120. The Professor And The Alter Rebbe

00:15 Gut Yontif, kinderlekh. Tonight is Chai Elul, the birthday of the Baal Shem Tov and the Alter Rebbe. Tell you a story of the Alter Rebbe that was told by a Hasid. It was from the time of the Rebbe Rashab, Reb Yitzchak Huberman. He was a Hasid Rebbe Rashab, and he would tell the story that he heard from a mashpia in Lubavitch. It's a, an incredible story with the Alter Rebbe. In the city of Zuravits, Zuravits was a city in Russia. There lived a man who was a Hasid of the Alter Rebbe. He was a very simple man. He didn't know much how to learn, but he worked very hard. Didn't make a lot of money, but he worked hard, but he was a big yirashamayim. He followed mitzvahs and Torah and gave tzedakah and did everything the way you should do, the way, the way a Jew should live. And he had a son, and the son from early age, when he was a very young boy, maybe two years old, the parents noticed that this boy has a very unusual sechel, very unusual brain. He's extremely smart. The father showed him alef beis, and the first time he saw the alef beis, he remembered the whole alef beis right away. He didn't have to review it, didn't have to repeat it. He right away remembered everything. Then when the father showed him the nekudos, kamatz alef, pasach alef, shuruk, the first time he told him, he right away remembered. He never forgot it. He

02:00 had an incredible memory. Everything he heard once or saw once, he read once in the Chumash, in the Torah, he remembered it right away. He never had to repeat it. And so the father noticed, very unusual, this child has such an incredible memory, and he also understands things so well and so fast at a very young age. Most kids his age are not even capable to do what he does. And so the father realized that he can't send him to a regular cheder because the kids his age would not be able to keep up with him. He's learning so fast. By the time the children his age finished learning the letters of alef beis, he was already finished with all five Chumashim, and he started learning Mishnah. And as he learned more and more, he learned the whole Mishnah. He's-- first he finished Zeraim, Moed. Then he finished the other Sederim, and then he started learning G- then he started learning Gemara. And by the time he's bar mitzvah, he knew the whole Shas by heart. He remembered by heart the whole Shas. Everybody in the community was, like, stunned. They were like, "Wow, this is a, a young boy who just became bar mitzvah, and he already knows the whole Shas." And so the father realized that he-- "I can't send him to a regular yeshiva because he's gonna be way ahead of all the children, of all the people his age." So he learned by himself in his father's house. His father gave

03:44 him seforim, and he learned Torah day and night. Now, one day, the father walks into the room, and he's shocked. He can't believe his eyes. He sees his son sitting in front of a Gemara, and on top of the Gemara he has a book. When the father took a look at the book, it's a book which is written by the Maskilim. You guys know who the Maskilim are? Maskilim were Jews who didn't believe that the Torah is from Hashem. They thought that we Jews should learn more science and medicine and mathematics and, and history. We should learn other things. We should go to universities. We shouldn't study Gemara in yeshiva. Gemara is for the olden days when Jews lived in Eretz Yisrael maybe, a long time ago. But now we should learn other things. And the Torah maybe is not that true. It's-- maybe it's not really coming from Hashem, from Mount Sinai. Maybe the stories in the Torah are not entirely true. They were like Apikorsim, and Apikorus is a Jew who doesn't believe in all the true things, that the Torah is Emes and Hashem is Emes, and all the stories in the Torah are Emes. And so this is a book from those Maskilim. That was frightening to the father. His son is reading such books, terrible books. Such books are going into the garbage can. Should throw it in the trash. So the father asks the son, "Why are you reading such a book?" He said, "Oh, no, I just found

05:12 it somewhere, and I thought I would read it and maybe, um, I'll see why they're stupid, you know, why, why they, they're wrong." The father was a little bit upset, but he didn't make a big deal about it and didn't say anything. Then a few months later, he comes into his room, and again he catches him with a book, the same book, and now he's asking the father, asking-- the father's asking, "Why are you reading this? This is terrible stuff. This is bad stuff." And the boy says, "Well..." He didn't wanna say. See, in those days, the Maskilim were Jewish, but they didn't believe in the Torah. They didn't do the Torah, and they tried to get a lot of young Jews, like especially boys that were very smart and knew a lot of Torah learning, they would try to convince them to leave the yeshiva and to go study at university and become big, famous scientists and doctors and, and mathematicians and, and, and- Him, they knew, the maskilim knew there was a boy in this house who was very, very smart. He learned the whole Shas by the time he was bar mitzvah. So they tried to get him to leave Torah learning, normal learn Torah, and to go to university to Berlin. In s-- in Germany, in Berlin, there was a big university that everybody wanted to go to because there were the greatest professors there that were teaching all kinds of science and philosophy and mathematics. So he-- they want him

