242. How The Alter Rebbe Revealed The Secret Of The Rosho Shimon Hakofer

00:15 Shalom Aleichem, kindalech. Today I'm gonna tell you a story that happened in the time of the Alter Rebbe. The story is about a person, a man by the name of Shimon Hakofer. Uh, they called him Shimon, but they added another name to him called Hakofer. Hakofer means somebody who is a bad person, who doesn't believe that the Torah is Emes, and he tried to get Jewish people to stop doing mitzvahs, and they wanted Jews to stop going to yeshivas. The children shouldn't go to cheder where they learn Torah, should go to goyish schools. They tried to get people, yeshiva bachur not to go to yeshiva, but to leave the yeshiva and go and study in university, in colleges, to study science, but not to learn Torah. He was one, a member of the Maskilim. Maskilim were a group of Jews who believed exactly that, that Jews should not believe in all the nissim that happened in the Torah, in the stories from the Torah, and that the mitzvahs are not so important. We should be more like the Goyim, and then the Goyim will not hate us. And they went out and tried to get as many Jews, as many yeshiva bachurim, as many children from cheder, to leave the cheder and start studying other stuff that are goyish stuff and become like the Goyim more. Shimon Hakofer, Shimon, the one who did not believe in the Torah. But they wanted to get as many as the children to go to goyish schools, to stop

02:09 learning Torah, become like, uh, professors, like learning in college, but not to learn so much Torah. So in order to do that, they, they dressed up like Rabbanim, and many of them also knew how to learn because they grew up-- When they were little, they grew up in, in a cheder. They learned in a cheder when they were little. Their parents were very good Jews. They, they, they were Frum Jews. They send their kids to cheder. But when they grew up, they had bad friends, and they started becoming very bad, Reshaim. They tried to get as many Jews away from Torah. So in order to get those Jews and the Jewish children, especially from the very, very, very Frum religious communities where Jews learn Torah and davened, those chadorim and yeshivas, how do we get these people to go away from there? So they pretended that they are actually Rabbanim who know how to learn, and they actually, some of them knew how to learn a little bit. And they would go and pretend that they wanna be teachers in the chadorim and the yeshivas since they knew a little how to learn, so they made a very strong impression. Even in the city of Vilna, where the Vilna Gaon lived, the famous Vilna Gaon, Shimon Hakofer managed to get them all to be very impressed with him. They thought he was a big Talmid Chaham and a Tzadik because he dressed with a long black kapote and a big black hat and payos and

03:53 a beard. He looked like a real Tzadik. But really inside he was a bad person, a Rosha, who all he tried to do is to trick everybody. And if they let him teach the children, he would secretly tell the children that they should go away and tell their parents that they're going away to yeshiva far away. But really, he's gonna send them to Berlin in Germany, where the universities were, and make them become like the Goyim. And he was very successful at this. Unfortunately, number of kids, children who he taught, um, he was able to get them to go to university and they stopped being-- uh, keeping mitzvahs, stopped learning Torah. Um, so that's, um, that was his work. The Vilna Gaon met him, and Shimon-- One of the things Shimon said, and he was really good at this, is he knew Dikduk. Dikduk means he knew the language of Hebrew well. He knew Tanakh very well, and he believes that children should learn a lot of Tanakh, and they should learn Dikduk. Dikduk is like grammar, to know how the, the Lashon HaKodesh language works, things that we don't learn so much in cheder. But the Maskilim, they loved learning Dikduk. Dikduk is grammar, to know how to spell a word and how to, um, you know, understand the meaning of words. It's a, it's a very difficult part of learning and, and most yeshivas, they don't teach that for a reason. But he, Shimon Hakofer, wanted everybody to, to do it and to

05:35 learn it. And then he would slowly, slowly get them to get interested in learning other things which are not Torah, until they would become, um, like the Goyim. The Vilna Gaon was very, very friendly to him and he told him, "Yes, we should make you the head of all the teachers of the city of Vilna." Vilna had hundreds of thousands of Jews. There are many, many, maybe dozens, maybe hundreds of chadorim and yeshivas, and he became the head of them because they all trusted him, the son of the Vilna Gaon also, and some-- the brother of the Vilna Gaon, his name was Rebbe Yisachar, also, uh, was very, uh, friendly with him and, and believed that he's really, really a big talmid chacham. It's important that we make him, uh, the head of all the, the, the, the, the, the teachers of the chadorim and of the yeshivas. And so he for four years, he managed to get many kids that became very close to him because they loved him. He was a good teacher. And he would secretly tell them he's gonna send them away to a yeshiva where they're gonna become a big talmid chacham. And instead, he sent them to Berlin in Germany to a college, and he told the kids, "Listen, listen, you learn here a little while, you'll see you'll like it." And many of the kids started going there, and it became terrible because many of these kids didn't even tell their parents where they were. They were studying

