47. The Alter Rebbe, Koznitzer Maggid & (lehavdil) Napoleon

00:16 Hello, kinderle. Tonight, I want to tell you a little bit about an amazing time in the time of the Alter Rebbe. Something amazing happened. As you know, towards the end of the Alter Rebbe's life, right before the Alter Rebbe was Nistar, like there was a huge war that broke out between, uh, Russia and France. The King of France at that time was a very famous man by the name Napoleon. Napoleon, his full name was Napoleon Bonaparte. Napoleon Bonaparte. Napoleon Bonaparte was a very powerful king, and he had a huge army, and he wanted to conquer the whole world, and he said he's gonna make everybody free. Even the Jewish people can do whatever they want. They can live wherever they want. They can have as much money as they want. The Jews can do whatever they want, just like everybody else. This was very different than the Russian Tsar and the Polish g- kings and the other kings. Other kings, they made the Jewish people, uh, very miserable. They didn't let them live wherever they wanted. They could only live in, in the farms. They couldn't live in the big city. They couldn't do certain businesses. They weren't allowed to do certain things. You know, Jews were made-- Their lives were made very difficult, and also sometimes the Tsars didn't like the Jews doing certain mitzvahs, or they didn't want them to have Jewish schools. So it was-- Things were very hard for the Jews under the Tsar. Now Napoleon came and said, "Oh, I

01:56 believe that everybody should be equal. Everybody should be the same. The Jews should be treated the same way as the Goyim and, uh, when I become king of Russia, and I become king of the entire Europe, the entire world, I will make sure that the Jewish people will be free, and they'll be able to do all the mitzvahs they want, be able to live the way they want, live wherever they want, and do whatever business they want." So it was very exciting. Many Jews believed Napoleon is really going to bring Mashiach. Napoleon was a Goy. He couldn't be Mashiach. But maybe Hashem is gonna bring Mashiach by first sending Napoleon. He's gonna conquer the whole world, make sure that the Jews are free, they can do whatever they want. That will be the beginning, and Mashiach will then come, take the Jews out of Galus. People thought that this is-- Napoleon was a sign. Hashem is sending him to bring Mashiach. But the Alter Rebbe didn't think so. The Alter Rebbe thought Napoleon was a very bad person. He was an evil person. But he wanted to give the Jews freedom. How could he be evil? But the Alter Rebbe said his real purpose is to make the Jewish people less Jewish and less religious and doing less mitzvahs and, and how was he gonna do that? Not by forcing them to do Averas like the other kings did. It's by telling-- by letting them do what they want. Tell them they're welcome to join

03:31 the Goyisha parties, welcome to join the way the Goyim live. They're allowed to do whatever the Goyim are allowed to do, and this will cause the Jews to want to be like the Goyim and stop being Jewish. The Alter Rebbe thought this would be dangerous. The Alter Rebbe even wrote in a letter to one of his Talmidim. He said, "I was in Shamayim." The Alter Rebbe was in Shamayim, went up to Shamayim, "and I saw that they said in Shamayim that if Napoleon Bonaparte wins the war, then Yidden, the Jews, will have a very good time. There'll be no suffering for the Jewish people. The Jews will be able to do whatever they want. Everything will be free. But the Jewish people will become less religious, less Jewish. They'll start doing less mitzvahs and slowly, slowly become just like the French." And that, Alter Rebbe said, is much worse. Better that we suffer under the Tsar, but we stay Jewish, than be under the French and have freedom, do whatever we want, but then we're gonna end up being like them and leaving our Torah and our mitzvahs behind us. The Alter Rebbe saw in Shamayim that if Napoleon Bonaparte wins the war, there will be freedom, but there will be a lot of Jews who will stop being Jewish. And if the Tsar wins, there'll be a lot of troubles for the Jews because the Tsars weren't nice to the Jews. But one thing is for sure, the Jewish people will be very, very

