1329 - Elul 29 – Chabad History

00:00 Yemei Chabad, and we'll do for the twenty-ninth day of Elul, and, um, in the year tof kuf mem tes. Uh, that is the day that the Tzemach Tzedek, the third Lubavitcher Rebbe was born. This is the final entry for the year. It's Erev Rosh Hashanah. It's the day before Hashanah, the final entry in the Hasidic Yemei Chabad in the, uh, in the Hasidic calendar. So... Uh, seventeen forty-nine. Yeah. This is seventeen forty-nine. Seventeen forty-nine. So, um, so the Tzemach Tzedek, uh, was born on the eve of Rosh Hashanah, right before the year tof kuf nun, and his father was Reb Shalom Shabtai. That was his father. And his mother was the Rebbetzin Devorah Leah, who was the second daughter of the Alter Rebbe, of the Alter Rebbe. So his, his mother was a daughter of the Alter Rebbe, Reb Schneur Zalman. Eventually, he married his first cousin because he married the daughter of the Mitteler Rebbe. The Mitteler Rebbe, Dov Ber, who was the son of the Alter Rebbe, which was his mother's- Brother ... which was his mother's sister-- his mother's-- his, his, his mother's brother. The Mitteler Rebbe and the mother of the Tzemach Tzedek were brothers and sisters. They were both children of the Alter Rebbe. The Mitteler, the, the Mitteler Rebbe didn't have any children? He did. But need- What I'm saying, he did have, and his daughter- Oh, his daughter, but no son. The daughter of the Mitteler Rebbe- Married the other. Yeah. Mar-- Yeah, married the Alter Rebbe. But

01:48 he didn't have an older so-son. Uh, no. Um, no. But the... So the Alter... Now, b'klal, generally it's known that the Tzemach Tzedek was, uh, very close to his grandfather because there was a whole story we'll, we'll read another time in which his mother basically, uh, gave up her life for the Alter Rebbe, so the Alter Rebbe could continue to live and to, to live and, and to teach Hasidism, lead the Jewish, the Hasidic community. And the Alter Rebbe sort of undertook to raise her child, to raise the Tzemach Tzedek. And there was a very special relationship between the Tzemach Tzedek to his grandfather, his grandfather. And actually, the way we-- works that sometimes the connection when it goes from a father to a daughter to a son, there's something also because from the Parsha, you see that the man may have a closer connection to his daughter, and the mother may have a closer connection to her son, uh, based on the pasa-- on the Parsha of Ish Hakeshesri, as we learn from the verse over there. But that's another, another talk for another time. But the bottom line is that Tzemach Tzedek was very close to his grandfather, his mother's father. Did she die when the child was born? She-- No. Oh. But she died at a young age, at a very young age, when he was very young. Okay. Uh, he was called Menachem Mendel, and, uh, he was named after Reb Menachem Mendel from Horodok. If you remember, we read about

03:34 after the passing of the Maggid of Mezritch, Reb Menachem Mendel Horodok became sort of the unofficial, uh, leader from the community, but he moved to Israel. So that's why-- and the Alter Rebbe wanted to move also, and then he w-was persuaded to go back. But Reb Menachem Mendel from Horodok was the unofficial, the older, uh, followers of the, uh, Maggid of Mezritch, and the Tzemach Tzedek named after, after him. And, um, he's actually Menachem Mendel Horodok. He's buried in, uh, Tiberias, in Tiberium over there. You mentioned it, right. Um, he passed away. Reb Menachem Mendel Horodok just passed away just a year earlier than that, before the Tzemach Tzedek was born. Um, so, um, one year before, on the first day of the year in the year tof kuf mem tes, the year before he was born. So the Tzemach Tzedek was named after him. Um, when he was born, it is said that his grandfather, which is the Alter Rebbe, gave a special cloth, uh, which he had held on for a long time, and he said that should be the diapering of the chil-- the child for the first time after being bathed. And it's also, uh, his conduct when his, the Mitteler Rebbe, his own son, was born, uh, was born, uh, gave him that cloth. In, uh, in the Shabbos Shuva, that was in the-- between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the Shabbos, which is Shabbos Shuva, and this was already the next, the following year because they knew he was

05:18 born in the eve of the new year. This was already in the year tof kuf nun. Um, he, uh... There was the Shalom Ben Zochor. There was the greeting when a boy is born on Fri-Friday night, you make a, uh, a Shalom Zochor. And, uh, on Friday in the afternoon, the Alter Rebbe announced that he's inviting all the people of the city and all the guests there for a, a feast, which is the Shalom Ben Zochor. And, um, he said that his sons and his son-in-laws and some of the selected few elderly Hasidim, uh, which was about three, uh, thirty people, uh, they should wash for the meal. And the rest of the people of the city and the guests should come after the eating and before benching. And he's, they gave, you know, beans, lentils, and a, uh, joint for the mazuman. Now the, uh, the meal will take place in, the meal will take place in the shul, the large shul, which was in the, the chaser, I guess the courtyard. It had like a shul. It wasn't like an actual structure. It was like in the courtyard because that was able to contain many people. During the meal, the Alter Rebbe was, uh, in great, uh, joy, very happy. And he reviewed some of the last words that he heard from his teacher and rebbe, the Magid of Mezrich, during his last hours, in which he revealed the secret of the night of the Leil Shmurim before you bring a child into

07:12 the bris of Avraham Avinu, alav ha-shalom. And, um, then he said a discourse of Chassidus. And when he finished, he instructed to sing, and then they benched on the cup, and he distributed to all the participants from the cup of the blessing, the Koish HaBracha. This seems, this took place on Friday night, uh, when you make a Shalom Zochor. Then further by the meal during the day, again, the Alter Rebbe was with great joy. And it was in a, such a way that they never seen him in such a exposed way that the Alter Rebbe was rejoicing. Never saw the Alter Rebbe like that. That was the birth of the Tzemach Tzedek. Tzemach Tzedek is also responsible for publishing a lot of the works of his grandfather and a lot of the, uh, um, um, um, you know, uh, both in Nigun and Chassidus. And I believe we learned in the Hayom Yom, um, recently that the Tzemach Tzedek, we know, was arrested, uh, 22 times. And he said that he spent like, I think, 22,000 hours, I think it says over there, not sure, in studying the, um, works of his grandfather. And that is sort of what brought about his protection. And that helped him, uh, out so that he was saved at the end. If you remember, we read also about how miraculously the, uh, there was a document trying to keep the Tzemach Tzedek in Petersburg. But the guy being drunk tried to put it on fire, and he ended up

09:05 burning the decree about the Tzemach Tzedek. So he ended up going, uh, going free.