Chapter Five

With the end of the war, the mitnagdim renewed their activities, dispatching men to influence the chasidim not to form bonds with the Mitteler Rebbe as his chasidim. Though their efforts were soon obviously unsuccessful, they still entertained hopes. Even with the Mitteler Rebbe in Lubavitch, they felt that they could devise some stratagem against him, knowing him to be self-effacing and placatory.

This second generation of Chabad leadership began in the midst of post-war chaos. The provinces of White Russia and Lithuania were greatly affected by the Mitteler Rebbe’s presence among them in Lubavitch. It was widely known that the Alter Rebbe had been active in the recent struggle, and that as a result, the government and nobility were sympathetic toward the chasidim.

Most important for the morale of the chasidim, upon assuming formal leadership of the chasidim in 1814, the Mitteler Rebbe issued unequivocal orders that the chasidim of White Russia build their own synagogues. Under no condition were they to enter the synagogues of mitnagdim. Violators would be punished with expulsion from the chasidic fraternity. In this way the influence of mitnagdim would be minimized.

On occasion, he instructed chasidim residing in towns without a quorum of chasidim, to pray in solitude and to listen to the Torah reading1 from outside the synagogue. I well remember a chasid from Vitebsk who had lived in Lida at that time. For the five years he lived in Lida, he never prayed in a synagogue except for the two months a year that he spent in Lubavitch.2 The Mitteler Rebbe ordered all chasidim to refrain from any sort of discussion with mitnagdim; the younger chasidim received stern warnings to this effect. These drastic measures isolated the opposing camps sharply and completely. The moderate mitnagdim were now almost convinced that their ambitions of discouraging the study of Chasidus were doomed.

One glimmer of hope remained. The mitnagdim hoped to develop a schism among the chasidim through the disciples of the Alter Rebbe, Rabbi Aaron Strasheler and Rabbi Shmuel Freidesh.3 But even this desperate attempt was promptly counteracted.

As soon as the Mitteler Rebbe settled in Lubavitch, he assembled hundreds of gifted young scholars where they devoted themselves diligently to studying Chasidus and reviewing his regular Shabbat mamaarim. A rule was instituted that forbade any young man from remaining in Lubavitch for more than two, or in special cases three, months. En route home, each young man was required to spend a day or two in every town he passed, reviewing in each place the discourses he had learned in Lubavitch. The chasidim of every city, town and village in White Russia agreed to supply all wayfarers to and from Lubavitch with food and lodgings.

These measures effectively united the chasidim and contributed to the extended influence of Chasidus.