103. The Incredible Miracle Of The Printing House Of Slavitta

00:16 Shalom aleichem, kindalach. Here comes a story, an awesome story. The story was told by a Chasid of the Alter Rebbe Mitteler Rebbe's name was Rebbe Yaakov of Keidan. And in his sefer he says he heard the story from Rebbe Shloime Refols. Rebbe Shloime Refols was a very rich man who lived in Vilna. He was actually the head of the community. He was a Talmud of the Vilna Gaon. He was a Misnaged at first. And then he became a Chasid of the Alter Rebbe. He was a big Talmud Chacham also, a Talmud of the Vilna Gaon. And he was also very rich. He had businesses. And he was very important in Vilna. But when he became, then he became a Chasid. And one of the things that he made him a Chasid is that he saw a few stories of the Alter Rebbe, amazing stories. It made him realize the Alter Rebbe was a great person. One of the stories is the following story. Rebbe Yaakov of Keidan heard that story from Rebbe Shloime Refols himself. I'm not sure you know there was a great Tzadik, a Talmud of the Baal Shem Tov, and a friend of the Mezritch HaMagid. His name was Rebbe Pinchas of Koritz. Rebbe Pinchas Koritzer. The Alter Rebbe saw him, visited him when he went to Mezritch. The Alter Rebbe went twice to Mezritch. The second time in Taf kuf lamad beis, he went to Mezritch. On his way he stopped over in Koritz. And he learned a lot of things

01:56 from Rebbe Pinchas Koritzer. As a matter of fact, there's a maimer Lekutatei Rev from the Alter Rebbe which begins with the words, It's a pasuk in Shir Hashirim. How beautiful are your footsteps in shoes. Our sages tell us this is describing how the Jewish people would walk on their feet from all over Eretz Yisroel to Yerushalayim three times a year on Yom Tov. And Shlomo HaMelech is describing how beautiful it was when all Jews gathered together for three times, three Yomim Tovim every year to the Beis HaMikdash. The Alter Rebbe wrote a whole maimer which is printed in Lekutatei Rev and it's based on something, what he learned from Rebbe Pinchas of Koritz. The story is that he came to Rebbe Pinchas of Koritz's house and Rebbe Pinchas right away said, Shalom Aleichem, Rebbe Schneer. Which was the Alter Rebbe's name. And he told his wife, we have important guests and I want you to prepare lunch so he would have lunch with us. And Rebbe Pinchas started talking to his wife about what to prepare for lunch, what food to make, what's on the menu. Which was very strange. Tzaddikim are not into food. It's not the thing that concerns them, right? Tzaddikim are concerned with Avodah d'Hashem, with learning Torah. But here Rebbe Pinchas Koritz spent a lot of time discussing with his wife, with his rebbetzin, well, how to make the food and what type of food with the Alter Rebbe, who of course understood that he was hiding in those conversations

03:35 with his wife some deep inyanim of Chasidus. And the maimer, Mayofa Bamaich B'na'olim, is based on what he understood from this conversation about food, the deeper meaning of his words. He was hiding deep inyanim in Chasidus in this conversation. So the Alter Rebbe had a close shaiches to Rebbe Pinchas of Koritz. Rebbe Pinchas of Koritz had a son by the name Rebbe Moshe. Rebbe Moshe was the Rav of Slavita. Rebbe Moshe was a holy man. He was a tzaddik. But he was very close to the Alter Rebbe. Rebbe Moshe famously opened up a printing place in the city of Slavita. Slavita became very famous because it was a big printing press. A printing press is a place where people print sefarim. And it's a lot of money because you have to invest and put money into machines, big machines, and a lot of workers. But he came to the Alter Rebbe before he opened up the printing place and asked the Alter Rebbe whether he should do it because he wanted to print sefarim of Chasidus. Because a lot of the other printing places were owned by Misnagedim. And whenever a Rebbe, a Chasid, wanted to print a sefer from Chasidim or from a Chasidish Rebbe, they refused to print it. He was going to print, you know, sifrei Chasidus. Even the Tanya, I think he printed the Tanya, one edition. Slavita became famous as a place which was a very good printing press. And they printed sefarim really beautifully. More beautiful than any other

