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1489 (5786-40) 7 Tammuz 5786 (June 22, 2026) "A Rebbe-in-Training" Rabbi Yoseph-Yitzchak Schneersohn , who later became the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, was barely fifteen years old when his father and predecessor, Rabbi Shalom Dov-Ber Schneersohn, appointed him his personal secretary and initiated him into the vortex of religious, communal, political and scholarly activities that revolve around the world leader of the Chabad movement. Why This Week? The date of this Shabbat, Tammuz 12, is the occasion of a major annual celebration, marking the miraculous release of the Rayatz from Soviet imprisonment and accompanying death sentence (and also his birth date in 1880).
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A Rebbe-in-Training
Rabbi Yoseph-Yitzchak Schneersohn- [often referred to as the Rebbe Rayatz] was born in Lubavitch, Russia, on the twelfth day of the Jewish month of Tammuz 5640 (1880). In 1920 he became the sixth Rebbe of the Schneersohn dynasty, founded one hundred fifty years before by his ancestor, Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, the founder of Chabad Chassidism, whose descendants formed an unbroken chain of great leaders, scholars and thinkers. Yoseph Yitzchak was barely fifteen years old when his illustrious father, Rabbi Shalom Dov-Ber Schneersohn, the fifth Rebbe in the Chabad dynasty, appointed him his personal secretary and initiated him into the vortex of religious, communal, political and scholarly activities that revolve around the world leader of the Chabad movement. For, ever since the invasion of Russia by Napoleon, when Rabbi Schneur Zalman and his followers had rendered valuable support to the Russian cause, the Lubavitcher Rabbis enjoyed the status of privileged citizens. Each in his own generation had been able to use this extraordinary relationship to the Czarist court for the benefit of the oppressed Jewish masses in Russia. Thus they had been given grants of land for large agricultural settlements and they had been able to better the lot of the Jewish artisans who till then both officially and socially had been treated as pariahs. In true Chassidic tradition, which is concerned with the physical and spiritual welfare of the worker as well as the scholar, the Lubavitcher Rebbes organized trade schools, developed new occupations, and fostered economic and social equality for the masses, besides providing them with a thorough religious training and communal standing. When the brilliant young son of Rabbi Shalom Dov-Ber Schneersohn entered Jewish public life as his father's secretary, he had ample opportunity to watch from the inside the tremendous organizational tasks facing the leader of all these religious, communal and diplomatic activities. Soon he graduated from the role of observer to an active part in important projects. Immediately after his marriage to Nechama Dina Schneersohn, a second cousin, at the age of seventeen, his father put him in charge of his most important enterprise, the newly founded Lubavitcher Yeshiva Tomchei Tmimim. It was perhaps here, in his apprenticeship, while still under the guidance of his great father, that the young Rabbi Yoseph Yitzchak became imbued with the central idea and theme of his life work - the need of spreading the light and knowledge of Torah as the very basis of all other Jewish activities. The teachings of the Chabad ideology came to full bloom in the curriculum of the first Tomchei Tmimim Yeshiva which, in contrast to other courts of Chassidic tradition, combined Talmudic learning with Chassidic studies. Soon its fame spread and it attracted students from all of Eastern Europe. Encouraged by the success of this parent institute, Rabbi Schneersohn was instrumental in establishing a network of "Tomchei Tmimim" yeshivot throughout the main Jewish centers of Russia. In due time similar
institutions of Torah and Chasidic learning, modeled on the first yeshiva of
Lubavitch, sprang up in other countries of Eastern Europe, in Poland, Lithuania,
and Latvia, and ultimately all over the world. Under the guidance of the sixth
Lubavitcher Rebbe they flourished and developed, their center moving along with
the Rebbe Rayatz wherever he went -- from Russia to Latvia, to Poland and then