06:39 to go there, so he become a very famous scientist, and they would give him these books to read. And eventually, one day, the son said to his father, "You're right. They convinced me to go learn science and to leave the learning of Torah, stop learning Torah." And one night, he went to bed early, went to sleep, and then early, early in the morning, he woke up, packed all his bags, and when his father and mother woke up and they see that their son has suitcases, he's ready to leave the house. They asked him where he's going. He said, "Listen, I can't stay in this house anymore." And he said the most nasty things to his father. You know what he said? He said, "You know, I realize," he said, "that in the entire world, the stupidest place in the world is Russia. And in Russia, it's the Mogilev Governorate." This is the region where the city of Zuravitz was in. "And from the entire Mogilev Governorate, Zuravitz is the stupidest place. And from the entire Zuravitz, the stupidest street is the street that we live on. And in that street, the stupidest household is the house that I live in. And the stupidest person in this house is you, my father." And with that, he left and closed the door, and nobody knows where-- nobody knew where he went. But he went to Berlin. His father and mother were crying. They were so upset. Why would he talk so chutzpadik, so not nice to his

08:18 parents, calling them stupid, the stupidest people in the world? Ugh, it's disgusting, awful. Even a goy doesn't talk like this to his father. What happened to him? Something terrible happened to him, something terribly bad. Something got into his head, and they couldn't understand what happened to him. And, and so they, they just cried, and he left to Berlin. And you see, when he left the house, the maskilim, they were waiting for him already with a wagon, and they took him away to Berlin. They told him, "You go and study at the university. You'll become a very big scientist because you're so smart, and you'll become so famous, and everybody will give you so much covet and honor." And he went. He was in Berlin for a while, one year, another year, another year. And he really-- because he was so smart, he was a genius, he was able to learn so fast, so much, that he became the best student in the university, the smartest, the most intelligent student. Everybody knew about him. He was, like, famous in the university. And then he started studying more. He studied medicine and mathematics. These are the two things he st-- liked to study a lot. And he would travel to different universities around the world, where he would do all kinds of research and learn from other professors, until he himself became a very big professor. And he was only twenty years old. He was already famous all over the world as a very famous scientist who

09:53 knew medicine very, very well and was very, very smart, and that he's a great mathematician. And he started writing two books that made him even-- was gonna make him even more famous. One book is about medicine, where he explains things that people didn't understand, and he was able to understand them and explain it in his book. And people who saw the book, like famous, famous doctors and, and professors of medicine, when they saw his book, they were so impressed. They said, "The whole world is gonna change. Everybody's gonna wanna buy his book because it's so amazing. It's so brilliant. It's so smart. It's so intelligent. He's a genius." Everybody started talking about him as like, "Wow, he's the greatest genius. We haven't had a genius like this in so many years." And then he wrote a book on mathematics, and he sent it to many ma-mathematicians, great famous mathematicians all over the world, and they looked at it and they said, "Wow, what an impressive book. This is... You ha- you have to publish this. You have to print this book. This book is amazing." So at this point, he only wrote the books. He didn't yet print it for everybody to buy. He just showed what he wrote down, and they looked at his writing. And every great, great scientist and professor was so amazed and so impressed with his genius and how smart he was. Everybody praised that, "You know, you should publish the book soon. Everybody-- The whole world's gonna get very

11:24 excited." And he became so famous all over the world. Everybody spoke about him. Many even wanted him to get married to some famous rich person's daughter, and he said, "No, no, no, no, no time for now." He says, "You know, I need to do something." He was already a professor. He was teaching students. He was very famous, and he decided, "You know what? I need to go do something." He felt very bad now that he got older. He realized that he had insulted his father and his mother, and he wanted to go and, you know, tell them that, you know, he's sorry that he said these bad things about them, that they're stupid and so on. But he also, he wants to show them his books and how famous he is, so they would understand that the reason he went was for a good reason, because this is really a place where he became so smart and he learned so much. But then he thought to himself, if I go to Zurawic, to my father's and mother's house, my father's not gonna be able to read my book. He's not gonna understand it. He's not even gonna see why this is such an important book. Let me go first to my father's Rebbe, the Alter Rebbe. I heard that he's very smart. He knows a lot of science. He's-- it's a famous story with the Alter Rebbe. When he was fifteen years old, a famous professor from France had a big problem with the sundial,

