We are at the twenty-fifth lesson in the chain of our lineage, in the third part of the life of the Rebbe Maharash. Today we will discuss the "sons" of the Rebbe Maharash.
"a) Harav Shneur Zalman Aharon" - born on "19 Tammuz 5619", and passed away on "11 Marcheshvan 5669". He was named after the Alter Rebbe - the name Shneur Zalman - and after his grandfather on his mother's side: his mother was Rebbetzin Rivkah, and her father was Reb Aharon of Shklov, the son-in-law of the Mitteler Rebbe. So the first son was named after the Alter Rebbe and after the grandfather from the other side.
At his bris, after the name was given, his grandfather the Tzemach Tzedek called him "Raza", and from then on he was always called by this name - the initials of Reb Zalman Aharon. The Tzemach Tzedek then used the expression of the Zohar "raza temira", the hidden secret, since "raza" means secret, and "Raza" is the acronym of his name.
Many stories are told about him, and we will bring a few briefly. It is told that he was naturally a person of fine character traits, and on the other hand he had a strong heart and was a very strong person. Even when he suffered harsh afflictions, and much suffering was his lot in life, he was always smiling, and he never shed a tear in his life - and all this regarding his own afflictions; but another person's pain affected him deeply.
Once someone asked the Raza, after his younger brother, the Rebbe Rashab, was appointed as Rebbe: Is your brother fit to be a Rebbe? He answered him: "Everything in the world has a middle point between the extremes. There is an exceedingly wealthy man and there is a pauper who goes begging from door to door, and there is always a middle between them; there is a man of kindness on the highest level and there is a great cruel person, and there is always a middle between them. But between a Rebbe and an ordinary person there is no middle - either he is a Rebbe or he is a swindler, and there is nothing in between." And he concluded: "And my brother is certainly not a swindler." With that he answered the question.
Another beautiful saying of his. Once he saw a chassid who engaged in much self-affliction and fasting, and he told him a parable: In a certain city they decided to build a new bathhouse, and they imposed taxes on all the residents to participate in the building expenses. The wealthy, who had money, gave; the poor, who had none, brought utensils from their homes as collateral, so that when the day came they would come to redeem them and pay. There was a clever man there, who came to the head of the community and said to him: If you want to build a bathhouse, take more money from the wealthy and exempt the poor - for what will you get from them? Worthless objects? You will get nothing out of them.
And the lesson: the body is the city, and its residents are the limbs. There are wealthy residents - the eyes, the ears and the mouth; and there are poor residents - the stomach and the belly. You want to collect taxes? Don't deal with the poor and don't start fasting, but deal with the wealthy: guard your eyes, your mouth and your ears, and collect the taxes from there; and don't deal with those from whom you will get nothing of substance. There are many more stories about him, and these are just a few light excerpts.
"b) His Honorable Holiness Admur Harav Shalom DovBer" - he is the Rebbe Rashab, about whom we will speak, with G-d's help, at length when we reach his life story later on.
"c) Harav Avraham Sender, passed away at the age of 8". There are places where it appears that he was actually the first son, the oldest of them. And we see here a wondrous thing: he passed away at the age of eight, and he is called "Harav". The Rebbe Rashab, his brother, related about him that he was extraordinary in his faculties, possessing both intellect and refined character traits, and he passed away at the age of eight, during the lifetime of the Tzemach Tzedek.
The Tzemach Tzedek said to his son, the Rebbe Maharash, about the grandson who had passed away: "He was the soul of the Alter Rebbe." Wondrous things are told about him: at the age of four his grandfather, the Tzemach Tzedek, studied Mishnayos with him, and the child himself would articulate all the precise points stated in the Gemara and say them on his own already at the age of four. He was a very frail child, he did not know at all what play was and never played, and he was occupied at all times with Torah and prayer.
The Rebbe once related, at the farbrengen of 20 Menachem Av 5712, and as it appears in the sichah, that it is known that the Alter Rebbe passed away before his time: his passing was during the flight from Napoleon, and in the middle of the journey there was a mistake in the direction of travel, and this caused his passing before his time. And this son of the Rebbe Maharash, Avraham Sender, was the soul of the Alter Rebbe, which came to live in the world the number of years that the Alter Rebbe had passed away before his time.
It is told that at the time of his passing, a child of eight, present there were his grandfather the Tzemach Tzedek, his father the Rebbe Maharash and his brothers, and he said wondrous things with a wondrous composure: "Grandfather, the Alter Rebbe, is calling me to come to him." He asked that they dress him in Shabbos clothes, he prayed Minchah with joy, finished saying "Aleinu Leshabeiach", began saying "Shema Yisrael", and when he finished the last words "Hashem Echad" - his soul departed. This is the wondrous son mentioned here, Harav Avraham Sender, who passed away at the age of 8.
"d) Harav Menachem Mendel" - born on "7 Adar 5627". From the date we see that he was born within the first year after the passing of the Tzemach Tzedek, who passed away on 13 Nissan 5626, as we already related; and since he was born before the year was out, he was named after the Tzemach Tzedek.
He too was very gifted. In the biographical accounts there appears something he wrote to his father, the Rebbe Maharash, when he was at the age of bar mitzvah: a complete acrostic following the entire alef-beis, a very emotional letter, entirely in Aramaic and in a most interesting form.
He passed away at the age of seventy-five, in the year 5702. And there is something interesting connected with his burial: because of his financial situation he left Russia and moved to live in Paris, France, and afterwards he moved to the island of Corsica, which also belongs to France, and there he passed away and there he was buried.
There is a law in France that after twenty years they plow over the grave, and so this was expected to happen to his grave as well. Thirteen years after his passing, in the year 5715, the Rebbe asked the chassid Reb Binyamin Gorodetzky to bring his body up from France to the Holy Land. The operation was done in secret, out of concern that family members would object: they opened the grave, took him out and returned the headstone to its place as if he had remained there. In the dead of night they took him out and transported him by ship to the Land; he arrived at the port of Haifa in the winter of 5716, and in the dead of night he was buried in the old cemetery in Tzfas.
And even then they did not build a headstone, but rather made a headstone of concrete without any inscription; nothing was written on it, and only a select few knew what was in that place. This continued for many years. In 5739 several of the elder chassidim of Anash came to Rabbi Bistritzky, of blessed memory, the rabbi of Tzfas, and told him that they knew exactly where the place was. He wrote to the Rebbe, and at the Rebbe's instruction a new headstone was erected and all the details were written on it. The Rebbe paid, and wanted to be the one to cover all the expenses connected with this.
And what is interesting: when his body was brought in 5716 from France, the Rebbe very much wanted and asked Rabbi Ephraim Wolf, who was handling the matter, that they bring a photographer to photograph the body of Reb Menachem Mendel, and he said: "I want to see a picture of the body of Reb Menachem Mendel." Rabbi Ephraim Wolf did not manage to obtain a photographer in the middle of the night, since back then it was not like today when everyone has a camera in his pocket. But Rabbi Ephraim Wolf related that he made an effort to see the body - fifteen years after his passing - and he saw that his body was completely intact, as if he had just passed away. He was a great Jew, a son of the Rebbe Maharash.