If The Alter Rebbe Printed A Shas, Why Isn’t It Well Known?

00:22 In the year of tov kuf samech, the year of 1800, the Alter Rebbe started publishing Ish Lach Nor. It's not that famous, this fact, because the Alter Rebbe didn't want the pu- this publicity that he's publishing a Shas. A Shas and a Turim, Darbai Turim. He didn't want this to be published in a way that everyone should know that he is the publisher. What did he do to hide it? He hired his brother, Rabbi Mordechai of Horodenka, and he hired his son-in-law, Rabbi Shalom Sharne, the father of the, his pinnacle, that's the Mach Tzedek. They should deal with the printer in Slavita printing this Shas as it's their edition, that they are publishing the Shas in the print house of Rabbi Moshe Shapiro in Slavita, the son of the Koritzer, Rabbi Yisroel Koritzer. He was the rabbi of the city, and he owned the print house in Slavita. But they wasn't publishing it. They just dealt with the printer as representatives, schlichas of the Alter Rebbe. In those days, when you want to print a, a, a Sh- a Sh- a Shas with such a large investment, you cannot do it till you get fre- frenumarant, which means people in all countries surrounding should sign up and pay a deposit for buying this Shas. So they went around to all the cities in the countries near it, and they got a lot of signators to sign up for it with a deposit. But when the orders came, how to print and what to do and

02:50 the dealing, the Alter Rebbe himself wrote a letter, that we have it in the original handwriting, to Rabbi Moshe of Slavita telling him, "Listen, we have to invest in the hagoe to hire qualified magim and to do it in a way it should be good mugim. And don't forget, print it only from the edition of Amsterdam, because this is a v- the most mugedi kiShas." And then he adds, "With you are dealing my brother and my son-in-law on behalf of me. They made up with you that your money that you get for this work, job of printing, is a sixth of all the seforim diShas that are going to be published is going to belong to you. You will sell it. But listen to me, I wanna change it a little bit. If you will get the Gemaras after they are published and you'll sell them, you'll get the money who knows when. You need the money now for the publishing and for the hagoe that I want it should be the best. You need cash. I wanna change it. You'll get this sixth of the whole edition, you'll get it in s- cash, and you'll get it now instead of getting the seforim later." And that's how he published the Shas in Slavita in the years since tov kuf samech till tov kuf samech vav for six years, since 1800 till 1806. And it was a great success because it was published and sold right away till that next year they started doing, printing

05:03 another edition of the Shas in Slavita. When they w- started dealing about the new edition, his son-in-law, Rabbi Shalom Sharne, passed away. He couldn't represent the Alter Rebbe anymore. So the Alter Rebbe writes a letter to Rabbi Moshe Shapira, do of, of Slavita, the owner of the print house. "Listen, you know what they did when they dealt with you was on my behalf. Now it came back to me, not only the ownership of that edition, but in order to publish that edition of the Shas, they needed a hascome that nobody else should start printing a Shas in the same time because that would be, bring to a lo- loss of a lot of money for you." So they went to Rabbi Yitzchak Bavichover that he gave them the l- hascome and the authority that he should print the Shas, and for next 20 years, only he should have the a- ability of printing the Shas and not, no one else. We're still in the middle of the 20 sh- uh, years. "And this hascome was written on my th- son-in-law's name, on my brother's name, but you know it's beha- on behalf of me. So that means that the hascome, the kef of the hascome is to me. So I give you now the power to print the Shas, the second edition." And that's what he did. He started printing the second edition in tov kuf samech ches till tov kuf ein gimmel, since 1808 till 1813. This was also a success, and it needed

07:08 then another printing. But in the year of tov kuf ein gimmel, when this Shas was f- f- fulfilled and printed, in the year of 1813, was his ta'anis of Alter Rebbe. So the next edition, the third edition of the Slavita Rebbe Shas started several years later in tov kuf ein zayin by the same printer. But about this in the next short lecture.