05:19 place. Rebbe Moshe, before he opened this printing place, asked the Alter Rebbe's advice. And the Alter Rebbe told him it's a good idea and Hashem will give him matzlacha, success. It will be a good business. But Rebbe Moshe said to the Alter Rebbe, you know, you need special permits from the government to be able to open such a printing place. The government didn't allow everybody to open up a printing place. They wanted to make sure that people print the right things and they don't print things that are offensive or not nice to the government. They always suspected Jews are printing bad things against the government, against the Christians, against the goyim. So you need to have a special permit to be able to open such a printing place. And this permit costs also a lot of money. If you wanted to get a permit like that, you had to pay a lot of money to some very, very important minister in the government that had a special office. He had to go there. So Rabbi Moshe said, "Alter Rebbe, I don't have the money. It's very expensive, and it's very hard to get such a permit. I don't know what to do." And Alter Rebbe told him, "Don't worry. I'll tell you what to do. Just follow my instructions, and you'll see, you'll get what you need." And Alter Rebbe told him, "Go to the city of Molokv. In city of Molokv, there's a Yid, a melamed, he's a teacher. His name is Yisroel. You

06:47 ask around the people in the city of Molokv, 'Where lives this melamed, this teacher? His name is Yisroel.' And then you tell him that you wanna travel to Vilna with him. You're gonna take this Melamed Yisroel to Vilna with you, and in Vilna, you will find the answer to your problem. Somehow everything will be taken care of. You'll get your permit." This was a very strange instruction from the Alter Rebbe. Why would a melamed in, in Molokv, some small town, be able to help him with finding a permit in Vilna? Besides the minister's office, the minister in charge of giving these types of permits didn't live in Vilna. His office was in another city. It was probably in Petersburg, the capital of Russia. So why did Alter Rebbe tell him to go to Vilna? The whole thing was a very strange mystery. Nobody understood what Alter Rebbe was saying. But Rabbi Moshe trusted Alter Rebbe knows what he's saying, and he did what Alter Rebbe said. He traveled to Molokv, and the first thing he did, he went to the shul of the Hasidim and asked the Hasidim if there's a melamed by the name Yisroel. And they said, "We don't know anybody by the name Yisroel. We don't know why did Alter Rebbe send you here." But they didn't give up. They started searching in other shuls, and in the Misnagdishe shul, the non-Cha- but non-Hasidisha shul, there was somebody, a melamed, by the na- name Yisroel. This melamed was a battlan. That means

08:19 he didn't know anything about the world. He had-- He didn't even know how to speak Russian. He only spoke Yiddish. So they wondered, Rabbi Moshe and the other people wondered, is this the guy that Alter Rebbe sent him to? This guy for sure doesn't know anything about the government and about government officials. How is he gonna help him? He doesn't even know any Russian. He only speaks Yiddish. He doesn't know anything about the world. He just learns, a melamed in a small town. That's all he knows. So-- But he said, "Listen, there's no other melamed by the name Yisroel, and that must be the guy." They went over to him, and they sat down with him and said, "Listen, the Alter Rebbe sent Rabbi Moshe to you, that you should help him and go get a permit for his printing, uh, business. And, um, the Alter Rebbe said that you should travel with Rabbi Moshe to Vilna." When Yisroel the melamed heard this, he burst out in a big laughter and says, "What? He sent you to me? Are you sure? You're making fun of me. What do you think? I'm just a melamed. I said, "Well, I don't know anybody in the government. I for sure don't know any important ministers. I know nothing about it. I'm just a little melamed teaching children, and, uh, and I know nothing about the world. I don't even know how to speak Russian." But they said to him, "Listen, you're the only melamed in this town that's

09:43 called Yisroel, and the Alter Rebbe said that we should find you, and you should go with him to Vilna." So the melamed says, "But listen, I, I gotta earn a living, you know? I'm a melamed. I teach children. If I go with him and travel with him to, to Vilna and go find a way to help him, I'm gonna lose all this money. I'm not gonna be able to be paid for teaching children." So they said, "Don't worry about it. We'll give you everything, all the money you could make from being a melamed. We'll give you the money instead, but you come with us." So Rabbi Moshe and a few of his, uh, friends took this Melamed Yisroel, who had never been to Vilna, doesn't know anything about the city, doesn't know anything about the real world, and they took him to Vilna. And where are they gonna stay? Everybody who came travel to Vilna knew there was one place where, where everybody's able to stay. It's a man who had a big house, special quarters, a special place for guests where they could s- sleep and eat. And as long as they needed to stay, they could stay at his house. His name was Rabbi Shloime Riffles, that Hasid of the Alter Rebbe who used to be first-time Misnaged, a talmid of the Vilna Gaon. He was very important in the city. He was the rosh hakahal. He was like the president of the city. Everybody asked his advice because he was a very

