1 of Iyar Yahrtzeit of Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Videpstk - א אייר תקמה יום הסתלקות רמ"מ מוויטעפסק

00:00 Speaker 1 Uh, Yemei Chabad for the first day of Iyar, uh, Alef Iyar. This is in the year Taf Kuf Mem Ches, which is five hundred and eighty-eight. April 15th, 1828, is the day of passing of the great tzadik, Rebbe Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk. Now, Rebbe Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk doesn't quite make it into the lineage of the Chabad Rebbes. Or not only, I'm not talking about the Chabad Rebbes, uh, even like from the Baal Shem Tov. Like we know it goes the Baal Shem Tov, and after the Baal Shem Tov, we have the Maggid of Mizrich, and then goes the Alter Rebbe. But somehow, to a certain extent, Rebbe Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk, he was born in the city of Vitebsk, that's why they call him Rebbe Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk. And they also, uh, call him Rebbe Menachem Mendel Horodok because after the passing of the Maggid of Mizrich, he moved to Horodok. So they call him... And eventually, he moved to Israel, we'll see. Um, he sort of became temporary the leader of the Hasidim after the passing of the Maggid of Mizrich, and the Alter Rebbe sort of accepted him as the Rebbe. But eventually, when he moved to Israel, it sort of goes straight, the Baal Shem Tov, the Maggid of Mizrich, then the Alter Rebbe. But when he was a young man, Rebbe Menachem Mendel of Horodok, when he was a young man, or Rebbe Menachem of Vitebsk, he was twice by the Baal Shem Tov. So he was able still,

01:44 Speaker 1 he was older, he could be by the Baal Shem Tov, and he was one of the very first students of the Maggid of Mizrich. And one of his outstanding qualities was that he was a, a very humble. He was really kept himself very low to a, uh, to the furthest extent. Uh, even though outwardly he sort of behaved in a, uh, in a leading way, but inside he was totally humble and he was totally, uh, low. He would always end his, um, letters by writing the word, "The one who is truly low." As if that was Hashof El Be'emes, that's the way he would write, low and level. Now, after the passing of the Maggid of Mizrich, he settled in the city of Horodok, which is not far from Vitebsk, where he was born, and he became s- the leader of the Hasidic movement in the countries of Reisen, which is the White Russia, which is like the Ukraine today. What is that again? No.

03:00 Speaker 2 Belarus.

03:01 Speaker 1 That's Belarus. That's Belarus. Okay, which is Belarus. Up till the year of Taf Kuf Lamed Zayin, in which he, uh... Till the year Taf Kuf Lamed Zayin. Okay. That, this was in seventeen seventy-seven, in which he went up to Eretz Yisrael. That was the group of Hasidim that went up, uh, together. And remember, the Alter Rebbe initially joined that group, and he wanted to go up with them, and then finally was persuaded to stay back and lead the Hasidim that were left over there. And, uh, he ended up going to, um, uh, to Eretz Yisrael. He-- They settled in the city of Tzfat. That's where they settled. However, there was a lot of trouble that they suffered from the Mitnagdim over there, from the opponents of the Hasidim. He moved to the city of Tiberias. Tiberias is right down the hill. If you're in Tzfat, you can see the Kineret, and you can see the Tiberias right on the bottom. So he moved to Tiberias, in which he, uh, built a beautiful, uh, synagogue. And the people that lived in Tiberias, which were majority were Sephardim, um, they gave him lots of honor. And, um, before he passed away, he told those people that were standing next to him that they should leave the room because he said that there's the presence of the divine over him, that is standing over him.

04:37 Speaker 2 Okay. Horodok. That particular village is in western Ukraine.

04:41 Speaker 1 Which village?

04:42 Speaker 2 Horodok. Ha-

04:44 Speaker 1 Horodok.

04:44 Speaker 2 Horodok. Yeah. It, uh, but it cha- it was Belarus, and then it's also, it can be Ukraine, depending upon the time it was.

04:51 Speaker 1 What time it was. Okay.

04:52 Speaker 2 Okay. 'Cause that's just what I added.

04:53 Speaker 1 Yeah. Uh, so- So God's presence was- When... Uh? God's presence was over him, he told them- He said he told everybody to leave. He had like a special, um, I guess, um, special revelation. Now, God's presence is always there, but it was present in a more, uh, I guess, external way so that people could not be there. And actually, after a short while, he passed away. Um, now usually, uh, with, with, with holiness and purity, he's left, you know, his soul left departed, but, uh, usually it says that people should not be alone when they pass. It's better to... But I guess in the presence of the Shekhinah, it was different. But-

05:32 Speaker 2 What was his first name?

05:34 Speaker 1 Rebbe Menachem Mendel.