05:13 close to the Torah. And so the Alter Rebbe said we need to daven that Napoleon should lose, he's an evil man, and that the Tsar should win. But there was a great tzadik in Poland. His name was the Kozhnitzer Maggid. He was a friend of the Alter Rebbe, and Alter Rebbe was fr- his friend as well. I mean, the, the letters that Alter Rebbe writes to him, very beautiful letters. But the Kozhnitzer Maggid felt that if Napoleon is gonna make life easy for the Jewish people, then we should daven Napoleon should win because the Tsar is so mean to the Jews. So he was very, very, very, very much in favor of Napoleon. He told everybody to daven for Napoleon. He says, "I'm gonna daven for Napoleon too." They say that when the Kerzhner Maggid would bake matzahs before Pesach, you know, on the eve of Pesach is a special time to bake matzahs, lechaver Pesach. And the Kerzhner Maggid would put a, you know, you put a, a dough, you know, a matzah, which is still dough, you put it in the oven, and it should be baked like matzah. So every time you put a matzah in the oven, he would say, "Four hundred Russians in the oven." And at that time, four hundred Russian soldiers would die in the battlefield, um, um, from the French army that would kill them. And, and he was very against the Russians. But Napoleon said, "No, no, no, I'm gonna daven for, uh, for the Tsar.

06:49 I'm gonna daven the Tsar. Napoleon has to lose the war. I don't like Napoleon." So, um, here's a story of what happened with the Kerzhner Maggid. The Kerzhner Maggid had a Hasid whose son was drafted in the army. He was drafted in the Russian army, but the Russian army-- Because the Russians were then in charge of Poland, so the Jews were-- had to go to the army, to the Russian army. They had to go to the battlefield. Now, the Hasid came to the Kerzhner Maggid and said, "I don't want my son to go to war in the Russian army. He might get killed." So the Kerzhner Maggid wrote a letter to the main general of the Russian army to tell him that he's asking him to set the son of his Hasid free, that he shouldn't go to the army, he should be able to go home. But of course, the Russian general didn't listen to the Kerzhner Maggid. So the Hasid came back and told the Kerzhner Maggid, "The, the general didn't listen. He, he was angry at you that you even are asking him to do you such a favor. You should be happy that your son is-- that my son is going to the army and serving his country and is helping his-- the Tsar, his king." And he was very angry that I even asked such a thing. So the Kerzhner Maggid sent another letter with this Hasid. He says, "Take this letter, tell him that I ask him to immediately

08:29 release your son." And the gen-general again yelled at him and says, "Don't ever come back." Finally, the Kerzhner Maggid heard that the general again yelled and said, "Absolutely not. I'm not gonna free your son." So then the Kerzhner Maggid said to this Hasid, "Go tell the general that I said that he should check his pocket inside his jacket. That's all." What a strange thing. The Hasid said, "Really? I should tell this to the general?" "Yes. Just listen to me. Just go tell the general to check in his pocket." The Hasid went. He was shivering and shaking because he was afraid that the general's gonna be so angry that he's coming again and again and again. He probably wants me to, to release his son and to free his son from the army. But instead, the Hasid said, "I have a message to you from the rabbi. The rabbi said that you should check your pocket right now." The general said, "What? I should check my pocket? That's silly. What, what, what-- What does he know what goes on in my pocket?" Hasid, "I don't know, but that's what he said I should tell you." So the general decided, "You know what? Why don't I just check what is in my pocket?" Looked inside his jacket. There was, like, a pocket inside his jacket, and he looked, and he see there's a piece of paper. So he pulled out the paper and looked, and he turned white. White. And then he pulled his gun and shot