12:46 like a sun clock. In those days, they had like these clocks made from... Which was based on the sun, and, and the s- and the sundial stopped working for three hours, from two in the afternoon till five in the afternoon, and nobody could solve the problem why it stops working. Only every day during that time, and the Alter Rebbe was able to solve the problem. There were some trees growing near where the sundial was. A whole thing, he, he explained it, and they-- and he was right. So everybody knew the Alter Rebbe is very smart, but he got all his knowledge in science from Torah. He, he got it all from the Gemara. From the Gemara, from Kabbalah, from Hasidus, he was able to know everything. So he said, "I'll go to him first, and when he's impressed with my work, when he's gonna be impressed with my books, he's gonna see how smart I am. Then he'll talk to my father and tell my father, 'Listen, it's okay that he went. Look, he accomplished so much. He did so many great things. He became such a famous professor. Maybe it's a good thing that he should go there.' It was good that he went, so my father wouldn't feel so bad." So he decided to go to Liozno, to the Alter Rebbe instead of going home, and he went to Liozno to Alter Rebbe. And when he walked into the Beis Midrash in Liozno, he didn't know anybody. But the Talmidim who-- of the

14:02 Alter Rebbe who sat in yeshiva, they sat and learned all day. It was like a yeshiva. With the yeshiva and the shawl and the Beis Midrash was everything. And he sees all everybody learning, and there was one of the Talmidim of the Alter Rebbe, his name is Rabbi Moshe Maisels. Rabbi Moshe Maisels is a famous Chassid of the Alter Rebbe. I think I told you some stories about him. He was, um, the one that Alter Rebbe sent to Na- to Napoleon to spy, right? So he would tell the Russian army what Napoleon is planning to do, how he's planning to attack them. I don't know if you remember that story. Rabbi Moshe Maisels was a very big Chassid, very big Talmid Chaham. Before he came to the Alter Rebbe, he was a Talmid of the Vilna Gaon. And when he was very young, he was very smart. The Vilna Gaon gave him a bracha, he should go to Berlin, to the university, and learn some sciences, so he would be able to convince a lot of young Jews who think that learning science is better than learning Torah. So he would be able to con- explain to them why this is not true, right? So he went to Berlin and learned languages. He learned German and French, and he knew Russian. He knew many, many languages. Also knew a lot of sciences. So Rabbi Moshe Maisel-- Rabbi Moshe Maisels was sitting in shawl in the Beis Midrash with the Talmidim of the Alter Rebbe. He

15:16 sees this stranger walking in. He looks like a professor, just really beautiful, like a very important person. So he decided that he's gonna walk over to him. He's gonna speak to him. He looked like he came from Germany, this, this professor, so he's gonna speak to him in German. Because the other Talmidim of the Alter Rebbe didn't know German. So Rabbi Moshe Maisels decided to go to him, said, "Shalom Aleichem." He spoke to him in German, and he told him, uh, "Well, what can I help you? What did you come here for?" And the man says, "Listen, I came to see the great rabbi, the, the, the Alter Rebbe, the Maggid of Liozno. I wanna speak to him. I have two books that I'm-- I just wrote, and I'm going to print it and publish it, but I would like him to see it first. I heard that he's very, very smart, very intelligent." Rabbi Moshe Maisels went into the Alter Rebbe's room and told Alter Rebbe the whole thing. Alter Rebbe said, "Bring him in. Bring him in. Tell him to come in." And so Rabbi Moshe Maisels goes out and tells this professor, this young professor in his twenties, young guy, tell him, "Go in. The Alter Rebbe wants to see you." And he goes into the room with Alter Rebbe. They close the door, and he spends a few hours in the Alter Rebbe's room, and then he comes out with his two books, one in mathematics and the other book was

16:32 in medicine. And he comes out, and his face is red like a fire, red like a tomato. You could see he's very excited. He's been very excited and very tense. Very tense. Very excited and very tense. You couldn't talk to him because he was very nervous. And he's walking out into the courtyard of the shawl of the Beis Midrash of the Alter Rebbe. And in the courtyard, there was like, um, a furnace which heated the Beis Midrash, right? They kept the fur-- the, the oven, the furnace with the wood, with the firewood outside, and with the pipe, they would heat the, the, the Beis Midrash. So there was a furnace outside, and he's like walking, pacing back and forth very intensely. He's very tense. He's very like nervous and intense and excited. His face is red, and he's walking back and forth in the courtyard with his two books. You can see he's deep in thought, and nobody would dare walk over to him because it seems like he's very, very busy thinking about something, and he's very nervous and excited. So nobody walked over to him. And then suddenly they see he's walking faster and faster and more excited and more excited until finally he takes one of his books, opens up the little door where you put in the firewood to heat and to put the wood, the firewood inside so that they would get, they would get, they get, they get f- full of fire, right? To, to, to feed the fire

