24 of Teves - Yahrtzeit of the Alter Rebbe in 5573 – 12/27/1812

00:00 Speaker 1 Chabad will do on the twenty-fourth day of Teves, and this is in the year Tet-Kuf-Ayin-Gimel, that's, uh, five thousand five hundred and seventy-three. So December twenty-seven in eighteen twelve. Now, that was the yahrtzeit of the Alter Rebbe. That's when the Alter Rebbe passed away. Oh. Now, technically, uh, the Alter Rebbe was still going strong. But there was the, um, um, this, this, this, this war going on at the time Napoleon was, uh, waging war against the, uh, Russians. And in the year Tet-Kuf-Ayin-Beis, at the end of the Tet-Kuf-Ayin-Beis, several months beforehand, uh, the Alter Rebbe was forced to le- to leave the city of Liadi, where he was with all the Hasidim. He was forced to leave because the advancing forces of Napoleon. And, uh, that was on the twenty-ninth day of Menachem-Av, as we've studied. Uh, they were advancing very quickly. The Alter Rebbe, as we know, uh, took, took the side of the, uh, Russians against Napoleon. There was a whole big, uh, debate amongst the, uh, leaders of the Jewish people, who was better for the Jews, whether Napoleon or, um, or the tsar is better. And, uh, uh, the Alter Rebbe sided that the tsar was better for the Jews because Alter Rebbe was very worried about, um, this-- all these freedoms and the, um, opportunity for, uh, the Jewish people losing their identity and getting mixed in with all the rest of the world. But in any event, the Alter Rebbe had to leave his, uh, city of Liadi, where

01:47 Speaker 1 he was very comfortable and many Hasidim, and he, uh, uh, did a lot of, uh, his outreach work from the city of Liadi. And starting from the twenty-ninth day of Menachem-Av until the eighth day of Teves, um, which was that period they were running, that was, um, like a-- like four months from Elul, Tishrei, Cheshvan, and Kislev. And, uh, that was like four months, uh, till the eighth day of Teves. The Alter Rebbe was on the run with all the-- with his family. They were basically moving from place to place, and many tens of Hasidim went along with the Alter Rebbe. And they finally arrived there to the village of Piena. In, uh, h-- On, on the eighth day of Teves, they came to the, uh, uh, city of Piena. And the, the forces of Napoleon, uh, did, uh, terrible, uh, devastation to all the places that they came, all the cities and all the settlements in White Russia or, uh, what they call the Ukraine over there or, uh, Belarus. Um, and, uh, they were, um, uh, this, these, these, these news traveled quick, and they came to the Alter Rebbe. And there were thousands of Jewish families that lived in those areas remained totally, uh, lost everything they owned. They would remain totally, uh, became poor. And, um, the, um, other cities like there was the city, um, um, in the other areas. This was in the, like in, in, in, in more like in Lithuania. Uh, over there was ano- other trouble.

03:38 Speaker 1 There was the, like Kovner, Vilna, Vitebsk. No, that was in, in, in, in, in, in I guess also were, uh, more like in Lithuania- Poland. Po-Poland. That was Poland already. Lithuania is po- it's outside of Moscow. Yeah. With-- at the And over there also, the armies of Napoleon, um- Were decimated ... uh, they, um, they were, um, very friendly with the Jews over there, but they- But they were decimated ... intimate, yeah. But what they did was they lived, you know, they, they, they had with all the Jewish, all the girls and everything else, it was like a terrible, uh, terrible time for them. Five hundred people, ended up with ten thousand. Um, they, um, they invited, you know, they, they, they actually led the Jewish people. They'd invite them all, and they, you know, were all together over there. They lived a totally, uh, promiscuous, uh, kind of, uh, life over there. It was-- And, um, the Rebbe, you know, was very pained from all this, from the, on one hand, the devastation that they did to, to the places of, of Liadi and those places, and the, and on the other hand, also the, uh, this kind of, uh, frivolous, uh, relationship going on over there on the other hand. So it says that on the eighth day of Teves, there was about, uh, sixty wagons, uh, with people, loaded with people, came to the village of Piena. And they were-- found that place to be somewhat of a, of a, of a,

05:11 Speaker 1 of a resting place because the village of Piena was quite large. It had like three hundred, uh, uh, courtyards. It had large houses and, um, were many empty places there because the men had gone out to war. So there was a lot of space over there. So-- And the village people were very kind-hearted people, and they provided rooms and dwelling places and heating for all the people that came there. And they didn't charge them anything. They allowed them to stay over there. So the-- It says like this. So this was a writing of the, uh, Mitteler Rebbe, the son of the Alter Rebbe. He writes, "What should I tell you?" He says, "It's very bitter over here." Um, he says, "Because the- Crown of our, of our head, our family, the head of our family, is talking about the Alter Rebbe, has fallen, has been taken from us. Uh, because of the, uh, being so, um, so bitter, uh, from hearing all the terrible news, um, and, um, he, he got very, very cold. Uh, he was an older, older age already, so he sort of caught a, uh, cold, um, maybe a, a pneumonia or something like that.

