Vilna, Slavita and the Rebbe's Sefer Torah

00:24 We have already mentioned in the last short lecture about in addition to the three peitzores printing of the Chas by Rabbi Moshe, the Rav of Slavita and the owner of the print house. In the year of Tov Kuv Samach Hanan, the year of 1800 Hanan, the year of Tov Kuv Samach Hes Hanan, 1808 Hanan, and the year of Tov Kuv Ein Zein Hanan, the year of 1817 Hanan. But then in the early 30s, about 1834, 1835, he started printing a fourth edition of the Talmud. It wasn't then him. He already passed away. He had two sons. The brothers of Shapiro, the sons of Rabbi Moshe, owned the print house and they have started printing the Chas again. They also claimed a similar reasoning for it. When they have published the third edition of the Chas in Tov Kuv Ein Zein in the year of 1817, they also got the authority that no one else should harm them and not print another Talmud in their period of 20 years. In the year of Tov Kuv Tzadik Dal and Tov Kuv Tzadik Hey, in the year of 1834 and 1835, it was not yet over the 20 years. But at the same time, in Vilna opened a large print house and they have started printing the Chas in the same year. And they have claimed the same reasoning for it because the third edition of the Chas in Slavita was already sold. So you have no right, according to US commerce, to print again because we are

03:05 now larger and we want to print a large Chas for everyone and if you print, you cause us a loss of money. That became a very large fight between all the Ravonim in several countries around Vilna and around Slavita. Each great Rabbi, great Mechaber and great Goy was asked and wrote a Tchuveh summed to the side of Slavita and summed to the side of Vilna. The end of this story was very tragic. A year later, in Tov Kuv Tzadik Zayin came out a Gzeira Satfusin in Russia. They closed down all print houses of Yiddish's form. They permitted only one print house in the whole Russia to exist in Vilna. And in this print house, they shall not be able to print anything without the observation of the censor. So obviously, Slavita didn't continue printing the Chas. Only in Vilna they printed then the Chas. But that wasn't enough. There was another tragedy in that period. In the print house in Slavita, one of the workers, a Goyish worker, took his own life and hung himself. The government decided to blame the owners. They gave him public malkas, both brothers. Soldiers hit them. They were supposed to pass between soldiers that hit them. And then they were sent to exile, to a house arrest for 20 years. So obviously, they didn't fulfill their plan of printing the fourth time this Chas. But that has an end that is related more to us and to our Rabbi. What's the connection? When they was in the house arrest,

05:53 they had permission that a minion should come to them to daven together for the 20 years. So they smuggled in a small sefer Torah. So they would daven there every Shabbos, and they would read in the Torah every Shabbos. After the twenty years, and sometimes later, they passed away. And this special sefer Torah went to their sons, to their heirs, and then to their grandsons and great-grandsons. One of the great-grandsons of one of the brothers was Rabbi Shmuel Abba Shapiro. After the Second World War, he settled in Eretz Yisrael, and he brought the sefer Torah with him. After the Rebbe became Rebbe in Tov Shin Yud Dalet in 1954, he sent the sef-- at the end of 1953, he sent the sefer Torah to the Rebbe. The Rebbe was thrilled to have this sefer Torah. Since then, he would try that every Shabbos, every Monday, every Thursday, when he is getting aliyah in the sefer Torah, they should read in this sefer Torah, in his sefer Torah. Every Simchas Torah, the Rebbe would dance with the sefer Torah, he would dance with this sefer Torah, and this sefer Torah is what we all know and call it the Rebbe's sefer Torah, which is actually a long continuation of the print-- of the printers in Slawita that was later exiled to house arrest and had the sefer Torah re-read, read by them in their house arrest for twenty years, and finally it came to the Rebbe, and this is the Rebbe's sefer Torah.