227. The Black Dogs That Were Afraid Of The Alter Rebbe

00:15 Shalom Aleichem, kindalech. We just had Havdalah teves, the yortzeit of the Alter Rebbe. As you know, the Alter Rebbe, when he was Nistalik, he was passed away, was during the time when he was running away from Napoleon. Napoleon Bonaparte, that was his full name. He was the king of France, and he wanted to conquer the whole world and make everybody like the French. The Alter Rebbe hated Napoleon. He says Napoleon is very bad. He's evil because he wants all the Jewish people to become like the French and be like the Goyim. He doesn't want them to be separate and different. Even though he was very nice to the Jews, he said the Jews, he was gonna give them everything they want. They're not gonna have to suffer like in Russia. They were gonna get all the rights, all the things that, that all the Goyim have, they will also have. The Alter Rebbe saw that he really-- what he really tried to do is by giving the Jews everything they want, begashmiyus physically. They'll have money, and they'll have-- they'll be able to do whatever they want, like all the Goyim. But then they will slowly, slowly become like the Goyim and stop being Jewish and stop observing Torah and Mitzvot. So the Alter Rebbe saw this, and that's why he hated Napoleon. He said Napoleon is very dangerous for the Jewish people, spiritually especially. And he davened that the Russian Tsar should win the war. You know, Napoleon tried to conquer Russia, and there

01:55 was a big war going on between the French and the Russians, and the Alter Rebbe davened very hard so that the Russian Tsar should win the war. Even though the Tsar and the Russian government wasn't nice to the Jews, but the Alter Rebbe felt that the Russian government is better for the Jews spiritually in terms of Torah and Mitzvahs. They let the Yidden do Torah and Mitzvahs. They're not nice to the Jews physically. They don't always give them, uh, the, the ability to have Parnassa and to have this and to have that, and they sometimes make them tzoros. But it's different than Napoleon. Napoleon is very bad. He said, "We need Napoleon to lose the war," and Alter Rebbe davened. And Napoleon knew about this. Napoleon heard of the Alter Rebbe, that there's this big Rebbe, this big tzadik amongst the Jewish people in Russia that is fighting against Napoleon. And so the Alter Rebbe saw that Napoleon's army was approaching the city where he lived in Liadi. So the Alter Rebbe, who lived in Liadi, when the French army was getting closer and closer, he ran away because he didn't wanna be there at the same time as Napoleon was there. The Alter Rebbe ran away, and the Russian army provided the Alter Rebbe with soldiers and wagons so he could run away. And Alter Rebbe ran away with sixty, seventy other wagons of Hasidim and their families that ran with the Alter Rebbe. Besides Alter Rebbe and his family, there were many other

03:27 Hasidim that went with Alter Rebbe. While the Alter Rebbe was traveling away from Napoleon's army, they came to a village and not far from the city of Haditch. And they were looking-- It was late at night. They were looking for a place where they could go in and sleep, rent a room, but none of the Goyim wanted to take them in. The Goyim in the village, when they saw the Alter Rebbe and his family and other Jews, they didn't wanna open the doors. They said, "We don't want you to come in." Till there was one Goy, when he-- they knocked on the door, and he opened the door, and he saw the Alter Rebbe. And the Alter Rebbe asked him if we can come in. We just wanna stay over the night. And he said... And we'll pay, of course. And the Goy said, "Listen. You see, I have a, a big property, a house with a lot of-- with a big yard. I have some very big black dogs that are very dangerous. When they see a stranger coming in, they literally bite him and tear him to pieces. Literally, they kill the person. So I don't know if you wanna come in. It's very dangerous." So the Alter Rebbe said, "Yeah, we'll come in." So the Goy said, "If you're willing to come in, even though it's dangerous, then you can come in. I'll let you in." And the Alter Rebbe was the first one to enter the yard. They have to go

05:14 through a yard, and then you go into the house. The yard was full of those dogs, and these dogs usually would jump on a person that is not a member of the family of the house. But there's a stranger, an outsider, he would jump, and they would kill him. They would tear him to pieces. The Alter Rebbe says to everybody to march behind him, and Alter Rebbe will march to the house, and the dogs, to everybody's surprise and shock, and especially the Goy who opened the door, the owner of the house, he was so shocked because he saw that the dogs were sitting like quietly, sitting in their place and didn't move. When the dogs saw the Alter Rebbe, they couldn't move, and they just sat there quietly. And everybody walked into the house The goy saw that Alter Rebbe was a very unusual person. He was a holy person, that the dogs didn't even move. That means that he has got some special, special powers, and he's a great man, he's a great tzaddik. So he said to Alter Rebbe, "I'll let you stay in my house as long as you need to, but I need a bracha from you. My son is a young man, he's 18 years old. They're going to take him to the Russian army, and I'm very afraid because they're gonna send him to war, and he's going to be killed. So can you give him a bracha?" And the son of this goy looked very healthy. In other

