77. Shmulik Manchik And The Terrifying Prison Basement

00:15 Hello, my friends. This last Friday was the Yahrzeit of the Holy Rizhiner, Reb Yisroel of Rizhin. He was a close friend of the Tzemach Tzedek. I already told you in the past, in the previous stories, that the Holy Rizhiner, similar to the Alter Rebbe, was placed in prison because a couple of Jews who didn't like him, and didn't like tzadikim, they didn't like good Jews, they told about him to the government that he wants to become a king. The Rizhiner wants to become the king, and he wants to overthrow the tsar's government, and the tsar got very angry. He believed those people. Those people were Jewish, but not good Jews. And the tsar told the police officers to arrest the Rizhiner. They arrested him, they put him in chains, and they put him in one of the worst prisons in all of Russia. That prison was in the city of Kiev. In the city of Kiev, there was a prison that was known as Kripos. Kripos was a terrifull-- terrifying prison. Everyone was terrified of that prison. Very scary. There were a lot of chambers and rooms where they used to torture people and do terrible things to them. So people were always afraid of that place. Now, when the Rizhiner was arrested, they put him in a basement. The basement of the prison, the prison had three floors. There was the second floor, which is the highest floor. Then there was the first floor, the main floor. Then there was the basement. The basement

02:07 was the most terrible place, and they put the Rizhiner in the basement. Now, the Hasidim of the Rizhiner, because they wanted to help their Rebbe, they gave a lot of money to the police that were guarding the prison, the guards of the prison, and they said to them, "Please let a Hasid of our Rebbe to be with him, so he can help him and serve him, take care of him, because our Rebbe is not well healthy. He needs help." So they bribed a lot of money, and they allowed this Hasid to stay with the Rebbe the whole time. His name was Shmulik. Shmulik Manchik they called him. So Shmulik spent the entire twenty-two months, that means almost two years that the Rizhiner was in prison. This Shmulik Manchik told an amazing story. I heard that story from the famous Hasid, Reb Nissan Nemanov, many years ago. So Reb Nissan Nemanov told this story. When the Rizhiner was placed in the basement where they kept the most dangerous criminals, the top floor, which is the second floor, they put people that were not so bad. They committed some crimes, they did something, maybe they didn't pay their taxes or something, and they put them on the second floor. The main floor was for people that were a little bit worse. Maybe they stole money, they robbed a store, and so on. The lowest floor, which is the basement, there they kept the most dangerous criminals. So when they went into the basement cell, they put the

03:51 Rizhiner into his cell in the basement, which is the most dangerous part of the prison. He told Shmulik, "Do me a favor. Take a piece of metal, like a, a nail or something, and go over to a certain corner over there." He showed him exactly where to go, and he told him, "Right in that spot, if you bore, you keep pushing that piece of metal in the wall, you'll make a hole in the wall, and you'll see there'll be light coming in." Because in that basement, there was no light. Not during the day and not during the night. There were no windows there. So the l- the basement of the prison was the worst place because you never could-- you could never see anything. It's always dark. But the Rizhiner wanted light. So he told Shmulik, "Just go to that corner. You make a hole a little bit, and you'll see the light coming in." It was quite shocking when Shmulik began to make a hole after a short while. He sees there's a hole going to the outside, and there's light coming in. That was very surprising because the walls of a prison are usually built very thick because they don't want the prisoners to escape, to run away, to break open the wall and then run away. So usually there's six bricks. Like you build a wall, six walls, one after another. Six bricks next to each other. That's the thickness of the wall. It's impossible to get out from there. So to

05:22 make a hole through six bricks is very hard. So Shmulik couldn't understand how was it possible that the Rebbe told him to go to that corner, and when he made it a little bit of a hole to that corner, he was able to get light. He asked the Rebbe, "How did the Rebbe know that I can make a hole so easily in that corner?" And the Rizhiner said to him, "I'll tell you why. A few years ago, when they built this prison, the builder, and who was also the engineer, the architect who built this prison, was a Jew. He was also a Hasid of mine. He came to me and told me that they asked him, the government, the tsar wants him to build a prison. They were gonna pay him for building a prison for the government." And this is gonna be a very scary prison with three floors. And this builder explained to the Rizhiner, "They asked me to build a top floor, a main floor, and a basement." And the Rizhiner said, "I asked this contractor, this builder, 'What is different about the basement?' He told me the basement is always dark. There's never light there, day or night, always dark. Can't see a thing." "I said to the builder, 'Do me a favor. When you build the prison, I know the walls of the prison are very thick, like six bricks next to each other, so thick is it. I want you to make sure that in one corner in the

06:53 basement cell, on one corner there's-- you're gonna leave the wall very thin, only one brick. The thickness of one brick. The rest of the walls will be thick bricks, but this one corner leave only one brick, so it will be a very thin wall, and you'll cover it with something. Nobody will notice it.'" The Jew promised him. And the Rizhiner said, "We are in that chamber, in that cell, in that room, and I knew that he made a s-- a, a, a part of the wall in that corner that's very thin. You make a little, a hole, and right away you get light from the outside." This story, as I said, I heard from Nisn Nemanov, and he added one other story. When the Rizhiner came out of prison, they told him he can go home, but they're going to finally arrest him again. In other words, they let him go home for the time being, but eventually when they decide what to do with him and what punishment to give him, they will then come and arrest him again. So the Hasidim decided while he's out of prison, we're going to make sure that he can run away, and they devised a whole plan. One of the Hasidim of the Rizhiner took the Rebbe in the middle of the night. They, they, they traveled in the middle of the night far away, right very close to the, the, the Austrian border. Russia and Austria, uh, have borders next to each other, and there's a

