5 of Nissan תרס"ב - Day of passing of Rabbi Schneur Zalmen Fradkin

00:00 Speaker 1 About the fifth day of Nisan, and this is in the year Taf Resh Samech Beis, that is six hundred and sixty-two. Um, this was the day of passing, and this, uh, was a great genius and a Hasid, and his name was Reb Schneur Zalman Fradkin. And, uh, he was from the city of Lublin, as we'll see soon. He served as, uh, a rabbi, um, and he was known-- He has a book, a very, uh, uh, scholarly book called the Toras Chassid. He was the author of the Toras Chassid. The year six, uh, six- Sixteenth, no, nineteenth ... hundred and sixty-two. April tenth, nineteen oh two. April tenth, nineteen oh two. Okay. So, uh, the-- this great genius and Hasid, Reb Schneur Zalman of Lublin, he was born in the city of Liadi. Now, uh, the city of Liadi, as we know, was the place where the Alt Rebbe settled after they, um, left Lyozno, they settled in Liadi. But also, as we've learned many times, there were great rabbis over there throughout, even after Chabad, the, uh, Mitler Rebbe himself moved to the city of Lubavitch, but still Liadi remained, uh, a very prominent place where there were a lot of Hasidim. We've learned earlier, different descendants of the Alt Rebbe went back to the city of Liadi to be, uh, to be the rabbis over there. I'm not sure exactly when he was born, but he was born in the city of Liadi, and he was of the students of the great genius Hasid,

01:42 Speaker 1 who was Rebbe Yo, Yoes-- the Rebbe Yo Yoeseph Rivlin. He also authored, uh, some sefarim. He was a great outstanding scholar. And this Reb Schneur Zalman was a, a real, uh, genius and knowledgeable in the revealed part of Torah and also-- and the Hasidic literature and the teachings of the Hasidims. And he was one of the great Hasidim of the Tzemach Tzedek, of Reb Menachem Mendel, and also later on from the Rebbe Maharash. And he started out as a mashpia, meaning as a spiritual, uh, guide or, uh, uh, leader who would advise in, in matters of, uh, service to Hashem. And he was even-- he was forced to move, it doesn't say why, to the city of Lublin, and he was appointed as a rabbi and the head of the court in Lublin, the city of Lublin. And hence they call him the-- from Lublin, the, uh, um, um, you know, which was a very prominent city. Lublin had many great outstanding, uh, scholars that served as their rabbis throughout, uh, the years. It was a very well-known city, a city full with great, uh, learned people. Um, during one of the talks, the previous Rebbe related that the Hasid, uh, Reb Sh- Reb Shpatz, Reb Shmuel Berl Salo, he used to be a s-- uh, he used to sell sefarim, he used to sell books. He used to be a, uh, had a bookstore. But in those days, uh, didn't have a bookstore. I'm thinking the way it was, they'd put up a table,

03:34 Speaker 1 and they'd take out a bunch of books, and the people would, uh, buy. I mean, they have it some places, they have it now too. But anyways, he sold books in the city of Lubavitch. And I'm not sure if he had a shop or even how exactly he did it. And the goyen, um, the great, um, um... So what, what happened is that the rabbi of Lublin would buy his books from him when he needed the books. I guess he would come to Lubavitch and-- or when he was in Lubavitch, he'd buy books from this Reb Shmuel Berl Salo. Uh, but this, uh, Toras Chassid, uh, Reb Zalman of Lublin, he had a, a phenomenal memory. And if you, if he looked at a book once, he knew the whole book already orally. He just needed to look at it, photographic memory, so he didn't have to look at it. So when he used to come and try to buy books from Reb Shmuel Berl Salo, he made a condition with him that he's only allowed to look at the front page of the book, and he's not allowed to open it because he says if he's gonna open the book, he's not gonna buy the book because he's gonna he'd have read it already, and he has to remember it. How did you open a book and pay for it? It was... Exactly. So he's gonna... Well, I guess he, he can open up as many books as he want. He says he didn't

04:57 Speaker 1 need to- Read the first page. Um, they say about another, uh, there were, I think it was by in Dvinsk, there were two, two great rabbis who were really outstanding world scholars. Uh, one was with the Hasidim, and one was the, uh, with the not the-- with the Misnagdim or the non-Hasidim. The, uh, Hasidim had the Rebbe Yosef Rosen, the Rogatchover Gaon, known as the Genius of Rogatchov. And the other had the, also a great, uh, a great, uh, great scholar and, um, and, um, the Resameach. And what happened was... I, I forgot. So he said-- People were saying, you know, "What a, what a phenomenal, uh, memory he has. He doesn't forget anything." So the rabbi said, "No, no, no, no, no, he doesn't have such a good memory because," he said, "he never forgets because he keeps on reviewing it over and over again." He doesn't forget because he's always reviewing it. It's not like he's remembering something from a long time ago. It just, he just keeps on reviewing it, so, you know, so he never forgets it.

06:03 Speaker 2 Rabbi Radinsky does that. He goes to-

06:05 Speaker 1 Who's this?

06:06 Speaker 2 Rabbi Radinsky.

06:07 Speaker 1 Oh, yeah.

06:08 Speaker 2 In, in Monsey. So his daughter got married recently. There was a boy, my son was asked to do a video of, uh, some stuff that the shul put on.