11:02 wise man. And Re- the, the Rabbi Moshe of Slavita and Rabbi Yisroel the melamed arrived at his house, at Rabbi Shloime Riffles' house, and asked if they can stay in the house. Rabbi Shloime Riffles asked them, "What brings you to town?" And they said that the Alter Rebbe told Rabbi Moshe, who's going to open a printing place, a printing business in Slavita, and he couldn't get permits. He doesn't know how to get permits, so expensive, and it's hard to get it. So the Alter Rebbe told him to go to Molokv and find the melamed by the name Yisroel, and then bring him to Vilna. And in Vilna he'll find the answer to his, to his need, to his question. Shloime Riffles was very surprised also. Why would they come to Vilna? Vilna is not the place where the government officials have their offices, and especially not the minister who's in charge of giving permits for building a printing business, that he's not-- It's nothing to do in Vilna. Why in Vilna? But the Alter Rebbe said, so Rabbi Shloime Riffles says, "Listen, meanwhile, stay in my house. You can make yourself comfortable. I'll give you rooms and food. You don't have to worry. Stay as long as you need to stay." They arrived on a Wednesday to Vilna, to Rabbi Shloime Riffles' house, and a few days went by and nothing moved. They didn't know where to go, what to-- who to ask. They had no idea what to do. And then Shabbos came and

12:28 this Melamed, Yisroel, gets very agitated already. He said, "We're here already for four days. We don't even know what we're doing here." And this Rebbe, you know, he was a Misnaged, Yisroel. He didn't know anything about Rebbes and Tzadikim. To him, they were just like people, regular people. And he said, "You know, I don't know why you're listening to this Rav who's telling you to come to Vilna. Look, nothing is happening here." Finally, on Sunday, Reb Shneur Zal said to Yisroel, "Listen, I see you're very agitated. Why don't you go take a walk? There's a park in Vilna not far from my house. Beautiful park with great beautiful trees. Go and get some fresh air and you'll feel better." So Yisroel listened to him, and there hadn't been anything else to do. So he went for a walk in the park. As he's walking in the park, he's getting some fresh air, he's looking at the beautiful trees and the birds and everything around him. There's a very important-looking man, uh, who is like a very-- seems like a, a very important government official that's walking also in the park from the opposite direction. He's walking towards Yisroel. And this minister, when he saw Yisroel, the Melamed, he started staring at him and looking at him curiously. Like, they didn't say a word. They crossed and, you know, path. The Melamed continued to walk, and the minister continued to walk the opposite direction, and that's it. He walked on. But they kept walking around the

14:02 park and crossing each other again and again. And every time, the minister is looking like very intently and very, very, very focused on, on, on Rabbi Yisroel, the Melamed, till finally the, the minister comes over to him and says, "Do you recognize me?" And Yisroel says, "No. Who are you?" And the s- the minister says to Yisroel, "Did you ever live in the city of Shklov?" The Melamed says, "No, I live in Volov for many years." He says, "No, no, no. But you once lived in Shklov. Try to think. Try to remember." And Yisroel says, "Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Twenty years ago, I lived in Mol-- in, in Shklov." So the minister says to him, "You did me a big favor then. I don't know if you remember. And I'm so happy I found you here because I want to repay you for your favor, for your great help. You saved me." And he starts telling him what happened. This was twenty years ago when this minister was a J-- he was Jewish. He was Jewish. At that time, he lived in Shklov. He was a young man, and he did a terrible thing in the community. He didn't say what it was, but it was something that the whole city of Shklov was very upset about. And in those days in Shklov, Shklov was a big city of Misnagdim. There were a lot of great Rabbonim and Gaonim and Talmidei Chachamim. So there, if somebody did a terrible thing in the community, they would

