In 1798, when the Czarist authorities came to take the Alter Rebbe to prison, the Alter Rebbe went into hiding. Later, when the authorities came for him a second time, the Alter Rebbe asked one of his chassidim, Reb Shmuel Munkis, what to do: Should he continue hiding or give himself up? Reb Shmuel told him to turn himself in.

“But,” the Alter Rebbe countered, “isn’t there a chance that I will be risking my life by being jailed?”

Reb Shmuel replied, “Rebbe, if you are truly a Rebbe, they won’t be able to hurt you. And if you are not truly a Rebbe, how could you have deprived so many of your followers the physical pleasures of this world?!”1

Toras Menachem 5711, vol. 1, p. 93; ibid. 5710, p. 171