The Full Story Behind the Stolen and Redeemed Sefer

00:22 Rabbi Yaakov Tzemach, one of the great Mekubalim in the generation after The Arizal, which is called one of the Gurei Ha-Arizal, wrote many seforim, and he also wrote many hagahos on existing seforim in Kabbalah of The Arizal. Most of his seforim and hagahos was published. Some of them was not published yet. One of the seforim he wrote is the Sefer Meshevas Nefesh, which is a sefer of explaining Alf Be-Kabbalah, the whole topic of Gilgulim, that the same neshamah comes after generations to anot- was born to another body, and then some of the things that are not corrected in the first gilgul could be corrected in the next gilgul. This Sefer Meshevas Nefesh was not published then, and there was some copies that scribes copied, and only about ten years ago it was published in Israel. The Rebbe Rashab, Rabbi Shalom Ber, the fifth Lubavitcher Rebbe in Lubavitch, had a large collection of seforim and kesavim in Chasidus and Kabbalah and Halacha. He wanted to get a copy of this chibur of Meshevas Nefesh. He spoke to book dealers if they could get him a copy of it. One of the people that he spoke to was Rabbi Akiva Meyer, a rav in Minsk, Rabbi Akiva Meyer Grodensky. He tried very hard to get a copy of it. Finally, he found a copy, he bought it, and sent it to the Rebbe in the year of fifty-three, nineteen oh-three. And he added a letter to it saying that, "After so many efforts, I reached a copy,

03:32 and I'm sending it to you, and I hope that will help to correct any things that needed correction in maybe a previous gilgul of myself, since this sefer is explaining the topic of Gilgulim." It was interesting that in during this period that he tried to get a copy of this chibur, the Rebbe Rashab succeeded to get another copy of kesav of, uh, copy of this sefer. So when the Rebbe Rashab received this copy of Rabbi Akiva Meyer Grodensky, he first gave it to bind. In Lubavitch, there was a binder that most of the seforim and kesavim of the Rebbe Rashab that needed binding was bound by him, and they are very, really easy to recognize. Like this sefer that we are speaking now about that, uh, it came back to the library. You see the color and the material of the binding and of the back of it, and you also could see a inscript like all those seforim that was bound in Lubavitch had the same inscript, slant in the top, slant in the bottom, and straight in the back. So he gave it to binding. Since he had two copies of the kesav now, since he had a large collection and his son, the Rebbe, uh, did -- who became later the Rebbe Rayatz, the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, had, had his own collection- So he gave the second copy to his son, the Rebbe Ayats, who pasted a ex libris on the beginning of the bat mitzvah, of the sefer. As we could

06:21 see, that the ex libris mentions the name of the Freimeki Rebbe. So we have now two copies of it. One is in Moscow still. We only have a copy of it. And one was returned yesterday to the library. Many book dealers over the years would try to pay up the security in the library and get for themselves a copy of a unique, rare sefer that they would later sell. And so is this second copy of the Meshevas Nefesh. It went on the auction several months ago. As we know that there is a court case going on against the library or in Moscow, the court ordered the library to return to the Chabad library in New York all the sefarim and manuscripts of the Lubavitch collection. They still didn't. As we know, the court also ordered that those that were succeeded to take out sefarim of Moscow of this collection should return these sefarim to the central library of Chabad in New York. When this ksav yad went on auction several months ago, the court ordered them to return it to Chabad. So it was taken out from the auction house. Efforts was made to reach the one that holds this sefer and to purchase it from him and return it to the central library of Chabad in New York. Yesterday it came. Worth to notice that the court's order to return this ksav yad to Chabad was arranged by the Kunin, Rabbi Kunin, through the lawyer Lieberman that dealt with the court that received this

09:05 order that caused to take it out from the auction. In Israel, that one, the one that deals with it and always purchase unique sefarim and kisve yad and brings it to Chabad library in New York is Rav Moshe Orenstein that runs the yeshiva of Chabad in Netanya. He purchased this. Yesterday he came in to the library and handed me over this ksav yad.