216. How The Czar Nikolai Died

00:15 Shalom Aleichem, kinderlach. There's a story, uh, with the Tzemach Tzedek in the time of the famous Russia, the evil Nikolai, the first Nikolai. Nikolai was the Tsar of Russia, the time of the Tzemach Tzedek. He had an older brother who was the Tsar Alexander before him. The Tsar Nikolai was known as the most evil and the biggest Russia king that Russia had. He was very mean, not only to the Jewish people, for all the people. He was a very mean king, and especially the Jewish people has suffered immensely. He's the one who started this terrible thing against Jewish children, where they would grab from the homes of Jewish families, little children, six, seven years old, and take them away from their families, and the families would never see them again. They would take them to an army base and raise them to be soldiers for the Tsar. They would make them eat treif. They forced them to eat treif. They would beat them if they didn't want to eat treif, and they would make them forget about the fact that they're Jewish. No Shabbos, no Yom Tov. They would teach them to be like Goyim. And I'm sure you heard many, many stories about the cantonists, the cantonisten. These were the children that were taken away, but then when they were older, thirty or forty years old, they were let free. They joined the Jewish community again. This Nikolai, when he was very young, he was a child. He was maybe eight or nine years

02:12 old, was a very wild kid. Then the Alter Rebbe was taken to prison. He was taken for, from his prison cell to be interrogated by the agents and the officers of the Tsar. This was many years before Nikolai became king. He was still a child. He was a very wild child. And because he was the son of a king, his father was the Tsar at the time. His father gave him a special teacher that would teach him, and this teacher was always with him. When the Alter Rebbe was taken out of his cell to be taken to another place where they would ask him questions and interrogate him, Nikolai, the boy, ha- always had a whip with him, a whip that people use for horses to whip the horses, so they would run fast. Nikolai always had a whip with him, and he would like beat people if he wanted to. He was a wild kid. When he saw the Alter Rebbe, oh, he saw the Alter Rebbe, he saw a Rav, a Jew. He, he took the whip and raised it up to hit the Alter Rebbe. The Alter Rebbe looked at him, stared at him very, very strongly, and suddenly he dropped the whip, and he started getting scared. And he told his teacher that was next to him, "I don't know, this, this, this Jew, this Rav, looked at me in a way which made me feel scared." And he didn't beat and hit the Alter Rebbe. He was so scared. That

03:58 was when Nikolai was young. But then many years later, he became the next Tsar. And it was a terrible time for the Jewish people. As I said, he's the one that came up with the terrible decree of, of grabbing away children from their families, sending them to the army base, the cantonisten. This was in the time of the Tzemach Tzedek. Before Nikolai became king, his brother Alexander was the king. The story is, and the Rebbe Rashab tells this story, that he heard this from a Hasid who was by the Halevi Rizhiner, the holy Rizhiner for Shabbos. It was Shalosh Seudos time. And the holy Rizhiner, uh, when he would have Shalosh Seudos, not everybody was allowed to come in, uh, where he had Shalosh Seudos. Only like the special Rabbonim and special people that they allowed. This Hasid was allowed to come in. So it was a very strange thing. The Rizhiner started... Got very, very, very, very, uh, intense. He, his eyes were closed, his face was red, and he started saying words, and this is what he said: "They came to me." Didn't say who they, but it seemed that he meant the Shamash from Gan Eden came to him, and they told me that it was decided in Pamalya Shel Ma'ala. Pamalya means that the, the Beis Din in, in Shamayim of the Neshamas of Tzadikim that serve as the Beis Din in Shamayim. It was decided that Nikolai should be the next king. At that time, when the Rizhiner said these

05:49 words, Alexander was still king. Nikolai was not, uh... They didn't even expect him to be king because it was another brother who was going to be the next king. The Rebbe said these words, they came to me and they told me that in Shamaim it was decided Nikolai the Russia, who everybody was afraid of because everybody knew what a terrible person he is, will be king. And I said to them, again, he said them, apparently it was some of the Shamas from Gal Eden, that if I need to agree to it, I don't agree. He's a terrible person. I don't want him to be the king. So they went away. They came back to me a second time, and again they said, not only the, the, the best in Shamaim, but all the, the, the Shamas in Gal Eden, it was, it was a big decision made that Nikolai has to become the next king of Russia. So he's-- And they, and we wanna know, want you to agree to it, because the Regeener was very important in Shamaim, and they wanted his... That he would agree to it. And he said, "If you want me to agree to it, I'm telling you, I don't agree. He's terrible for the Jewish people, and he should not be king." So then after a while, he said, the Regeener continued to speak, "They came a third time to me, and this time, uh, they told me that Hashem himself said that Nikolai has to be the next