06:15 Speaker 1 Right.

06:16 Speaker 2 One of the lines was, "Be careful what you say. He never forgets anything. Never."

06:20 Speaker 1 Never. Um, so and then eventually, um, when he got older, uh, he made Aliyah also to Israel. Uh, that was in the year Taf Resh Nun Beis, and he settled in Yerushalayim, and as soon as he came there, they appointed him the head of the Beis Din of the community of Hasidim over there. Uh, the Rebbe Maharash, that was the fourth Lubavitcher Rebbe, he said about Rosh Yeshiva that, by him, there is no such thing as forgetting. There's no-- He doesn't forget at all. Uh, and the Rebbe Rashab said about him that he was such a great genius that even had he lived in earlier generations where there were, uh, great, uh, also, uh, real great geniuses, uh, he would still be considered to be an outstanding, uh, an outstanding genius even then. Um, the Rebbe Rashab once referred to him as the Sar HaTorah, meaning the one who is in charge of the Torah, meaning that's how much he was, uh, knowledgeable of the Torah. And he's interned in the, um, Mount of Olives, in the Har HaZeitim, that's where he's interned. There is a very, uh, uh, large section over there of, uh, Chabad, uh, people throughout the years who were interned at the Har HaZeitim. Now, this whole, uh, idea, uh, that now, you know, people consider always the generation they're living at a lower generation than the earlier generations. And we see therefore, like, um, the rules that were, uh, set forth in the Shulchan Aruch, like in the Code of

08:09 Speaker 1 Jewish Law, or the rules that the way, uh, the discussions, the way we have in the Talmud, we know that the, uh, later generations don't have the right to dispute them or to disagree with them. That's been established as the Halakha. And the assumption is that the generations are actually sort of descending and going, uh, on a lower level than they were before, that the earlier generations were much greater, uh, greater level and a higher level, and more knowledgeable and, and smarter, and more learning Torah. You know, we still have one benefit as, uh, it is, as the saying goes, it's like a midget on the shoulders of a giant. Now, of course, if you, uh, measure the midget next to the giant, the giant is a lot taller than the midget. But still, once the midget climbs up on top of the shoulders of the giant, he's gonna be a little bit higher. So that means basically because we have the benefit from a lot of the information that the others have already developed, and we are just going on top of their information. So therefore, uh, especially today, you know, it's hard to, to, uh, to really imagine. Like, we, we sit and wonder, and we see some of the buildings that people built, um, physically, how they were able to, to construct these kind of things without having the modern tools, without having bulldozers, without having cranes, and without having all various different kinds of things, uh, the dynamite that we, we,

09:54 Speaker 1 we do different things today, and yet they built these unbelievable, these fortresses. The, uh, in Egypt, they have the-

10:02 Speaker 2 Pyramids

10:03 Speaker 1 ... the pyramids and the-

10:04 Speaker 2 Huge ramps

10:05 Speaker 1 And yeah, but people, but it's just-

10:07 Speaker 2 Slaves.

10:07 Speaker 1 Slave labor.

10:08 Speaker 2 Yeah, but to move the, to move the-

10:10 Speaker 1 It was, but-- So, but in a way-

10:13 Speaker 2 Not a lot

10:13 Speaker 1 ... Lahavdil. The pyramid was built Lahavdil, uh, in Torah, it's the same thing. You know, today we have the use of computers, we have the use of searches, we have the use of, of, of, of different ways of finding things. I mean, you can imagine people writing down things, having to find from your handwriting and, you know, it was one at a time. And how were these people-- And they knew every verse, they knew every... It was like, it was a different level. It was a different level. The people were at a different level, and they were able to-

10:41 Speaker 2 They were a lot smarter to it.

10:42 Speaker 1 Yeah. They were forced to use their mind. Yeah. And forced and, but probably, they were probably, you know, there's an expression in the Talmud that if the earlier, if the earlier ones were like angels, then we are like human beings. But if they were like human beings, we're like donkeys. And it says, "And not like the donkey of Pilchas Ben Yayer, who had, uh, a very special donkey who wouldn't, you know, uh, eat, eat-"

11:10 Speaker 2 A problem.

11:11 Speaker 1 Yeah, well, he wouldn't eat from things that were, uh, not properly kosher, or there's a story with a, with a diamond, uh, uh, jewelry. There are other different stories, but the point here is, uh, when he gave him a big title, he said that the, uh, uh, the rabbi would even be a genius in the older generations. That means that notwithstanding that the general average-

11:34 Speaker 2 Yeah

11:34 Speaker 1 ... has been lowered, but I'm trying to explain, but he still remained like one, and even in that generation, it would be... It's similar we find in the Torah when it says, by Rashi explains, when it says by Noah, that Noah was a tzadik, he was righteous in his generation. And Rashi, in one commentary, there's two commentaries. One commentary Rashi says-

11:57 Speaker 2 Everyone was

11:57 Speaker 1 ... that, uh, that, that even in his generation, he was a, a tzadik, and, uh, if it would've been another generation, he would be even a bigger tzadik. Or sometimes maybe another generation, he would be considered nothing. Only in this generation he was a tzadik. But here is the opposite, that even in the other generation, he would be considered a great man.