1 2 In the year 5603 (1843), the Tzemach Tzedek visited Petersburg for the first time.3 The Minister for Education at the time was Shubalov. The scions of two families carried that name: the one in the time of the Tzemach Tzedek was a Haman, the one in the time of the Maharash was positive. His deputy was the grandson of a German Jewish apostate from Brunn who changed his name from Green to Papelev. He (or perhaps his grandfather?) was a Mendelssohnist,4 as also was his friend, Bezalel Stern, a wealthy and scholarly freethinker from Odessa.5
Stern had proposed that an abbreviated version of the Chumash should be prepared, which would omit references to sacrifices and the like, and likewise an abbreviated version of the Siddur, for the use of young readers. Green took this one step further, and proposed that permission to print should be granted to such versions only. He also suggested that sifrei Torah should likewise be written only in a pruned version. The plans had been finalized in advance; the delegates were invited only in order to affix their signatures – the Tzemach Tzedek, R. Itzele of Amtchislav6 to represent the misnagdim, and Stern to represent the maskilim.7
Although the conference lasted for nine weeks (six of which the Tzemach Tzedek spent under arrest!), it had initially been scheduled to last only four days. This initial plan prompted him to remark publicly, as soon as he arrived at the conference, that he was astonished that such a mighty kingdom with such a mighty ruler should not devote weighty attention to such a vital issue. He went on to say: “We Jews are older than you. In fact it8 all started off with a Jew… True, he was a mamzer, but the law says that ‘a learned mamzer takes precedence over an ignorant kohen gadol.’9 On the other hand, by that time we already had the Torah and its lifestyle for two thousand years.”
All of the above, which was addressed to an audience that included many ministers of state, he said in Yiddish, and was promptly arrested for ten days.
At that point the Tzemach Tzedek said to Stern: “As to whatever sins you’ve done, well… But as to this present moment, the Sages assure us that ‘a man can earn his World-to-Come in one moment!’10 Do teshuvah!”
And indeed, there were various particular issues on which Stern actually shared the view of the Tzemach Tzedek! – to the point that the Tzemach Tzedek even asked him: “What’s come over you…?”11
Stern’s response to this direct interchange was a quip: “Both Reb Mendele12 and Reb Itzele13 prepared themselves for this conference by resolving to sacrifice their lives with mesirus nefesh, and by preparing shrouds of kosher linen – except that R. Mendele brought along the mesirus nefesh and left the shrouds at home, while R. Itzele brought along the shrouds, and left the mesirus nefesh at home…”
The Tzemach Tzedek composed his Sefer HaChakirah14 in connection with the later conferences, in which Lilienthal15 also participated.
As the Rebbe Maharash told the Rebbe Rashab, he was nine years old at the time. When he was twelve, his father the Tzemach Tzedek described to him everything that he had undergone in Petersburg, and concluded by saying: “When my grandfather (the Alter Rebbe) was in Petersburg, and the Baal Shem Tov and the Maggid16 were there with him, he shed many tears of blood. My grandfather was there together with me all the time. When a very little child is walking, the adult who accompanies him doesn’t have to actually hold his hand: the mere fact that he is present is sufficient, and the toddler doesn’t fall...”
Having relayed those words of the Tzemach Tzedek, the Rebbe Maharash commented: “That was said only out of humility.”
The Tzemach Tzedek understood Russian, because it was he who used to read the official government gazette for the Alter Rebbe. The Alter Rebbe knew Polish, Russian and German, but did not want to give them expression in speech. As to French, he once said that he refrained from looking even at its words.
Among the ministers of state who attended the conference there sat a high-ranking military personage who took no part in its disputations. At one stage, as Stern later reported, this personage left the room for a few minutes, and when he returned, the Tzemach Tzedek rose from his place and pronounced the blessing that is said when one beholds a king. The ministers asked Stern to explain what had taken place (and in fact R. Itzele, too, was puzzled by it), and when Stern explained what had happened, they said: “In that case, he is rebelling against the monarchy!”
The Tzemach Tzedek thereupon explained that he had sensed the yoke of monarchy. And indeed, it later transpired that this individual was none other than Czar Nicholas I in person.
In the year 5659 (1899), when R. Eliezer Moshe Madyevsky17 visited the state archives in Petersburg, he located the report in the Schneersohn file that was written by the senior commandant of Petersburg, evidently dating from 5603 (1843). It stated that Schneersohn was the only person whose opinions carried weight not only among the Polish and Russian chassidim, but also among the misnagdim.
