21. The Alter Rebbe traveled to Mezritch together with his brother Maharil, in 5524 (1764). Maharil had set out without permission from his wife, and therefore returned in the midst of the journey. The Alter Rebbe arrived in Mezritch and remained there – on this first occasion – until before Pesach1 in 5525 (1765).
For the first two weeks he had been undecided as to whether to stay or not. The first maamar he heard from the Maggid was based on the words, Nachamu, nachamu. (It is unclear if that was the first maamar he heard after his arrival, or the first that he heard after two weeks that convinced him to stay and establish a connection with the Maggid.)
The year 5525 was a leap year, shnas ha’ibur, meaning that it was pregnant, so to speak, with a thirteenth month. [Alluding to his realization that this was to be a portentous year in his spiritual life,] the Alter Rebbe punningly remarked: “This is a year of ibur, and in the wake of a pregnancy comes a birth…”
22. [One of those present asked:] “Were the Alter Rebbe’s initial doubts connected with the fact that R. Michl Zlotchover2 was in Mezritch at that time? – because it has been said that the Alter Rebbe had considered the possibility of connecting with him.”
[The Rebbe Rayatz answered:] That oral tradition is not reliable. AllI know in that regard is that the Tzemach Tzedek once said that his father-in-law, the Mitteler Rebbe, used to illustrate the mystical concept of “the transcendence of time within the parameters of time” by citing the fact that the Alter Rebbe had received – within a short span of time – all the teachings that R. Michele had heard from the Baal Shem Tov.
23. By the time the Alter Rebbe was four years old, he was at home in the entire Tanach.When his teacher, R. Yissachar Dov [Kobilniker], once asked him to recite a certain verse that was popularly cited, the Alter Rebbe answered with a smile that in fact that version was a combination of four verses that appear in various places.
24. The Alter Rebbe held it against his mentor that he never revealed to him that he was connected to the Baal Shem Tov, for as far as the dates were concerned, he too could have spent time with the Baal Shem Tov.3 The rationale of R. Yissachar Dov was that the approach of a pnimi [such as the Alter Rebbe] required that he should cultivate a sensitivity to those teachings by his own efforts.
R. Yissachar Dov added another reason: he was afraid that if the Alter Rebbe, with his blazing ardor, would intensely adopt the path of the Baal Shem Tov, he would set the world on fire.
25. Before the Alter Rebbe went to Mezritch, he was filled with fiery ardor. Even though he had a mighty intellect, the essence of the intellect and the essence of the middos4 do not contradict each other. We can have no conception of the essence of the Alter Rebbe’s mind-blowing intellect. As my father used to describe it, borrowing an image from Chassidus, it gushed forth profusely.
26. While the Alter Rebbe was still living in his first home, his word was already taken into serious consideration by the great scholars of the town, who related to him with respect – until they once heard what he had to say on the differences of opinion between the Ramak (R. Moshe Cordovero) and the AriZal (R. Yitzchak Luria) on a certain key concept in the Kabbalah. [At this point there is an involved and intricate discussion of the Kabbalistic terms involved.] The Alter Rebbe followed the tradition of the AriZal, whereas the Gra (R. Eliyahu, the Gaon of Vilna), as is known, held that the Kabbalah of the AriZal was not received in its entirety from Eliyahu HaNavi.5
The leading local scholars, following the teachings of the Gra, who held that the Kabbalah of the Ramak was received in its entirety from Eliyahu HaNavi, locked the Alter Rebbe for some time in a cold room, with insufficient food. Eventually, realizing to their surprise that he had survived, and having believed that he engaged in practical Kabbalah – […].6
27. R. Yissachar Dov7 was one of the three scholars who introduced the teachings of the Baal Shem Tov to Reissin.8 It’s a long story,9 but here it is in brief.
Three good friends studied at the yeshivah that existed at the time in Smorgon – R. Yissachar Dov Kobilnikov, R. Chaim Bayever and R. Mordechai Horodoker.
When they eventually left the yeshivah and R. Yissachar Dov was on his way to Kiev for business reasons, he heard that in distant Volhynia there was a person who read thoughts, who healed the ailing not by medication but by placing his hand on them and the like, and who brought ordinary and unlettered fellow Jews back to their heritage. R. Yissachar Dov went straight there, and remained close to the Baal Shem Tov for a year and a half.
One day he heard from the Baal Shem Tov, in the course of a Torah teaching, that “one ought to have self-sacrifice for the sake of doing a favor to a fellow Jew materially, and most certainly a spiritual favor.” If so, he thought, he surely ought to set out and bring his two good friends close to the Baal Shem Tov. On the other hand, in order to do this he would have to leave his present environment – and isn’t it written that “your own life takes precedence?”10 On the other hand, he reminded himself, what was required was self-sacrifice: he should really set himself aside. Surely the best way to solve this quandary would be to consult the Baal Shem Tov – but then, he reminded himself, self-sacrifice isn’t something that one can ask about. So he set out to locate his old friends.
The Baal Shem Tov immediately dispatched someone to bring him back, and spoke to him so freely about what had prompted him to leave, as if he had read his thoughts. He concluded: “I’m appointing you as a sheliach-mitzvah,”11 and instructed him as to what he should say to each of his two friends.