17:59 and, and make... Bring the heat into the shawl. So he opens that window, that, that little door, and puts one of his books inside. And the book starts burning, and it gets in flames. This is the only copy of the book that's still around. That's only around. It's the only one that's around. The only... This is the book he wrote. It took him years to write it. He's just burning it. People were like shocked. What's going on here? Then he takes the other book that he has and starts walking again, pacing back and forth for like half an hour, thinking, thinking, and his face is red and red. He's all excited. Nobody knows what's going on. Why is he so excited? What is he thinking about? And why is he burning his book? He worked so many years on this book, and everybody's praising it all over the world. All the big scientists think this is such an amazing book, and he's burning it? Now, finally, after half an hour of pacing back and forth, he took the second book, opened the door of the stove, and put in the second book into the fire, and also went up in flames. Now both his books are gone, and as soon as that happened, you could see on his face his tension went away. He relaxed, he became more peaceful, and he sat down. He started sighing like he felt better. He felt better. He felt more relaxed and peaceful. And that's when Rabbi Moshe Meisel

19:30 decided to walk over to him and ask him, "What is this all about? What just happened in the Alter Rebbe's room? Why did you pace the courtyard like this? Why the yard outside you paced it back and forth, and why did you burn the two books that you wrote that made you so famous?" And the man says, "Listen, when I came into the Alter Rebbe's room, I told him I wrote two books that all the biggest scientists, the biggest doctors, and the biggest mathematicians all praised so much. They, they, they said I'm gonna be the most famous mathematician in the world, the most famous professor of medicine in the world." Alter Rebbe said, "Okay, show it to me." Alter Rebbe opened up the book. He read like for the first five pages of the book of, um, of medicine, and he made a line right next to where the things that were written on the, on the fifth page. Made like a line, and then he read, read the rest of the book very, very quickly, and then he closed the book and said to me, "Listen, in that other page where I made a line, you made a mistake, serious mistake. I can see that you're very bright, very smart, but there was one thing that you made one mistake, and everything else you wrote is based on this mistake, and therefore, the entire book is a big mistake. It's a... It's false. It's not true." Alter Rebbe began to explain to me why,

20:58 where my mistake was. At first, I tried to argue with him. "No, that's not true. I'm right." But then I saw that Alter Rebbe is right. I made a very serious mistake, and everything in the book is based on this mistake, so everything else is nonsense. And so I got very, very... I was shocked. I couldn't believe that all the, the famous scientists a-and mathematicians and, um, and, and doctors all over the world ne-never realized this mistake. And then Alter Rebbe looked at the second book. Now he looked at the book of mathematics, and also he looked and looked and looked and said, "Wait a second, you made a mistake here, and everything else is false." Same thing, we argued, and then Alter Rebbe proved to me that I was wrong, and the book is not true. It's worthless. And all the mathematicians made a mistake. When I got out of the room, I, I couldn't believe my... I couldn't believe that this is happening. The Alter Rebbe is so brilliant. He's-- All the d-- all the scientists and all the mathematicians, uh, thought that this was a great book, and Alter Rebbe showed me that this is all nonsense. It's nothing. So I went outside in the courtyard, and I decided to think about the book again and what Alter Rebbe told me to see if Alter Rebbe was right. When I realized, I went through first one book, the book of medicine, and I realized Alter Rebbe was right, so I went straight

22:21 to the oven, to the furnace, and I put it into the fire. I said, "What do I need the book for? This is... It's all, it's all bubbe meist, it's nonsense." And then in the other book, I started thinking again and pacing the courtyard back and forth, thinking if the Alter Rebbe was right. But then I realized he was right. The whole book is a mistake, and I put it in the furnace and burned it as well. So Moshe Meisel says to him, "You know, maybe, uh, you wanna learn with Alter Rebbe. Alter Rebbe can learn with you. Do you wanna learn with him?" And this, this professor says, "Yes. Ah, halavai, I wish, I wish Alter Rebbe would be willing to learn with me. I would learn with him anytime." So Moshe Meisel went into the room of Alter Rebbe, went into Alter Rebbe's room and asked Alter Rebbe that he was learning with this professor. Alter Rebbe said, "Yes, tell him to come in." Alter Rebbe made up with him to learn every day for a few hours Torah. When the Mitteler Rebbe heard, the son of the Alter Rebbe, that the Alter Rebbe was learning with this great professor every day for a few hours, he also wanted to be inside and learn with Alter Rebbe when he teaches this professor, but Alter Rebbe told him no. The, uh, nobody's supposed to be in the room when I learn with him. And he told him, only thing he told him that in

