150. The Tzedaka Money That Never Arrived In Eretz Yisroel

00:16 Shalom Aleichem, kinderlech. I wanna tell you a story with the great tzadik, Rebbe Nachum Mendel of Vitebsk. Rebbe of Vitebsk was a talmid of the Maggid and a talmid of the Baal Shem Tov also, and he was a rebbe of the Alter Rebbe. As you know, that Rebbe Nachum Mendel of Vitebsk, at one point, he saw all the tzaros that the Hasidim were having in Russia, that the misnagdim were making the lives of the Hasidim very, very, very difficult in a very harsh way. Hasidim were suffering a lot. So Rebbe Nachum Mendel of Vitebsk decided to take many of his talmidim and chaverim, and take them all to Eretz Yisrael and start a community there and, and, and learn and daven and serve Hashem the way the Alter Rebbe, the Baal Shem Tov, I mean the Baal Shem Tov and the Maggid has taught them and, and, and everything will be fine. Rebbe Nachum Mendel of Vitebsk eventually settled in Tiberias, the city of Tiberias. His shul was not far from the Kinneret. Kinneret is the big, uh, water, that sea, which is right by Tiberias. They say that the well... The Midrash says that the, the well of Miriam, you know, there was the well of Miriam that traveled with the Jewish people in the midbar for forty years. The Yidden had water from that well, was a miraculous well. At the end of the forty years, it says that it went away. It, it-- The Jewish people went into Eretz Yisrael, then they

01:54 used regular water. The miracle water from the, the well of Miriam disappeared. Where did it disappear? It says it disappeared inside the Kinneret. The Yam Kinneret, the Sea of the Kinneret, which is near Tiberias. One time, Rebbe Mendel of Vitebsk was Friday afternoon, and people saw Rebbe Mendel of Vitebsk sitting, uh, outside his house, which was near the shul where he davened, and he's looking at the Kinneret and he's smoking a pipe. Now, great tzadikim would sometimes smoke a pipe. Of course, they didn't need the smell and the smoke. But for them it was a inyan spiritual thing. And the Baal Shem Tov would smoke his little pipe. They would do certain deeper secrets of avodas Hashem, which they would have kavanot, special kavanot when they smoked something. So Rebbe, Rebbe Mendel of Vitebsk was smoking his lulke. It's called a lulke. It's a type of a pipe in those days with tobacco, and he would smoke, and his face was red, red, red like fire. And he's staring at the Kinneret. And people were afraid to approach him because his face looked so awesome, so scary. You could see he wasn't in this world. He was in another world, and he was burning, raging with a fire inside. I mean a physical fire, spiritual fire. He was raging, raging. You could see his face was burning up red, red, red. And he was smoking and staring and staring at the Kinneret for hours and hours. Nobody knew what was wrong, what was going on,

03:40 but people waited. It's getting Friday late afternoon, and it was almost-- it was already candle lighting and the rebbe wasn't moving. So they went, um, outside to see maybe they can hint to him, but they didn't-- They were afraid to go over to him. Finally, it was mamash almost before shkiya, he took his pipe and threw it to the side, got up, ran inside and started daven, went to the amud. Rebbe Mendel of Vitebsk himself went to the amud and davened Mincha with a great excitement. And that Kabbalat Shabbat he was excited beyond anything they've ever seen before. He was like davening with such gishmak, with such excitement and, and, and, and singing and dancing. It was like unbelievable. And then came the night when the seudah, by the meal, when all the Hasidim came to be with Rebbe Mendel of Vitebsk. Some Hasidim dared, it took a little bit of guts to ask him, "Rebbe, what happened today in the afternoon, earlier before Shabbat? You were staring at, at the Kinneret and we don't know what you were staring at and what was wrong. What went on? What went on? And now we saw you so excited. Something exciting must have happened. Will you please share with us?" And Rebbe Mendel, Rebbe Mendel of Vitebsk said to them, "I'll tell you what happened." He says, "You should know that when Yidden daven their tefillahs every day in Chutz La'aretz, all the tefillahs as we know go up to Shamayim through Yerushalayim in the place