10:10 himself in the head and killed himself right there in front of the Hasid. Then they found out why he killed himself, because he knew the Tsar is going to kill him. You know why? Because this general was a spy against the Russians. He was a general for the Russian army, but he, in a secretive way, in a secretive way, he actually was giving over a lot of secrets to the French army, to the enemy, and he tried to be friends with the French. So he-- whenever he knew about how the Russian army will attack and, and plans to move tomorrow, he would let the French know so the French would be prepared to do a counterattack, to attack the, the Russians. And this c-caused that the French army was winning and winning and winning. But what happened with this general, he had two letters. He had to send one letter to the Tsar, where he told the Tsar how the war is going and how great it's going and what's happening in the battlefield where they're fighting the wars. And then he had another letter, a secret letter, that he sent to the French, uh, general telling him, "I wanna tell you a secret. You know, we-- our army's gonna move in this direction, in that direction, so you should be prepared, right, to attack the, uh, the Russian army and from this direction, not from the other direction." But what happened, he made a terrible, terrible mistake. He had two letters. One he had

12:01 to send to the Russian Tsar, the other he had to send to the French general of the army. Enemy that they could send it to the enemy to tell him secretly all the secrets that he knows. But he realized he had made a mistake. He had switched the letters. The letter that was supposed to go to the French general, he by mistake had sent to the tsar. How did he know he'd made that mistake? Because he saw that the letter in his pocket was the letter that was supposed to go to the tsar, and that he did not send by mail. He already sent away the other letter, and because he found in his pocket the letter that was supposed to go to the tsar telling him about how wonderful things are in the battlefield and everything is going well, he saw he still had that letter in his pocket. That which letter did I send to the tsar? I know I sent a letter to the tsar. It must be the wrong letter. I sent to the tsar a letter that said that I'm giving over secrets to the French. The tsar's immediately gonna know that I'm a spy, and the tsar's gonna kill me. And then he realized when he checked his pocket, and so he said, "No, I don't want the tsar to kill me. I'll kill myself first." And that's what happened. And after that, the son of the Hasid was set free 'cause the general was dead. That story I

13:29 heard from my father many times. Now we'll tell what the Alter Rebbe did to make sure that Napoleon loses and the tsar wins. The Alter Rebbe davened very hard that Napoleon should lose the war. But in Shamayim, they listen to all tzadikim. So they listened to Alter Rebbe, and they listened to the Kerzen Samagid too. And there were other tzadikim too, like Mendel of Rimanov, great tzadik, who also didn't want the tsar to win. He wanted Napoleon to win. It'll be good for the Jews. So it was decided in Shamayim that Rosh Hashanah is coming up soon. It was right before Rosh Hashanah. Whichever tzadik will blow the shofar first in the morning, his prayers will be accepted. Whatever he wants should happen will happen. So the Kerzen Samagid knew that decision in Shamayim, in the heavens, and the Alter Rebbe of course knew that too. So they each wanted to be first to blow the shofar Rosh Hashanah. So the Kerzen Samagid got up very early in the morning, and he davened Shacharis on Rosh Hashanah very early, the earliest possible, and like 4:30 in the morning. And then he da- and he wanted to go blow shofar. But then he heard in Shamayim an announcement that the Alter Rebbe's shofar was heard first, and therefore Napoleon is gonna lose the war. He said, "How is that possible? How could Alter Rebbe have done it before him? He got up so early, like the earliest possible time to daven Shacharis." And he got up

15:15 and davened Shacharis quickly, and so he can get to the shofar because we blow the shofar Rosh Hashanah when? After Shacharis, before Musaf. So the Kerzen tried to hurry quick, quick, quick. How could Alter Rebbe be faster than him? But you know what Alter Rebbe did, huh? He got up normal time Rosh Hashanah. Didn't get up any specially early like the Kerzen Samagid. He got up normal time. But instead of davening Shacharis first and then reading in the Torah and then blowing the shofar, you know what he did? He just got up in the morning, went to the mikveh, and then told his son, "Give me the shofar." And he not say the berachahs. He said the berachahs for the shofar and immediately blew the shofar even before Shacharis. So of course, he was first. And so Napoleon lost the war.