07:19 king. So I had no choice, and I had to agree." At that time, the Regeener said that nobody understood what he was talking about because they realized that Nikolai was not a king yet. And nobody expected him to be a king. But then after a f-- uh, just a few months later, Alexanders died suddenly. Nobody expected him to die. The-- Nobody knows whether they killed him, they poisoned him. And the other brother was supposed to become next king. Not Nikolai, the other brother. But Nikolai quickly pushed him away, and he made himself king. He became the king. Then everybody understood what the Regeener was talking about. The Nishamaim was decided that the Jewish people are gonna have to suffer under Nikolai for a while. Now, this Nikolai, um, at one time, at one point, had a big war. He had a war against, uh, different nations, different countries, different armies. It was in the area of the Krim. The Krim is a certain area in Russia. It's a very, very difficult war. And the government of Russia asked all the citizens that everybody should send some money to help the government with the war. The Tzemach Tzedek wanted to show the government that he's a, a good patriot, a good, uh, c-citizen. So he told the members of his family they should send to the Tsar a, um, hundred rubles from him to help the war. This way, the Nikolai will, will see that, you know, the Tzemach Tzedek is, is a good citizen and

09:16 is loyal to the king. Now, you could send this in two ways. There's two places you could send the, the, your donation to the government. One is directly to the king, to Nikolai, or you can send it to a certain minister, and he will bring it to the king. Uh, the, the, the Tzemach Tzedek said that they should send it to the k- to the king. They should send it to the king, directly to Nikolai, not to the minister. And, uh... But the family did the opposite. They sent it to the minister. And in the end, the minister took it to the king. And when he took it to the king, he said... He went to the king, he says, "Here, this is a rabbi in Lubavitch, and he, the Rabbi Schneerson, he sends you a hundred rubles. I want you to know he hates you. He really doesn't like you. He hates you." So when the Tsar heard this, he got very angry. He says, "Aha, he hates me, so when I finish the war in the Krim, I will already punish him really badly. I will take care of him." That means, Chas ve'Shalom, he will do something terrible to the Tzemach Tzedek. The Tzemach Tzedek found out about this. First of all, the family realized they made a mistake, the Tzemach Tzedek was right. Should have sent it straight to the king. But they sent it to the wrong person. They sent it to the minister, and he told the king, "You

10:57 should know that he hates you," and thus got the Tzemach Tzedek in trouble. So the Tzemach Tzedek told, uh, his, uh, Gabai, his secretary, not to, not to let anybody in. He went into his room and davened Maariv. And then people heard from behind the door that he was davening for a very long time with Nigunim. He sang the Nigun of the Alter Rebbe in the middle of davening. When it came in the davening of Maariv, Hashem saves us from terrible kings. He started screaming loud and, and, and said it with, with a lot of Kavanah. And then finally, he finished davening Maariv. And when he came out, um, a few days later, they found out that Nikolai, at the end of the war, died. Some say that he poisoned himself, some say that other people poisoned him. But at the, the end, he, he was dead, uh, right at the end of the war, and he couldn't hurt the Tzemach Tzedek. That is the story of Nikolai, the terrible Nikolai, who made all the problems for the Jews. And how he died was because the Tzemach Tzedek was davening to Hashem to save him from Nikolai, who wanted to hurt him, 'cause he didn't like the Tzemach Tzedek. And the Tzemach Tzedek also said that when the Alter Rebbe looked at him when he was a little boy... Remember the story when Nikolai was a little boy, he wanted to hurt the Alter Rebbe. The Alter Rebbe gave a very strong look at him,

12:44 so the Tzemach Tzedek says that that look and stare of the Alter Rebbe made him weak, made him weak for many years, so that when he becomes king, he wouldn't be able to carry out his plan for very long. Eventually, we'll be able to overcome him and get Hashem to kill him.