05:35 Speaker 2 Okay. So Rebbe Menachem-

05:35 Speaker 1 That's the source of the Menachem Mendel.

05:37 Speaker 2 Okay. So this is, is a Rabbi Menachem of Horodok who's a disciple of the Baal Shem Tov.

05:42 Speaker 1 That's it.

05:43 Speaker 2 Okay.

05:43 Speaker 1 He went twice to-

05:44 Speaker 2 The great-grandfather of Rebbe Menachem of Breslov.

05:46 Speaker 1 He was eventually the grandfather of Rebbe Menachem of Breslov. Oh. Rebbe Menachem Mendel Horodok. Oh. His, um, um... His actually, um, resting place is in Tiberias over there at the edge of the Kineret, uh- When you go there, you can see, um, the, uh, resting place. And he says, "The Rebbe once said that, uh, with regards to... at a, at a, at a gathering, the Lubavitcher Rebbe said that, um, he was a leader, sort of. He conducted himself with leadership, and he had a special connection to Chassidus Chabad, uh, because he was the leader in the area of Lysen," that we said before, Belarus or, or, um... And he also, um, he also was a great genius. He was a great scholar. Um, they were trying to, um, meet with the Gaon of Vilna, with the Vilna Gaon, to try to make peace and try to convince him. So who went? The Alter Rebbe. And he took along together with him, or I don't know who took along, but he went along together with Reb Menachem Mendel of Horodok, because he too was a great genius and a great scholar. So they were trying to... I mean, eventually, unfortunately, he didn't even wanna meet with them.

07:08 Speaker 3 Yeah.

07:08 Speaker 1 So, um, the, um, Rebbe said that his previous-- the previous Rebbe related that there was a certain period of time that the Alter Rebbe would travel to Reb Menachem Mendel of Horodok like a Chassid goes to a Rebbe, so that the Alter Rebbe accepted the Mendel Horodok as, um, as a Rebbe. So if it was the Alter Rebbe's Rebbe, so there is a connection to Chabad too, besides the fact eventually it split. And it's interesting that we have a collection of letters in the Tanya. Uh, those are letters that the Alter Rebbe wrote. And one letter which the Alter Rebbe wrote to comfort the people in Israel after the passing of Reb Menachem Mendel of Horodok, after he passed away, um, and the Alter Rebbe actually wrote an explanation to that letter, which is the only letter he wrote an explanation to. So you see how the, um, Reb- Rebbe, uh, cherished, um, the Reb Mendel Horodok. And at another occasion, the Rebbe said that, um, during the first period after the passing of the Maggid, Reb Menachem Mendel of Horodok, he replaced... He was the leader until the time that he moved to Israel. At that point, the Alter Rebbe became the leader. And, um, the Alter Rebbe, when initially he wrote that when they wanted him to become Rebbe, he said that the, uh, um, leadership belongs to Reb Menachem Mendel. He didn't wanna initially. I mean, eventually, once he moved to Israel, that is when the Alter Rebbe took place. And as

09:02 Speaker 1 we've spoken many times, today, people run for office, run for leadership. Everybody's trying to be a big macher, as they say. But the real leaders don't run after that. They run from it because they recognize what the responsibility is.

09:19 Speaker 3 But somebody has to take the responsibility itself.

09:21 Speaker 1 That's right. So they took-- they take the responsibility almost reluctantly because, like you said, somebody has to take it, and that- that- that's their mission that they have to do. Especially we know about the Baal Shem Tov also. There's a lot of letters how he was forced to be revealed because the Baal Shem Tov wanted to remain in obscurity. Nobody should know about him, and he was forced basically by his teacher to, uh, reveal himself. So I'm saying this is-- but this is just another example in these cases that, uh, whatever the, um, uh, destiny Hashem has and he wants his leaders to be, but it just shows how much those who run for leadership or those who run for honor are probably not fit to, to be.

10:05 Speaker 3 Well, it's ironic what you're saying is-

10:07 Speaker 1 Yeah.

10:07 Speaker 3 Yesterday, there was, there's a thing on the History Channel. It's a series of four programs about the titans of America. And they're talking about the turn of the century. There were three people that were in the American economy. There was J.P. Morgan. There was, um, that guy- Carnegie.

10:21 Speaker 1 Carnegie.

10:21 Speaker 3 And J.D. Rockefeller. They-- Those three controlled, in today's equivalent, a trillion dollars-

10:27 Speaker 1 Oh.

10:27 Speaker 3 -they had. So when, when Carnegie sold out to, um, to, to J.P. Morgan to create U.S. Steel-

10:37 Speaker 1 Right.

10:37 Speaker 3 It was the first billion dollar