06:31 Speaker 2 Cold.

06:31 Speaker 1 Cold, some cold, and came very in- ... in five days that he, uh, it took five days that he was, like, totally, um, you know, got so sick, and 24th day of Teves, he passed away. So he wasn't really, you know, he was elderly. Well, the, he was 68 years old at the time, but he wasn't, he wasn't, like, sick or anything else, but he was just, like, all of a sudden because all the cold and all the, the, the, the tzoros, and all the, I guess, uh, emotional pain that he had from everything that was going on that caused him all the-

07:05 Speaker 2 Back then, that was a decent age.

07:06 Speaker 3 They didn't have any products.

07:08 Speaker 2 No, they had, uh, but, but back in those days to live into that age was-

07:11 Speaker 1 Yeah, was also-

07:12 Speaker 2 It wasn't, it wasn't young.

07:13 Speaker 1 But Rebbe was, uh, pretty, um, you know, was pretty active in all this time, and had a very strong following and-

07:20 Speaker 2 He was a young man.

07:20 Speaker 1 It says that for 60 years, um, the Alter Rebbe built his community service on four pillars. Love of your fellow Jew, to disseminate the Torah, serve Hashem with self-sacrifice, and acts of kindness and charity.

07:45 Speaker 3 I thought it was on three things, the world stands.

07:47 Speaker 1 Yeah, but this was his, his, um-

07:50 Speaker 3 His thing

07:50 Speaker 1 ... yeah, four pillars. Yeah. You know, sometimes, you know, they can have a chair on three stands. It can stand, and some of them have four legs. So there is, there is four legs, too.

08:00 Speaker 3 On floor stands.

08:01 Speaker 1 He inherited, yeah. He inherited to his seeds- Other people say that on three things the world stands on, on guilt, guilt, guilt.

08:12 Speaker 2 Just to let you know that the Napoleon, uh, marched into Russia on June the 24th, and the war ended on December the 14th, 1812.

08:23 Speaker 1 Okay, so that was then.

08:24 Speaker 2 So 250,000 soldiers entered Moscow, and 70,000 were killed in one day of battle.

08:30 Speaker 1 Whoa.

08:30 Speaker 3 Whoa.

08:32 Speaker 1 Wow.

08:32 Speaker 2 So they were decimated. So by the time they left Russia, I think they had 10,000 troops 'cause they had no food, and the winter came.

08:39 Speaker 1 Yeah.

08:40 Speaker 2 So. Now this was-

08:43 Speaker 1 So this was, um, um-

08:45 Speaker 3 Interesting

08:45 Speaker 1 ... this li- li- this is, uh, the, um, something that our leaders of Chabad inherited to, um, to later on how we need to work in our... That, you know, it has to be on the pillar of loving a fellow Jew, disseminating, spreading out the Torah, working with totally self-sacrifice, serving of Hashem with self-sacrifice, and acts of kindness and tzedakah. After the passing of the Alter Rebbe-

09:12 Speaker 3 It's Chabad.

09:13 Speaker 1 It's Chabad.

09:14 Speaker 3 Yeah.

09:14 Speaker 1 After-

09:15 Speaker 3 It's Chabad

09:15 Speaker 1 ... his passing, they brought him to the city of Haditch. Uh, I guess that, uh, it was a goyish, uh, probably place, this Karpyana over there, the village of Pyana. There wasn't, like, a Jewish place. There was no Jewish cemetery. It was a small village, so they brought him to the city of Haditch. And on the riverbank over there, uh, is the resting place of the, um, of the Alter, of the Alter Rebbe. Um-

09:47 Speaker 3 Ravi, can I ask you a question?

09:49 Speaker 1 And, yeah.

09:50 Speaker 3 Okay, finish the thought.

