzadik's Yahrtzeit, all the neshamah from other tzadikim come to him to the place in Gan Eden where this tzadik is, the tzadik whose Yahrtzeit it is. So all the tzadik come from all over Gan Eden to see him. And he, the tzadik whose Yahrtzeit it is, says Torah, and everybody listens. So tonight is the yahrzeit of Magid. The Magid is in Gan Eden, right? He passed away years before. So all the tzadikim came, and you could see that with the Magid of Mezritch was sitting in Gan Eden s- s- teaching Torah, revealing new secrets of the Torah to other neshamas, and neshamas of great tzadikim. The Baal Shem Tov was sitting to his right, and the Arizal, Rabbi Yitzchak Luria, Arizal, the famous Arizal, was sitting on his left. And when the Magid finished saying the Torah, everybody listened. Hundreds and thousands of neshamas were listening. And then when he finished the Torah, the Magid burst into tears, hysterically crying. They asked the Magid, "Why is he crying?" He says, "Because my talmid, the Rebbe Reb Zalmano..." This is the way he used it, these words. "My talmid, the Rebbe Reb Zalmano," that's the Alter Rebbe, "is in prison, and all the teachings of Chassidus of

13:15 the Alter Rebbe is in danger of being lost, and that's why I'm crying. And I'm begging you, you're all tzadikim here. Help my talmid, my student, the Alter Rebbe." By the way, this story was told by the previous Rebbe, and I got it from a great Chassid, the Rebbe Nisan, who heard it from the previous Rebbe. And he said to this Chassid that Reb Nachum Mendel of Vitebsk continues and says, "As soon as the Magid s- started crying and said why he's crying, suddenly who came in to that place in Gan Eden? The Rashbi, Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, who lived thousands of years before." BeEzras Hashem he's in Gan Eden for thousands of years. He came into the place where the Magid of Mezritch was saying Torah and where he was crying after the Torah. And uh, when they told the Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai why he's crying, he said, "Let's have a bezdin." That means we'll make a court. We have dayanim. Like three tzadikim will be like a bezdin, and we will pasken. We will say the, the halacha is that the Alter Rebbe must come out of prison. And when a bezdin says something, like three great Hakham get together and they make a-- and they pasken, they say, "This is the halacha. That's the way it should be," then Hashem listens. So the Rashbi took three people, and he and they paskened Alter Rebbe must come out of prison. So Reb Mendel of Vitebsk tells this Chassid in the dream, "I

15:00 want you to know that your Rebbe will come out tomorrow." And with that, the Chassid woke up in middle of the farbrengen. The Chassidim was still farbrengen, and he shared the dream with them. When the Chassidim heard that story, they heard the dream, they knew that this dream is true, 'cause great Chassidim didn't have stupid dreams. They only had real dreams. These were great people, so dreams is, was real. So they all believed that tomorrow on Yut Zot Kislev the Alter Rebbe will come out of prison. But they decided that until they don't hear the news coming from Liozna, the Alter Rebbe city, that he-- the Alter Rebbe came back, that he came out of prison, we're gonna te- continue to fast every Monday and Thursday. Now, the news from Liozna to Stradov took a few weeks, because in those days they didn't have planes. They didn't have internet. They didn't have, uh, um, um, you know, cars. If you wanted to send a message to another city that was far away, it took a few weeks to get there. Actually, to Stradov it only took one week. So they found out a week after Yut Zot Kislev that the Alter Rebbe came out of prison. They kept fasting even though in their hearts they believed that the Rebbe already came out. The news just didn't arrive yet. And indeed, a week later they found out that on Yut Zot Kislev the Alter Rebbe came out. That's when they all saw that the dream of

16:36 this Chassid was real and that the great Tzaddik, Mendel of Vitebsk, really came to him.