06:46 words, uh, sometimes you come to the army base and they say, "Okay, you gotta come to the army because you're 18 years old." When they see that you're very sick, or you don't have a-- or one eye is blind, or one ear c- you can't hear, or you're limping on one leg, then they send you home and say, "Okay, you can't go to the army because you're sick." But his son, the goy's son, was perfectly healthy. Not only he was healthy, he was strong with big muscles. He was tall and strong. There was no way they would not take him. He was a perfect person for-- to be a soldier. So this goy asked Alter Rebbe, "Give a bracha to my son because I'm afraid they're going to take him to the army." So Alter Rebbe gave him a bracha, and when he went to the army base, the-- they have to... Usually, they examine you. They look at you if you're healthy, and you can serve in the army. As soon as he walked in the door, before they even examined him, they said to him, "You look so awful. Get out of here. You shouldn't be here. You shouldn't be in the army." And they kicked him out. He didn't understand why. What happened? They thought that he looked terrible, and they didn't want him there. And so he went home, and he didn't have to go to the army, which they saw, the goy saw the miracle that Alter Rebbe performed for

08:06 them. And Alter Rebbe stayed there for a while, and then on Motzei Shabbos Parshas Shemini is when Alter Rebbe was Nistalek. When Alter Rebbe was Nistalek, they were going to bury him in a town near, because the village where they stayed now, there was not a single Jew lived in that village. It was only goyim, right? And the goyim, they didn't even want the Jew to come in. Only this one goy let him in. But Alter Rebbe had to be buried in a place where there are Jews that can take care of the cemetery. A Jewish cemetery. They need a Jewish cemetery. So the city of Haditch was a small town not far, and they were gonna take Alter Rebbe's body to, to Haditch. And who was gonna take him? The Tzemach Tzedek and, uh, some other members of the family. I think it was Rebbe Nachum, uh, the grandson of Alter Rebbe. And they went with a wagon, but outside it was winter, right? Chabad had it, it was the middle of the winter. It was snowing, heavily snowing, and there was so much snow that they couldn't take a wagon with wheels because it wouldn't be able to go through the snow. It was such deep snow, you had to take a sled. In Russia, they had wagons pulled by horses, but the wagons were moving not on wheels. The wheels couldn't go through the snow. It would go-- They would go through, um, with, with like a sled. They would slide on

09:41 the snow. At one point, they saw they were taking the... Tzemach Tzedek was sitting in the wagon with Alter Rebbe's-- with Alter Rebbe, and, and, and suddenly the wagon stopped, and it couldn't move, so they couldn't understand what was wrong. Then they looked, and they see Alter Rebbe's body was actually not lying, um, i-in, in a... It was, it was like lifting up the whole aron. The Ark of the Alter Rebbe, where the Alter Rebbe was sitting, it was li- laid in, right? They, they put his body in a, in a box which we usually bury the dead. And Alter Rebbe, the, the whole aron sort of lifted up from the ground by itself into the air. It was like a shocking. Nobody understood what was going on. So they went out of the wagon to see what's happening, and they saw a ‹hazer›, a pig, was stuck under... was running out. A pig was running in the, in the snow and got stuck under the wagon. So Alter Rebbe's holy body, um, didn't wanna s- you know, be in contact with the pig. Pig is a, a ‹dave›, a ‹tame›. It's ‹tame›, it's traif. And so his body would s- just naturally lift up. So they moved out the pig. They released the pig from under the wagon, and once the pig ran away, Alter Rebbe's body went down, landed down on the ground of the wagon again, and they took the Alter Rebbe, uh, all the way to Haditch, and that's where he

11:24 was buried. And now as we speak, there are thousands of people in Haditch visiting the Alter Rebbe's Ohel and davening there, and there's so many miracles that are being told that is happening in Haditch now all the time, every year, when people go there and they ask for special things, and they see the brachas coming true.