08:29 river that separates the country of Russia and Austria. And this Hasid, he knew that he can't go through the border normally 'cause the police will see the, the Rizhiner is there, and he's trying to run away to another country. So they decided to go through the river in middle of the night. He took the Rizhiner on his shoulders, and they swam across the river, and that's how the Rizhiner ended up in Austria, another country. And there the soldiers and the police officers of the czar couldn't get there because it's a different country. But the Russian government wanted to still find out where he was, and they were gonna tell the, the, the, the Austrian government that they need to send him back to Russia because he's a criminal and he's our citizen. He leaves from Russia. You need to send him back to us. The Hasidim found a way to hide the Rebbe in Austria in a small city called Sadigur. It was top secret. Nobody knew where the Rebbe was. Even the Hasidim didn't know. Only a handful of people, very few people, knew where the Rebbe was hiding. In that little town, Sadigur, and in Sadigur itself, they rented a house where the Rebbe was hiding, living there. He had a minyan. He'd daven with the minyan every day, but nobody else knew where the Rebbe lived, not even the Hasidim. They wanted to make sure that nobody knows about it, so the Russian government will never find out where the Rebbe is

09:58 hiding. One day there was a Hasid in Russia who missed his Rebbe, the Rizhiner. He missed the Rebbe so much that he said, "I have to see my Rebbe, just look at him. Look at his beautiful, radiant face, his holy face. I wanna see him. I must see him. I miss him so much." But how is he gonna find out? It's a top secret. Nobody knows where the Rebbe is hiding. And this Hasid lived in Russia, far away from Austria. So he wanted to find out first where the Rebbe lives, where the Rebbe is hiding. So he used money. He paid money to this person, that person. He bribed people until he finally, through many, many, many weeks of researching, he found out where the Rebbe is hiding. He's in the city of Sadigur. He also got a hold of the address, the house where he lives in. Now, how do you get there? It's a long trip from Russia to Sadigur in Austria. It's a long trip, and it's winter. It's ice and snow. You have to go through forest, but he decided he doesn't care. Well, no matter what happens, I'm gonna go to see my Rebbe. And he hired the horses and a wagon, and he traveled and traveled through snow and sleet and ice. Many times he got in danger because he went through forests where there are robbers, and he's got into a ditch with snow, couldn't get out. So many things happened to him on the way where he

11:28 almost, almost died. But he didn't, he didn't care. He decided to go ahead, ahead, ahead, and he will make it to where the Rebbe is. He needs to see the Rebbe. He can't take it anymore. He can't go on living without seeing his Rebbe. So he went on and traveled until he finally, finally made it. He made it to Austria and to the city of Sadigur, and he found the address, and he went straight over. And as he gets closer, he gets excited. He starts shaking from great excitement. I'm gonna see my holy Rebbe finally. After all these years, I didn't see him. And he stands by the door. He's about to open the door, and he's shaking from excitement. Oh, I'm gonna see the Rebbe now. And he opens the door, and he stands in the doorway, and he sees the Rebbe The holy Rizhiner, with his radiant, holy face, sitting there in a chair looking straight at this Hasid. And the Rebbe said to the Hasid, "Shalom aleichem, what are you doing here? Why did you come?" And the Hasid says to the Rebbe, "Rebbe, I came to see you." And the Rebbe said to him, "Why did you come to see me? What do you need?" He said, "Rebbe, I don't need anything. I just needed to see you because I love you. I needed to see you once because I love you so much." And the Rebbe said, "How much do you love me?" He said, "Rebbe, do you know how

12:59 much money I spent to find out where you're hiding? Do you know how much time I spent, weeks and weeks of traveling through very dangerous roads? I traveled through snow and sleet, through forest. I almost died five times, and I decided to come here anyways because I love you so much. Doesn't that tell you how much I love you?" So the Rebbe said to this Hasid, "Listen carefully. You definitely love me a lot. A lot, a lot, a lot. All your love for me is nothing compared to the love I have for that bad Jew who told on me to the government and caused me all this pain and suffering in the prison and, and, and here. Your love for me is nothing compared to how much I love that rasha Jew who went and reported me to the government. Can you imagine how much I love good people that are not rasha'im? Much, much, much more. Can you imagine how much I love a tzadik who serves Hashem all day and all night, and gives his life for Hashem and for the Jewish people? Of course, I love him even more, more, more. Infinitely more. Now imagine my love for a tzadik compared to your love for me. You can't even compare it. And my love for a tzadik is absolutely zero, nothing, right? It's valueless compared how much Hashem loves this rasha who got me into all this trouble." And that was the lesson the Rizhiner taught this Hasid. That w- Hashem loves

14:50 even the biggest rasha more than the Rizhiner loves the greatest tzadik. We can't even begin to understand how much Ame- Hashem loves each one of us. This is the story Rebbe Nissim told to show us the love of Hashem for every single one of us, even the biggest rasha. Goodbye.