05:21 where the Beis Hamikdash was. This is the window where all the tefillahs go up in Shamayim. But they travel from Chutz La'aretz through Tiberias, and from Tiberias they go to Yerushalayim. And Yerushalayim itself, where the Temple Mount is, where the Beis Hamikdash used to be, that's where they goes up to Shamayim. And so the tefillahs of all the Yidden all over the world go through Tiberias. And where in Tiberias does it go through? It go through the Kinneret. And the letters and the Oisios toivel in the Kinneret. This is where the Be'er Shalom Miriam was." And from there, the Kinneret lets them go through to Yerushalayim. The reason why the tefillahs of all Yidden in Chutz La'aretz can go through the Tveria, through the Kinneret, and go to Yerushalayim is only because the Yidden in Chutz La'aretz support and send money to help the Yidden in Eretz Yisrael. The Yidden in Eretz Yisrael were very, very poor in those days. There was famine, and there was sicknesses, and there was, you know, sometimes there was no rain for many months. There were-- People were starving, and the only way they could survive is because they send money to Eretz Yisrael. Like Reb Mendel of Vitebsk and his community and all the tzadikim that he brought with him, who supported them? The Alter Rebbe. The Alter Rebbe would send from Russia, would raise a lot of money and send money to Reb Mendel of Vitebsk and his community so they could live. Otherwise, they wouldn't have

06:53 what to eat. And you know that the Alter Rebbe was arrested. One of the things that the Russian tsar accused the Alter Rebbe of, that he's sending money, so much money to Eretz Yisrael. And of course, the, the tsar thought that the Alter Rebbe is sending money to Eretz Yisrael. He didn't know he's sending it to Reb Mendel of Vitebsk and to his talmidim. They thought he's sending it to the Turks. The Turkish government in those days ruled over Eretz Yisrael, and the Turkish government was enemies of the Russians. So they thought he's helping their enemy. He's sending money to the Turks. They didn't know he's going-- sending it to Tveria. So the Alter Rebbe sent a lot of money to Tveria. So the Reb Mendel, he said the reason why all the tefillahs of the Yidden can go through Tveria to Yerushalayim is because they support the Yidden in Eretz Yisrael. But something tragic happened recently. Usually, the money would be sent from Russia, from Poland, from all over Europe. It would be sent through one person, a shliach. He would carry all the money. It was a lot of money because they carried money from all over Europe. People would gather money from all over the place. The Alter Rebbe would collect from every Hasid. He would go from the "... " to every Hasid gave a certain amount of money. Even a poor person gave a little bit. The rich people gave more. And the Alter Rebbe would gather all that money

08:18 and send it to Eretz Yisrael, to the, to, to Tveria. And, uh, they send it with a person who would travel on, you know, on boat and by, and, and on wagon and horse and wagon and, and there were no trains then yet. So he would have to travel the horse and buggy and on a ship and a boat. So they would travel from Russia all the way to Turkey, to Constantinople, and there you would take by the ocean. The, the Constantinople has a big port, a big harbor with ships, and you would embark on a ship from Constantinople to Eretz Yisrael. And this time, the shliach who was sent with all this money to go to Eretz Yisrael to bring the money to the Jews of Eretz Yisrael was attacked by a group of robbers in Turkey, in Constantinople. Today, it's called Istanbul. The name of the city changed, but then was called Constantinople, and he was attacked by robbers, and unfortunately, the robbers killed this Jew, took all his money away. And now, Chas v'shalom, it took a whole year to raise all that money. Now all that money is lost. That means that the Yidden in Eretz Yisrael will starve, and who knows how many Yidden will die from starvation because of this incident. And Reb Mendel of Vitebsk saw all this that Friday afternoon. He saw what happened to this, this terrible thing that happened to this Jew and how the, the murderers, the Goyim, took away his money. And now,

09:59 who knows what terrible things are gonna happen to the Jews in Eretz Yisrael because there's no money. And what's even more is now the Kinneret will not allow the tefillahs of the Yidden to go through. Why not? Because the Kinneret said, "How can I let the tefillahs go through? The, the Yidden of Chutz La'aretz are not gonna support the Yidden of Eretz Yisrael this year because the money will never arrive. It was taken by these murderers." So I looked at the Kinneret, and I saw, and I saw what happens in Turkey, and I tried with my tefillahs, with my davening. He daven in his head, of course. People couldn't see him daven, say words, but he-- in his head that was working very hard, pleading with Hashem that these rotschim, these murderers should get caught, and they did. The police came and caught these murderers and found all the money in their possession, and they returned it to the Rav of the city of Constantinople. And the Rav sent a letter to Russia, to Poland, to whomever he knew to say that we found the money, and they should send somebody else to go to Eretz Yisrael, and that's what happened. And this is what Reb Mendel of Vitebsk was busy doing Erev Shabbos, making sure that these rotschim get caught and that the money could be sent to Eretz Yisrael because in the zechus of that money, all the tefillahs of the Yidden of Chutz La'aretz gather in Tveria, and from Tveria, it goes

11:27 to Yerushalayim. From Yerushalayim, it goes up to Shomayim, and Hashem listens to all the tefillahs and brings all the brachos to Yidden and brings Mashiach mamash now, and we'll have Korban Pesach in Yerushalayim ir Hakodesh.