09:51 Speaker 1 I just wanted to say that, um, what the Alter Rebbe started, as we spoke about, I mean, nobody, um, has done so. Because in, in, in, in, in, for many generations, I mean, he did, just change so many things for the people. Uh, and he implemented different things i- in his lifetime, and which is there to ever, you know, to bring, uh, the Jewish people or those who follow the Chabad, you know, so many, uh, different, uh, various different ways of doing the mitzvahs and doing the Torah in a whole nother way, changed so many different things. How we put on the tefillin, and what tefillin we wear, and what the tzitzits, and the mikvahs, and the shechita, and the... Everything what we do today is the Alter Rebbe implemented. He made a major change, and when we do things today, uh, we do it different than they used to do it for many, many years. He brought this change about, which is, uh, something tremendous.

10:57 Speaker 3 Is it much different-- Oh, sorry, you got a question. Go ahead.

10:59 Speaker 1 Go ahead.

10:59 Speaker 3 No, no. That's-

11:00 Speaker 1 Ask, ask what you had

11:00 Speaker 3 ... I have about 10 other questions, too.

11:01 Speaker 1 Yeah, go ahead. Yeah.

11:02 Speaker 3 One of which is probably where you're going.

11:04 Speaker 1 Go ahead.

11:04 Speaker 3 Well, let me just ask one question.

11:05 Speaker 1 Sure.

11:06 Speaker 3 So this whole teaching, this whole principles of the four, four legs or-

11:11 Speaker 1 Yeah

11:11 Speaker 3 ... how, how much of that, um, was taken up by the other, either the Hasid- other Hasidic sects or other parts of, you know, traditional Judaism?

11:24 Speaker 1 It's hard, it's hard to, um... I mean, these, these principles that we mentioned over here-

11:30 Speaker 3 Maybe, you know, Hasids copying other, you know, traditions

11:30 Speaker 1 ... Yeah. The principle that we mentioned over here are not really new to Judaism, or they're not new philosophy. Like, for example, uh, to care and take responsibility for another Jew and to help them out, um, love of your fellow Jew is a principle based on the Torah. But there's one thing is the way it's in the Torah, and then there's another thing is to make it your way of-

11:54 Speaker 3 Life

11:54 Speaker 1 ... of life and then doing. So, uh, say spreading out the Torah, that's something which One needs to do regardless, but to make that an empty, uh, uh, uh, a principle or a mainstay of your, of your service, that's, that, that, that is unique or working with self-sacrifice. I mean, you know, it's like pushing the-

12:16 Speaker 3 So you're putting it into practice as opposed to-

12:18 Speaker 1 Yeah, practicing- Practices and putting a strong emphasis and generally, you know, um, the obligation of reaching out to people and working with the community and the community, um, community life. You know, a lot of people live their lives, um, without becoming activists or without becoming, uh, askanim, as they say, without doing things for the community. They just, you know, they come to shul, they do their things, and they don't get involved in anything outside of that. But then you have, you know, people that they become active, and they try to make a difference in the, uh, people's lives and try to perpetuate or try to disseminate, try to increase awareness and try to take some more responsibility for others, not just for themselves. And this is, um, this is one of the, um, things that the Rebbe and the Rebbeim did themselves, and they wanted us to do too, than to become active, to become activists, which means to see to it that we increase the Jewish awareness and, um-

13:37 Speaker 3 So what was the reaction to some of the other Hasidic groups, to his teachings?

13:41 Speaker 1 Okay, so they, they did it in their own way. Now, in some, some groups were more isolationists, were more like, you know, insulated, more than others. Uh, Chabad, you know, had a message to share with the world, and it always had... So today, it changed a little bit. Today, the message is, you know, there's God out there, there's Judaism out there, which unfortunately a lot of people, you know, are either are not aware of or don't have the time, don't care about. So now the, the job is more to just make people aware to the, the, the, the basics. In those days, in the Alter Rebbe's days, when I guess a large part of the segment was religious anyways, over there the awareness was to make them aware of the inner part of Torah, of the Hasidic, uh, teachings, of the Baal Shem Tov and about the, the other, uh, uh, concept that Hasidus, uh, has to offer. So I guess that every period in history needs what it needs, but the, the idea is the same, to be active and the approaches of loving the fellow Jews, to disseminating the Torah, and to, uh, working very hard with total dedication and self-sacrifice, and just doing acts of kindness and, and, and charity. And, uh, that's, that, that is whatever it expresses itself, whether it expresses itself in teaching Hasidus or it expresses itself in teaching Yiddishkeit or whatever it is, if you're guided by those principles. And, um, I guess you asked the question