07:08 in a goyishe school. And Shimon would tell the parents, "Oh, your sh- your sons, they're in a yeshiva far away, and they're really doing well. The reason you didn't see them for a few years because they're so deep in learning Torah that they don't have time to come home, and really, really they're, they're becoming big, big talmidi hakhamim." But in truth, it's the opposite. These kids were in goyishe schools and then in college universities, and they stopped slowly being less and less and less Jewish and doing less mitzvahs. It was a terrible time until Shimon Hakofar decided he also wants to do the same thing with the Hasidim. See, in Vilna, where all the Misnagdim were, but he wanted to get the Hasidim also. The Hasidim was much harder because Hasidim who learn Hasidism, they, they, they love Torah, and they, they have excitement about learning Torah and doing mitzvahs. It's harder to, to convince them to, uh, to go away from yeshiva and stop learning Torah and stop being Jewish. Hasidim is much harder. He decided he's gonna meet the Alter Rebbe. The Alter Rebbe, he's gonna convince the Alter Rebbe that he's a big talmid chacham, and he knows Tanakh, he knows all the Neviim, all the prophets, he knows all the Tanakh. And he's gonna teach the chadorim, and he wants the Alter Rebbe to write a letter for him to say that he is a great person, that this Shimon Hakofar is a very important person, and everyone should respect him

08:41 and let him teach. And of course, then he would secretly steal a lot of these boys and send them to goyishe schools in another city without their parents knowing where they are, and it would be terrible. He decided to come to Lyozno. He came, arrived one day, and he sees, looks around, the Hasidim of the Alter Rebbe were there in shul, and he sees there's a group of people around-- sitting around a little boy. That boy was the Tzemach Tzedek, who was five or six years old. And the old people are listening to the little boy, the Tzemach Tzedek. He heard that this is the grandson of the, of the Rebbe, of the Alter Rebbe. And he was explaining to them a Gemara that he was learning in a Machloket Rashi and Tosfos, and how the Alter Rebbe, how explained to the Rashi and Tosfos. It was, like, amazing to see a five-year-old boy talk about Rashi and Tosfos, and, and it, it was, it was incr-- a-amazing, amazing to watch this. Anyway, so he saw that this is-- everybody told him that this is the Grand Rebbe's, the, the Alter Rebbe's grandson. Okay, fine. Then he heard, he said, "When can I see the Alter Rebbe?" They told him that the Alter Rebbe doesn't come out so much in public. He only comes out, um, Friday, Friday evening. He comes and says Hasidism Ma'amar. But it so happens, right, Friday afternoon, he was staying in a-- as a guest in a inn. It was

10:21 owned by a Jew, one of the Hasidim of the Alter Rebbe. And suddenly he got the flu with a big fever, a very, very high fever, and he fell sick, and he couldn't go to hear the Alter Rebbe's Ma'amar. He was sick for four days till Monday. Monday, this, the host gave him some medication, and he started getting better. He was still very weak. He had asked the Alter Rebbe's Gabbai, the Alter Rebbe's secretary, to let him into Yechidus. So he made him a time to go to Yechidus Wednesday night. When he came into the Alter Rebbe in the room, he said, "When I saw the Alter Rebbe for the first time, I was suddenly overcome with a terrifying fear. I don't know why." He says, "The, the way he looked at me with his eyes and the way he spoke to me, he said, 'What would you-- What do you want?'" The Alter Rebbe said to him, "What do you want?" "And I was, like, overcome with fear. I couldn't speak. Something about him made me very fearful. I felt like this, this is a, an awesome, a, a very, very, very special person. But then I worked very hard, and I strengthened myself so I can speak. And I tell the Alter Rebbe, 'I come from Zamot, a city called Zamot, and I learn-- I know Tanakh very well. I teach children Tanakh, and I especially learn...'" The part of Hebrew which is called Dikduk, grammar. To know how to pronounce the word