R. Yissachar Dov duly found R. Chaim in Dubrovna – but that is a story in itself. He later related that when R. Chaim had to walk through the market place, he covered his eyes with a scarf12 and had someone lead him.
28. R. Yissachar Dov heard about R. Mordechai Horodoker from a chassid called R. Shmuel Dov, who had studied under the younger R. Mordechai Horodoker. The latter’s father had been a chassid of the Maggid, then of R. Avraham of Kalisk, and finally, when R. Menachem Mendel settled in Horodok,13 he became a follower of his.
Being childless, he used to address pidyonos to the Maggid and to R. Avraham and to R. Menachem Mendel, though without results.
The Alter Rebbe once visited Horodok. (Since the Maggid had made him responsible for that region, he also used to visit R. Menachem Mendel in the lifetime of the Maggid.) Although R. Mordechai’s father was a businessman, he took his avodah very seriously. He had never quite grasped the Torah teachings that he had heard from R. Menachem Mendel, but when he saw that this was not the case with the teachings that he now heard from the Alter Rebbe, it occurred to him that this perhaps indicated that this was where his spiritual loyalty should really belong. On the other hand, how could he take leave of his Rebbe, R. Menachem Mendel? So he decided to ask him directly.
In the course of their dialogue, which has been recorded at length, R. Menachem Mendel advised him to ask the Alter Rebbe to give him a blessing for children.
The Alter Rebbe asked: “Am I the address for such a request?! What I can give you is a piece of advice. An old man with a knapsack is going to arrive here soon. Invite him in and ask him for a blessing, and he will give it to you.”
When the old man with the knapsack duly arrived, he agreed to give the blessing, but on two conditions. The first was that the child would be given his name, which was Mordechai, and he added that “a name may also be given after a person who is alive14 – a live name.” The second condition was that the son to be born would become a disciple of the Maggid of Liozna.15
That son grew up to be the younger R. Mordechai Horodoker, the mentor of the above-mentioned R. Shmuel Dov.
29. When R. Shmuel Dov once asked him to characterize the Alter Rebbe’s early chassidim, he answered: “That can’t be expressed with words. What can be said is that when they stood in his presence, ‘their knees knocked against each other.’16 And even that doesn’t suffice to describe their awe. And the fact that they would kiss the spot on which he had stood doesn’t suffice to describe the love they felt for him. Their connection with him17 was constant, in every aspect of their lives. A connection is sometimes temporary, having been initiated by a transient arousal. Then there is the connection between a father and a son, which is more internal and more constant, but that too can become dormant, whereas the hiskashrus of those early chassidim with the Alter Rebbe never faded.18
30. Once, at a farbrengen of my father, in 5652 (1892), R. Hendel said LeChaim and expressed a wish “that we should be occupied19 with Chassidus.”
My father responded: “In earlier days there were ovdim. What’s called for is avodah in Chassidus. There’s nothing great about being occupied. That word, mis’asek, fits someone with a blemish. This we see in the sixth chapter of the Mishnah of Shekalim,20 which speaks about ‘a kohen who was mis’asek.’ As the commentators explain, that means that he was disqualified for active service in the Beis HaMikdash and was therefore occupied in checking the wood for the altar, for worms.”
My father’s closing comment: “That means either that the person who is occupied in checking wood for worms is blemished, or conversely, the fact that he is blemished explains why there are worms …”
31. In the year 5658 (1898), R. Gershon Dov21 relayed to me something that had heard from his maternal uncle, a chassid of the Alter Rebbe called R. Abba, who had earned his nickname, “Lively Reb Abba,”22 as the result of a certain event.
Since his father was on friendly terms with a certain Polish squire, the latter dispatched R. Abba to a distant fair to buy the merchandise that he needed. On his way there he heard that at the other end of Poland, in a township called Kalisk, there lived a fiery miracle-worker,23 and he headed in that direction. In due course he became a chassid of the Alter Rebbe.
Two elder chassidim who lived in Klimovitch, where he also lived, had brought Chassidus to the town. The local misnagdim were so irritated by this that they lied to the squire that R. Abba had slandered him. Incensed, the arrogant squire duly sentenced him to a flogging of fifty stripes.
Some time before the appointed date, R. Abba appeared before the squire, dressed in his Shabbos garb. Certain that the Jew had come in order to plead for clemency, the squire asked him why he had come. The young man answered that he had come in order to thank him for the sentence! Hearing such words, the squire was so sure that the poor fellow was out of his mind that he decided that this time, he would not extend the customary invitation to his cronies to join him in witnessing the spectacle that would demonstrate how he treated his underlings.
On the due date R. Abba arrived, this time accompanied by a few elder chassidim, all of them dressed in their Shabbos finery – and they immediately broke into a lively dance.
After he was flogged as planned, he danced again, and declared that he had not felt pain because he was so happy that had been privileged, that he had been granted the zechus, of being flogged in the cause of Chassidus.
[The Rebbe concluded:] Such was the hiskashrus of the chassidim of those days: even such pain he didn’t feel!