15:19 Speaker 1 of other groups. You know, the, the first thing here you see what he mentions over here, I'm not so sure what exactly, I mean, where this is based on. I'm not sure the exact wording where it comes from, but I think the, the first thing over here and the main principle over here is the love of the fellow Jew because it's a whole different thing. Sometimes people rebuke others or sometimes people try, uh... It's, it's, it's not for-- It's not because they love the other person. It's because, uh, they have something to say or they want... It has to be based on love. It has to be based on, on caring about the other person. It can't be based on, you know, "I'm better than you," or that "I'm going to, uh, tell you something just to, you know, show you that I'm smarter or that I'm better than you." If that's the approach, then you're not successful and the message is not, is not listened to. The, if the Torah, before the Torah says that one needs to, uh, rebuke your fellow, the Torah says you gotta love him, so he has to come out of care or concern for the other person. And that's why the m- first principle is Ahavas Yisroel, is loving the other person and-

16:36 Speaker 3 It seems to be the most difficult one to actually

16:39 Speaker 1 Because people are self-centered by nature-

16:42 Speaker 3 Yeah

16:42 Speaker 1 ... and people love themselves. And, you know, as much as we try to say, you know, uh, whether it's to a spouse or somebody, we say to them, "I love you," you're essentially saying, "I love me because what you're doing for me." Uh, so you're saying, "I love you," but, you know, you give me something that causes me pleasure, and therefore I love you.

17:02 Speaker 3 Love you.

17:02 Speaker 1 So you're loving, you're really loving yourself. You know, loving you means that when we say, uh, you love God, when you say you love God, it's also the same idea. The, the idea is not so much for what you gain out of the, the relationship. It's because you just love the other person. You just have that innate love for the other person. And, um, it's very hard because people are created and are self-centered and, you know, and just have their own self. So it's very hard to love something else which is not me, which isn't connected to me. But that's, um, not that anybody reaches that level of perfection. It takes a lot of hard work. Uh, but, you know, at least if you know that you try, if... We used to stand by, uh, the Rebbe's, uh, farbrengens, that's the gathering, and the Rebbe used to hack every Shabbos. I've used, I mean, the word hack. He's, "Tell us you gotta love a fellow Jew. You gotta do, you gotta..." He used to. So At the end of the day, something cropped in your head. You know, you heard every, every, every day, every Shabbos, you have to do something, and you have to helpful, and you have to... So even if you are totally apathetic, you still somehow, something penetrates, you know. A little bit penetrates. So at least there was talk about it. The rabbi would demand all the time to go ahead and behave like that and do that. And that's,

18:31 Speaker 1 I guess, the reason why we learn those things is to see about what we really need to do so that we, at least we read about it, and we hear about it, so a little bit rubs off. You know, we have a little bit.

18:44 Speaker 4 And it was every Jew, not just religious Jew, right?

18:48 Speaker 1 Should-- Yeah, absolutely. That's the whole principle is that there's-

18:52 Speaker 4 So it's just, uh-

18:52 Speaker 1 That's right. There's no, there's no, there's no labels as far-

18:55 Speaker 4 Everyone's a Jew.

18:56 Speaker 1 There's no labels. Jews, every, everybody is-

18:58 Speaker 4 Right. A Jew is a Jew.

18:59 Speaker 1 Yeah. Doesn't matter. That's the, that's the whole... And, you know, it, it, sometimes it becomes, um, sometimes it becomes a little problematic, you know. We-- People try to protect themselves at the same time are trying to, to reach out and, you know, it's, uh, sometimes there is a little bit of a conflict. But in Chabad, we put the emphasis on self-sacrifice, as he says over here. Sometimes you have to give up a little bit of yourself and which means that, you know, you're placing yourself in such situations. Of course, everything according to Halakha, but you're placing yourself in such situations where are not so conducive, let's say, to do Yiddishkeit, to do Torah. You yourself are sacrificing in order to try to bring somebody else back, uh-

19:49 Speaker 4 That's why Chabad's always welcoming to everybody.

19:52 Speaker 1 Absolutely.

19:52 Speaker 4 Not-- I mean, there's-- doesn't matter if you're religious-

19:57 Speaker 1 Absolutely

19:57 Speaker 4 ... or not, no.

19:58 Speaker 1 Absolutely.

20:00 Speaker 4 It's not like that.

20:00 Speaker 1 No.

20:01 Speaker 4 Not at all. Not at all. They're in- they're insulated is what they are.

20:04 Speaker 1 Yeah. And-

20:05 Speaker 4 All of them

20:05 Speaker 1 ... and, uh, sometimes they feel threatened by others. Sometimes people feel threatened by, uh, by other, by others who don't, you know, look or, or-

20:16 Speaker 4 Right

20:17 Speaker 1 ... and they, um... But, um, okay, but this is, this is, this is the idea over here to go ahead and, and reach out and do all this work. Yeah.