12:10 and the roots of words, you know, something which they don't so learn so much in Cheder. But he believes that children should learn that. And therefore, um, and, and he knows that the Alter Rebbe wrote a siddur, right? We have the siddur of the Alter Rebbe, which we all Chabad Hasidim daven from the Alter Rebbe siddur. And in the siddur, the Alter Rebbe was very, very careful when he wrote the words. It should be according to the, the rules of Dikduk, which is a very special knowledge that not many people have. Says, "I see... I read your siddur, and I see that you appreciate what it means to know Dikduk, and I believe in it very much to teach kids. I'd like you to write a letter, so I can take it around to all the Hasidim all over Russia and show them that the Alter Rebbe supports me and thinks that I'm doing the right thing, and so they would let me teach their kids." The Alter Rebbe closed his eyes and put his head on his, on his hand and thought for a moment. Then he lifted his eyes and said to him, "You know, this whole, uh, thing about learning Dikduk, which is about the grammar of L- of Lashon Hakodesh, is a very dangerous thing. This is why in Chadorim and Yeshivas they didn't learn it so much." And the Alter Rebbe explained, in Shamayim, there's a place for everything. There's a place for people that are learning Gemara, Chumash, Hasidus.

13:44 There's one place where, where they-- which is a special place in Shamayim for people that learn Dikduk. They wanna try to understand the Hebrew language. But right next to it is a place for people that distort and make the Torah wrong. They don't believe in the Torah, and they distort the Torah, and, and they go against the Torah. So if you... And the Alter Rebbe explained like this: Whenever you learn during the daytime from the Torah, when you go to sleep at night, your neshamah goes up, lamalel shamayim. And whatever you were busy during the day doing, you go to that place. That is the place where-- which is for people that learn what you learned during the day. So if you learned, let's say, Gemara or Chumash, then you go to a special place in Shamayim. Your neshamah goes to that place overnight, to the place where-- which is connected to Chumash or connected to Gemara, whatever you learned, or Mishnah. But if you learn Dikduk, the grammar of the, the language of Hebrew, then you go to that place. But that place is very close to the place where people who are bad, and they misinterpret the Torah and make the Torah look bad. So when-- If you wanna go... If your neshamah goes to the place where you learn Dikduk, you might by mistake go into the other chamber, and that can be very bad because then when your neshamah comes down in the morning and you wake up, you might end

15:17 up with ideas that are terrible and bad for a Jew, and ideas about how Torah is not so correct. We don't have to really do the Torah. It's like getting ideas. So therefore, if you're going to learn Dikduk, you have to be very careful. Then the Alter Rebbe put his head down again, thought for a few minutes, then he raised his eyes again. He says, "Tell me, you told me you're a teacher, right?" Now, there's a pasuk in Chumash when Esav and Yaakov... Yaakov went to Yitzchak to get the brachos, right? He disguised himself like Esav because his mother, Rivka, told him to do that, and he wanted Yitzchak, the father, to give him all the brachos that he can give. But Yitzchak, uh, Yaakov pretended to be Esav. Esav was out hunting in the meanwhile. Then when Yaakov left and got all the brachos, then Esav walked in with meat that he hunted for Yitzchak, and Yitzchak was a bit confused. And when he heard that, Esav told him, "Oh, I just came from the field." And Yitzchak realized that the person that was here before wasn't really Esav because Esav is here now. What does it say? "Vayechiad Yitzchak chered hagdolah." Yitzchak had this terrible fear. Rashi says, "Why was he... Why did he have fear?" So one interpretation, Rashi says, well, he was a bit confused. It doesn't mean he was afraid. He was confused because before, a few minutes earlier, Yaakov was there, but he thought that Yaakov was really Esav.

