Tevet - 27 of Teves - Yahrtzeit of Rabbi Dov Zev Kazunikav, Rabbi of Yakatrinaslov in 5668 –1/1/1908

00:00 Speaker 1 The Yemei Chabad, this is the twenty-seventh day of Teves in the year Taf Reish Samach Ches, which is... Okay, January 1st, 1908. Okay, that's the day that HaRav Agnon, HaRav Hosid, the great rabbi, great Hosid, Reb Dave- Reb Dov Zev Kazhunikov. Kazhunikov, that's the... Hope I'm pronouncing it right. He was the actually rabbi of the city of Yekatrinoslav. Uh, that's today it's known as the Dnipropetrovsk. Uh, that's the, um, city where actually Malinkovich comes from, uh, from that city. Um, the Rebbe's father and the, the Rebbe, they grew up in the city of Yekatrinoslav. He was the rabbi, Reb Dov Zev was the rabbi prior to the Rebbe's father taking over the rabbinate of the city of Yekatrinoslav. His name was, in Hebrew they call him Dov Zev. You know what a Dov and a Zev is? Dov means a beer.

01:10 Speaker 2 A beer.

01:10 Speaker 1 And a Zev is a wolf.

01:12 Speaker 2 Wow.

01:12 Speaker 1 So in Yiddish they used to call him Berevov. That was the name that they used to refer to. He was the rav of the city of Yekatrinoslav until the year Taf Reish Samach Ches. Um, so that was till 1908. That's when he passed away. At that point, um, the Reb Levi Yitzchok Schneersohn, the father of the Rebbe, took over and became the rabbi after the passing of, uh, Reb Berevov. Uh, this Reb Dov Zev, he was one of the distinguished, uh, special Hasidim of the Alter Rebbe. He was a great genius in the revealed and the Hasidic part. And notwithstanding his great knowledge and his great learning, he was very, very modest. Uh, he visited, in his youth, he visited the Reb Tzemach Tzedek, the third Lubavitcher Rebbe, and then later on he was one of the elder Hasidim of the Reb Maharash and the Reb Radashab that followed the Tzemach Tzedek. Um, as a child he suffered, um, from a defect in his speech and he was-- couldn't speak, couldn't speak well. He had, uh, problems, uh, problems speaking. And when he, uh, turned, uh, when he was seventeen years old, he went to the, uh, Tzemach Tzedek and he told him that he is suffering immensely from that speech impairment. And the Tzemach Tzedek blessed him that he should be healed from that blum- blemish. And immediately as he went out from the room of the Tzemach Tzedek, he started to speak normally.

02:59 Speaker 2 Mm.

02:59 Speaker 1 Uh, when he went back home, he started to recite the, uh, Hasidic discourses that he heard by the Rebbe and his... He was just talking beautifully. It was like a unbelievable, uh, speaker. And all the people of the city came to witness the surprise that the, uh, miracle that the Tzemach Tzedek has just performed. Uh, and he himself expressed himself that, uh, there is a s- expression. You know that the Maharal Mi-Prague, he created a, a golem. A golem means, uh, basically, uh, without a, without a, a soul. He's just-

03:46 Speaker 2 A clay figure

03:47 Speaker 1 ... a clay figure who was able to do certain things for the Maharal Mi-Prague. And he says the Maharal Mi-Prague created a golem. He made it out of sand. He says that Tzemach Tzedek made a, a figure, a golem from flesh. In other words, he, he switched them around, too. That was what the Tzemach Tzedek did. Uh, there's other various different stories about the Tzemach Tzedek. Uh, sometimes there is a story that there was a... from the people from the... They didn't really believe in the powers of the Tzemach Tzedek and of the holiness, and they brought in a, a child who couldn't speak, and then he came out speaking. And then the mother says, "Let's quickly go before he c- takes credit for the, uh, for the miracle." That's another, it's anoth- another story. But, um, later years, he was, uh, became famous as a very distinguished person, and there is a lot of stories, uh, have been, uh, around him as somebody who is holy and somebody who, uh, does wonders. Uh, twenty-five years after his passing, the government decided to go ahead and move the Jewish cemetery from Yekatrinoslav to another pa- place. So it was basically necessary to move all the people that were buried from there into another place. There's ways of doing it. Well, when there's no choice. If they're gonna put a road through this, they're gonna just- they go-

05:17 Speaker 2 Yeah, they, they do. I mean, they actually don't, but they-

05:18 Speaker 1 There's a whole, there's a whole procedure.

05:20 Speaker 2 Yeah.

05:20 Speaker 1 So the Reb Levi Yitzchok Schneerson, who was the Rebbe-- who was the rav in the city following him, he was those people who occupied themselves in moving the body of Reb Dov Zev. He was moved to the other place, and he would relate with excitement that how this Reb Dov Zev holy, how holy he was. That notwithstanding it was twenty-five years after his passing, his body was intact as if he was buried on that same day.

05:51 Speaker 2 Was he the one who had the, uh, the speech impediment?

05:54 Speaker 1 Yeah. And that, so yeah, yeah. That, that was in his young youth and, uh... So to go ahead and, uh, um, you know, this is like a tremendous, uh, shows about the sanctity, but it shows also about, you know, uh, Reb Levi, you know, being able to, uh, see this and relate this and then, you know, that's, uh, so that's, uh, very special. Uh, and that's the twenty-seventh day of Teves.