Slavita Vs. Kopust: The Mitteler Rebbe's Mediation

00:21 We have mentioned in the previous short lecture that in Tav-Kuf Samech, in the year of 1800, the Alter Rebbe sent his son-in-law and his brother to get a haskomah from Reb Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev and of other great geonim and rabbonim, that the authority to print a Shas should stay with them, which means with the Alter Rebbe, which means with the print house in Slavita for the next 20 years. So on this power, he started printing a third edition in Tav-Kuf Ayin Zain in 1817, which is still the middle of the eight, 20 years. The Alter Rebbe wasn't around, was already four years after his talcus, but the printer, the printer of Rabbi Moshe Shapiro, the son of Rabbi Pinchas Korcz, the Rov of Slavita, the owner of the print house, started printing the third edition of the Shas. But that didn't go smooth. In the same time, there was a large print house in Kobust by another one of the greatest Hasidim of the Alter Rebbe, Reb Yisroel Yaffe. He started in the same year printing the Shas in Kobust. And when the Rabbi Moshe Shapiro told him, "I still have three years for the 20 years that I have an haskomah," he told him, "No way. Your haskomah was that for next 20 years, as long you have still Seforim of the Shas that are not sold, we shouldn't print it because you'll lose your money by not selling the Seforim. But you have have already sold them all." So there was a

02:41 large dispute and they went to another rabbonim to intermediate between them to decide who is right. They decided to go to the Mitteler Rebbe. Mitteler Rebbe is the memaler mokir of the Alter Rebbe, is the Rebbe of Chabad, and they are both close to him. They are both building their authority on the Alter Rebbe. So let's see what it says. We have the document of haskomah between both sides and the Mitteler Rebbe. He should decide between them. Reb Yisroel Yaffe signed on his behalf. Someone who signed on behalf of Rabbi Moshe Shapiro of Slavita. And the Mitteler Rebbe signed that he'll, he's taking it on and he'll look into all the details, he'll hear both sides, and he'll decide. What did he decide? We don't know. We just have this haskomah of signature of both sides that they will ex- obey his decision. Actually, that year both started printing the Shas. So the fight went on for several years with a few, several halokim of the Shas that each one was printing. But it didn't hold long. Reb Yisroel Yaffe, the owner of the print house in Kobust and one of the greatest Hasidim of the Alter Rebbe, went then to settle in Eretz Yisroel, and he became one of the leaders of the Chabad group that settled in Hebron. He was, the Chabad group that settled in Hebron was called Kehillat Chabad, and he was one of the memunim of the Chavrei HaRodef of Kehillat Chabad. He was there for several years till he

05:00 passed away there. So he stopped this edition of the Kobust Shas. He just published several halokim. And Rabbi Moshe Shapiro in Slavita continued to printing the Shas, the whole Shas. It wasn't enough. Then he started publishing a fourth edition of the Shas, and that caused another machloket, as we will discuss in the next short lecture, Be'ezrat Hashem.