Lag BaOmer

The Lag B’Omer far­bren­gen in 5685 (1925) was in the din­ing hall, and the Rebbe said the maa­mar be­gin­ning with KaShe­men Ha­Tov. One of the sto­ries that I re­mem­ber — in the Rebbe’s own words:

One of our rel­a­tives, a rov in Vel­liz, was per­se­cuted by two gvirim and a wealthy woman. He wrote a let­ter to the Mit­teler Rebbe who was in Carls­bad at the time — Rus­sian Carls­bad, I think he said, in Staraya Russa⁷ — and the Rebbe wrote back. To the first gvir he wrote, “Have im­me­di­ate re­morse and G-d will for­give you. ” To the sec­ond gvir he wrote, “Take great care — lest I go out to you with the sword!”⁸ To the woman he wrote, “A woman’s wis­dom is only in her spin­dle.”⁹

When the rav brought the let­ter to the study hall at the time of dav­en­ing, the first gvir com­mented, “It’s true, why should I start up with them?”

The sec­ond one said, “You’ve found a new gov­er­nor?”

When they left shul af­ter dav­e­nen, who showed up in Vel­liz? A hun­dred Cos­sacks rid­ing horse­back. (What are Cos­sacks do­ing in Vel­liz …?!) And one of them pulled out his sword and cut off the sec­ond gvir’s head. Re­gard­ing the wealthy woman: she owned a fac­tory that pro­duced al­co­hol spirit, and had not paid her taxes. In the court rul­ing against her, they took away ev­ery­thing she owned and she was left pen­ni­less.

When they later re­lated this to the Mit­teler Rebbe, he was deeply pained from the knowl­edge that their pun­ish­ment came through him.¹⁰

7. I.e., White Russia. ↩
8. Bamidbar 20:18. ↩
9. Yoma 66b. ↩
10. To punish also the righteous man is not good (Mishlei 17:26) is interpreted: when a righteous man punishes, it is not good. ↩

I came to Lubav­itch for Lag B’Omer in 5666 (1906). The Rebbe said the maa­mar be­gin­ning U’sfartem, Par­shas Emor, twice: once on Shab­bos in the small study hall, and on Lag B’Omer in the din­ing room of his home.

To record one’s mem­o­ries of Lubav­itch one must have the tal­ent to paint on a can­vas — to be an artist. I’ll just try to por­tray on pa­per three mo­ments from the Rebbe.

Fol­low­ing in the foot­steps of his grand­fa­ther and men­tor, Zal­man left for Lubav­itch at the young age of fif­teen. He ar­rived on Lag B’Omer 5666 (1906) and joined the branch of Tom­chei Temimim in Horoditch. A year later, at age six­teen, he trans­ferred to the yeshivah in Lubav­itch, in close prox­im­ity of the Rebbe Rashab.

Zal­man soaked in the sur­real at­mos­phere of Lubav­itch, and its mem­o­ries re­mained with him for life. De­scrib­ing those times in Lubav­itch, he writes, “To record one’s mem­o­ries of Lubav­itch one must have the tal­ent to paint on a can­vas — to be an artist. ”

In the sum­mer of 5675 (1915) I was in Pinsk, lodg­ing with R. Yis­roel Yitzchak Lu­bin­sky, the cel­e­brated chos­sid known for dav­en­ing in Yid­dish trans­la­tion ev­ery word of ke­tores, and I re­mem­ber hear­ing this story from him:

The Rebbe Ma­ha­rash would al­ways say that ev­ery mat­ter should be heard as it seems ( azoy) and an­swered as it seems, that is to say, in a gen­eral man­ner.

Once in Se­myanovka, in the prov­ince of Chernigov, the gov­ern­ment found out that they were ap­pro­pri­at­ing al­co­hol from the fac­tory, that is, with­out pay­ing any taxes to the gov­ern­ment. A ma­jor trial was sched­uled for thir­teen de­fen­dants, and R. Yis­roel Yitzchak was to be a wit­ness. To run the trial, a well-known in­ves­ti­ga­tor, Stal­ietov, was com­ing up from Pe­ters­burg.

R. Yis­roel Yitzchak trav­eled to the Rebbe Ma­ha­rash in Lubav­itch and ex­plained that, since many Yid­den were fac­ing five-year prison terms, he re­quested that the Rebbe lis­ten to him in de­tail. And he started recit­ing: If Stal­ietov asks him this, then he will re­spond with that — in short, a num­ber of ques­tions which he knew to an­swer. But if he were to ask him such-and- such a ques­tion — then what should he an­swer?

The Rebbe Ma­ha­rash replied, “You are a young man with in­tel­li­gence (guteh kup ), and you are a Yid, who is not caught up in plea­sures. Stal­ietov is a goy, and with­out a par­tic­u­larly good mind, and he is caught up in plea­sures — it will never oc­cur to him to ask such ques­tions. ”

And so it was. The trial ended fa­vor­ably.

My zeide told me that the Rebbe Ma­ha­rash knew how he spoke (af­ter a few LeChaims) of the Chas­sidus of Reb Aizel of Homil. For al­though he re­ferred to Reb Aizel as Der Hieger 30 or Der Homiler, and re­served the term “Rebbe” for the Tzemach Tzedek, nev­er­the­less — as Reb Aizel’s out­stand­ing dis­ci­ple — he had high re­gard for his Chas­sidus.

Early one sum­mer morn­ing as he walked through the Rebbe’s court­yard af­ter a late-night far­bren­gen and a gen­er­ous mea­sure of mashkeh, he looked up to see the Rebbe Ma­ha­rash stand­ing by the win­dow.

“Mordechai Yoel, come here, ” the Rebbe said, and be­gan talk­ing with him.

When the con­ver­sa­tion reached the topic of Reb Aizel’s Chas­sidus, my zeide said (with a ni­gun), “The Rebbe doesn’t need it, nor do the Rebbe’s chil­dren need it. But the Rebbe’s grand­chil­dren and reg­u­lar chas­sidim 30 "The lo­cal one. "

should learn Reb Aizel’s Chas­sidus. ” Con­clud­ing his words he glanced up­ward and there, in the sec­ond win­dow, saw the Tzemach Tzedek. “I was sober in an in­stant, ” my zeide re­counted, “and fled. ”

R. Bet­za­lel Azaritzer, a shadar for the Tzemach Tzedek, was once a guest of Reb Aizel and chal­lenged him over his lack of con­cern re­gard­ing a sir­chah.²

“I’m the rov of the city, ” Reb Aizel an­swered, “and when I make a ha­lachic rul­ing that some­thing is kosher, I don’t view my­self as higher than the one who asked me, and above eat­ing it my­self. ”

And when R. Bet­za­lel would not re­lent, Reb Aizel said, “ Tza­leh, lis­ten to me. I’m al­ready an al­ter Yid, over the hill — you won’t suc­ceed in mak­ing me any frumer!”

When an ac­count of this reached the Tzemach Tzedek, the Rebbe asked R. Bet­za­lel, “Why are you start­ing up with the zeide’s sol­dier?!”

2. A blemish in a lung of questionable kashrus. ↩