23:35 seven weeks you'll, you'll find out why I don't want you to be there. And so Alter Rebbe learned with this professor for seven weeks straight every day. And after seven weeks, this professor got very, very sick and a few days later died. When he died, they buried him. Alter Rebbe said to the Mitteler Rebbe, "This person, this professor, had the neshamah of the famous guy, Reb Elazar ben Dodiah." Reb Elazar ben Dodiah in the Gemara was a very famous person in Eretz Yisrael many years ago in the time of the Gemara. He did so many aveiras. Nobody in the world did as many aveiras as he did. He did aveiras, so many aveiras, everybody thought, everybody thought he's such a big rasha, until somebody told him, "Elazar, you can never do teshuva. It's not possible for you to do teshuva. You're so evil, so bad that e-even if you want to do it, you'll not be able to do the teshuva. Impossible." When Reb Elazar ben Dodiah heard this, he got so sad. "What? Am I so bad that I can't even do teshuva anymore? Hashem won't accept my teshuva anymore?" He got so upset that he walked. He started crying and crying. He didn't realize he was walking till he walked outside the city, and then he came to a place where there were two mountains and sat down between the mountains and began to weep and cry to Hashem, "Hashem, help me. I didn't realize I was so far away from you. I've

25:09 done so many aveiras. People think that I can't do teshuva anymore." It's so sad, he cried and cried and wept so hard until his neshamah left his body and he died. He died while crying and doing teshuva. And when Rebbe, who wrote the Mishnah... Remember Rebbe, or Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi wrote the Mishnah? Rebbe Yehuda was alive then. Rebbe Yehuda heard what happened to Elazar ben Durdaya, the famous sinner, the famous baal aveira, the one that did so many aveiras that every neshamah knew that he's the biggest aveira maker, biggest aver- avera doer, right? He does the most aveiras in the world. That he did such a strong teshuva that he died from doing teshuva. So Rebbe began to cry himself. He started crying. He said... They asked him, "Why are you crying?" He says, "I'm so... I can't get over this. This is amazing. A person can do teshuva and go to Gan Eden in one hour. An hour before he was a big rasha. In one hour he did teshuva, such a powerful, strong teshuva that he died and he went-- his neshamah went straight to Gan Eden." Says the Alter Rebbe to the Mitteler Rebbe, "This professor, his neshamah, was the neshamah of Elazar ben Durdaya. His neshamah came down already many times to this world to fix all the aveiras he did. Yes, he did a great teshuva and he deserves to go to Gan Eden, but still he didn't have any mitzvahs. He didn't do any mitzvahs. He didn't put on

26:54 tefillin, didn't keep Shabbos, didn't do anything. He needed mitzvahs. So the Bas MeShamayim decided his neshamah has to come down again, and his yetser hara will tell him again to leave Torah and mitzvahs and do aveiras only, and he will say no, and that will be his tikkun. That will be how he repairs his neshamah. But every time he came into the world for the last 2,000 years, right? Elazar ben Durdaya lived 2,000 years ago. For the last 2,000 years, he came into this world many-- he was born many times again and again, and when he grew up, the yetser hara came to him and made him do aveiras, and he left the Torah, left Yiddishkeit, and did aveiras again. Him-- He failed. This time I decided I'm going to save his neshamah, and that's what I did for seven weeks. I taught him and taught him and taught him till he did complete teshuva, and then he died so that he wouldn't, chas v'shalom, end up following the yetser hara. So his neshamah would be fixed, and he would die when his neshamah has done teshuva, and now he can go to Gan Eden and not have to come back down again to this world." Then the Alter Rebbe showed the Mitteler Rebbe the writings, the stuff, the, the pages that he learned with, with, with this, this professor, and this became... These pages, the Mitteler Rebbe took and wrote a sefer called Derech Chaim. Derech Chaim is a sefer about teshuva. Many Hasidim

28:26 and the Rebbeim told us to learn this sefer now during Elul and as we make teshuva, and that sefer was based on the things the Alter Rebbe taught this professor during those seven weeks before he died, before this professor died, to make him do tu- complete teshuva so that his neshamah would become perfect again, complete again, and he would be able to go to Gan Eden and wouldn't have to come back down again.