15:42 punish him harshly. One of the things they would do, they would take him, tie him to the entrance of the shul, uh, the biggest shul, and hundreds of people would come in and out of the shul every day, davening Shacharit, Mincha, Maariv. And everybody would go into the shul or go out of the shul would see this person tied up next to the door or put in like in a little like cage, almost like in a cage. So he couldn't get out, he couldn't leave. And people would say, "Ah, he must... He's the guy who did the terrible thing." And then some people would spit at him. Some people would like s- like, you know, look at him and they would, would with like disdain, they would look at him like if like he's this terrible person. It would be very embarrassing to the person. It would be a terrible thing. And they did this for people who did really, really bad things. And he did a bad, bad thing, and they decided to punish him. They put him in this little box, this cage, tied him up by the, the entrance of the shul, and a whole day from morning to night, people kept passing by, spitting and, and, and, and yelling at him and saying terrible things to him. "You're a terrible person. You're a Rasha. You did terrible things." It was extremely, extremely painful to be there and listening to all these insults of people, people insulting him and humiliating him. He

17:02 says, the minister says to Yisroel the Melamed, "I was like so disgusted and so-- felt so bad. I wanted to die. I was like, I said, 'I can't live. This is so terrible.' And then you came." It was like late in the evening and nobody was around. "You had pity on me. And what you did is you quickly untied the ropes and opened up the cage and you let me out. You cut the lock of the cage and you let me out, and I was able to escape. And I'm so grateful to you because I ran away from the city because I was so embarrassed. And I traveled to the capital of Russia to Peterburg, and I left Yiddishkeit. I stopped practicing Torah and mitzvahs, and then I even converted to Christianity so I can be like the Goyim. And I started doing business, and I became very successful, and even became very friendly with a lot of the government officials in the Tsar's, uh, palace. And then I became a minister myself, and now I'm a very important minister in the government. And since you helped me s- twenty years ago, and I'm very rich now, here, I'm gonna give you now a thousand rubles," which was a lot of money in those days, "and take it. And I want to give you as a gift, and every year I'm gonna send you another thousand rubles. And, and if there's anything I can do for you, uh, let me know." And besides this, he

18:33 says to the Melamed, "What are you doing in Vilna?" And Yisroel Melamed tells him that he had this very strange request from a rabbi from Slavita who was told by a Rebbe, the Alter Rebbe, to come and get him from Molok and schlep him to Vilna, uh, because this rav needs a permit to open up his printing business. The minister looked at Yisroel Melamed and says, "That's not a problem. I'm the minister. I can do this. Here, I have actually a form in my, in my pocket. I will fill it out and say that Moshe of Slavita is allowed to build a business, a business of printing, and I will sign my name, and you take this and, and it will all ta- taken care of. I mean, if you travel to Petersburg to see my office, you wouldn't find me there, and then you wouldn't be able to get the permit. It's good you came to Vilna, because I was actually vacationing here in Vilna." The Melamed Yisroel couldn't believe his eyes. This is unbelievable. And he said goodbye to the, to the minister, and they, they, they... The minister hugged him and kissed him and thanked him again for what he did for him 20 years earlier. And Yisroel went quickly home to Shloime Rafal's house. And people already heard that Yisroel the Melamed was having a conversation with a very important minister. Nobody knew what they were talking about, so people gathered in the house of Shloime Rafal's and said, "Well, what

20:10 happened with this minister?" And Shloime the Melamed was-- Yisroel the Melamed, sorry. Yisroel the Melamed was so shocked from what he just saw that he just couldn't speak. Till he finally calmed down and he started telling them the whole story, who he met and who this minister is. The minister recognized him, knew him from 20 years ago, that he had helped the minister when he was a little young man. And when the minister gave him the piece of paper, he said, "That's it. You, you..." And he gave it to Rabbi Moshe and says, "Here, now you have your piece of paper. I'm gonna go home." Now, this Melamed Yisroel, when he saw what happened with Alter Rebbe, he saw Ruach HaKodesh. He stopped being a Misnagid, became a Hasid of Alter Rebbe, traveled to Alter Rebbe, and he became a rich man because from the thousand rubles that the minister sent him every year, he was able to start a business, and he became-- stopped being a Melamed, became a very wealthy man and a great Hasid of Alter Rebbe. Meanwhile, meanwhile, Rabbi Moshe took the, the, the permit and was able to open up this big printing business which became very, very famous. They even printed a Shas. It's called the Slavita Shas. It's a very special Shas. And, um, many, many Seforim were printed, Hasidim Seforim especially, were printed in that business. And that's the story of how Rabbi Moshe got the permit. And may in the future I will tell you some

21:38 incredible stories that happened to that printing business which later on Rabbi Moshe gave over to his two sons, Rabbi Shmuel Abe and Rabbi Pinchas. These were the two sons of Rabbi Moshe. They eventually took over the business, and they even printed more Seforim, and some amazing stories that happened to them.