16:52 But now, Esav just came. Who is the real Esav? He was confused. But then Rashi says, no, no, no. He was really afraid. He was terrified. You know why, why Yitzchak was terrified? Because when Esav walked into the tent, he saw the Gehenna coming with Esav. So the Alter Rebbe said to Shimon HaKefer, "So when you learn with kids this Chumash and this Rashi, which, which, which, which, which one of Rashi do you tell them? The one of it says, oh yeah, Yitzchak was just a little confused, or you tell them the second interpretation of Rashi, that Yitzchak saw the Gehenna. The whole Gehenna came into the tent with Esav, and that's why he was terrified, because he realized that Esav is such a Rasha, the Gehenna came with him." So Shimon said, "Well, I don't tell them the second one, because we're gonna scare the kids about Gehenna, and then the kids will wonder, heh, how can the whole Gehenna come with Esav into the tent? The Gehenna is such a terrible fire in the Gehenna. How come Yitzchak's tent wasn't burned down? Even the clothes of Esav and Yitzchak didn't get burned. How could it not get burned if the whole Gehenna comes in? And besides, it's like- You know, hard for kids to understand it. So that's why I only tell them the first Taich of Rashi, which is that Yitzchak was just confused who is the real Esav. The Alter Rebbe listened to Shimon HaKefar, put his head down again for

18:25 the third time, and thought for a few moments. Then he lifted his holy eyes, and the Alter Rebbe had two candles burning on his table all the time. Whenever there was Yechidas, even in the middle of the day, he didn't need the light, but he had two candles burning in front of him. So the Alter Rebbe grabbed one of the candles, lifted it up, and shone it in the face of Shimon HaKefar, and looked him straight in the eyes, and said, When a Jew comes from Vilna, and he tells me that he comes from Zamut, and he's lying, he's like Esav. Why do you think Yitzchak was so terrified? Because he realized when Esav said, I am your son, your firstborn. That's how Esav introduced himself to Yitzchak when he walked in. He says, who are you? He says, I'm Esav, your firstborn. But he's a liar, because he sold his first birthright to Yaakov earlier in the Parsha. So he lied. That's why Yitzchak saw that a person who lies has the whole Gehenom next to him. And you are a liar too. Because you are telling me you're this big Rov and Talmud Chacham coming from Zamut. But the truth is you come from Vilna. And the truth is you're one of the Maskilim. And the truth is that you are stealing children from their parents and making them go to Goyish schools and leaving the Torah and Mitzvahs. And you have done this to many, many, many families. You've destroyed those families

20:08 because they lost their children because of you. And he says, you will at the end, Hashem will be after you and punish you severely. And Shimon HaKefar realized that the Alter Rebbe sees everything. He knows exactly who he is. He can't fool the Alter Rebbe. So he says, I wanted to run out. He ran out. By the way, Shimon HaKefar wrote the whole story himself to his friends in Germany. He reported everything that he saw. So he tells the whole story. That's how we know the story. Because we found the writings of Shimon HaKefar. He says, I was so afraid, terrified, because I heard stories that there were Maskilim who came here to the Yozhna. And the Hasidim discovered that they were Maskilim. You know what they did to them? They put them on the table, took down their pants, and started beating them like children in Cheder. And then they sent them away with embarrassments. So I was afraid they're going to do the Alter Rebbe is going to tell them that I'm a Maskil. He's going to tell everybody. And then they're going to grab me and beat me. So I tried to run away as quickly as possible. But you know, the minhag of the Hasidim of the Alter Rebbe was when somebody went to Yechidas, they would grab him outside in the courtyard and they would dance with him. What a zchus, he went to Yechidas. Now outside, nobody knew that he's Shimon HaKefar. They thought he was just a Talmud

21:31 Chacham or a Hasid who went to Yechidas. But so they grabbed him to dance. He wanted to run away because he was afraid the Alter Rebbe is going to come out and tell everybody to punish him for being a Maskil. But instead, they grabbed him. They made him dance. He couldn't run and go away. Finally, I slipped away, he says, and I ran away to my host, my inn where I stayed. I couldn't wait till early morning and took all my bags and I left another city. And then I took a wagon and went back to Vilna. In the end, there's still another part of the story which I'm not going to tell you today. In Vilna, they also found out that Shimon was a Kefar only later. And that he tricked the Vilna Gaon. He tricked the brother of the Vilna Gaon. He tricked a lot of the Rabbanim and the Chachamim and the Tzaddikim. Everybody was tricked by him. Even the Hasidim of the Alter Rebbe, the big Hasidim, also were tricked by him. But then they found out the truth. They found out letters that Shimon HaKefar wrote and they realized that he was a terrible person who has been living in Vilna for four years pretending to teach Torah to the children. But really, what he tried to do is get very friendly with the children and then convincing them to go to terrible places where they would stop practicing Torah Mitzvahs. In the end, they discovered him and he could

22:55 never come back. They drove him out. They embarrassed him and drove him out and he could never come back to Vilna.