to the United States. Another pet project that Rabbi Sholom DovBer Schneerson entrusted into the hands of his inspired and gifted son, one which was to become symbolic of the outlook and direction of his social and economic activities, was the establishment of a large textile factory in the industrial center of Dubrovna, exclusively run and worked by Orthodox Jews. To carry out this vast enterprise that was to provide over two thousand people with a livelihood and skilled trade, Rabbi Yoseph Yitzchak Schneersohn had to enlist the active support of outstanding spiritual leaders from all camps of the Jewish community, including the descendants of Mitnagdim ('opponents' of the Chasidic movement). Among them were such immortals as Rabbi Chaim of Brisk and Rabbi Chaim Ozer of Vilna and his constant collaborators, the venerable Rabbi David of Karlin and Rabbi Elia Chaim of Lodz. Also, he was generously supported by such outstanding philanthropists as the brothers Jacob and Eliezer Poliakoff. The success of the establishment of this industrial center for Orthodox Jews was of far-reaching importance. The Dubrovna factory set the pattern for many similar enterprises and removed the stigma of social inferiority from those who worked in factories or in skilled trades. There was thus established a new social vista for the masses of Russian-Polish Jewry who, long the victim of an economic and religious oppression which aimed at their ultimate extinction, were thus enabled to find a place in the industrial economy which belatedly took rise in the Czarist realm. This was a particular value later on, when the Soviet regime demanded that everyone turn into a productive worker, either in agriculture or in industry. It was then that many hundreds of trained religious Jews were able to stay together and work together, thereby checking the Bolshevik attack upon their spiritual existence. Even now in Eretz Yisroel, large communities of Chabad Chassidim flourish, where the farming and industrial skills and experience of the first generation of Chabad chasidim to emigrate to Israel after WWII, which they had gained in the agricultural and textile centers organized by the Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak and predecessors, were put to good use and produced astonishing results. * * * Another activity in which the Rebbe Rayatz became engaged while yet under the direction of his father, one that was to recur throughout his life, was the supplying of Jewish soldiers at the war fronts or in garrisons far from Jewish centers with matzoth and wine for the Seder. When he was twenty-four years old, he organized the shipping of Passover provisions to the Jewish soldiers who fought in the Russo-Japanese war in the Far East. Less than ten years later he did the same for Jews who fought in World War I and thirty-two years later, safe in the United States, he shipped kosher food, as well as periodic messages of encouragement, pamphlets, brochures and reading material - all in all 50,000 pieces of literature, highly appreciated spiritual food, together with the physical necessities, through "Machne Israel," one of his large organizations. Of a more difficult nature were the frequent diplomatic missions which carried the young descendant of the Schneersohn family to the Czarist court. Persecution and discrimination brought untold misery to Russia's Jews. The Czarist regime or its underlings, the governors of the various districts, indulged in the anti-Semitic policies and acts, as often without as with legal pretext. Time and again Rabbi Yoseph Yitzchak was called upon to travel to the capital or to the seat of district governments to intercede on behalf of his Jewish brethren. Whereas the good standing of his family with the court helped him at first to gain his objectives, his constant attempts to alleviate local or national difficulties or illegal privations finally evoked the displeasure of the Russian government. Four times during a period of ten years he was thrown into prison. Yet all the malevolent ingenuity of the Czarist forces could not find any legal incrimination or means of suppressing his work on behalf of the suffering Jewish masses. Rabbi Schneersohn even went outside of Russia to famous statesmen of Germany and Holland to induce them to intervene with the Russian government, when widespread pogroms swept the "Pale of Settlement" in the wake of the October Revolution of 1905. Though then only twenty-five years old, the Rayatz accomplished his mission beyond all expectation and proved thus his capacity of becoming a modern "shtadlan" ['interceder' - an appointee of the Jewish community to represent Jewish interests] on the international scene. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Why This Week? The
date of this Shabbat, Tammuz 12, is the occasion of a major annual celebration,
marking the miraculous release of the Rayatz from Soviet imprisonment
and accompanying death sentence (and also his birth date in 1880).
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Yerachmiel
Tilles is co-founder and associate director of Ascent-of-Safed, and chief editor
of this website (and of KabbalaOnline.org). He has hundreds of published stories
to his credit, and many have been translated into other languages. He tells
them live at Ascent nearly every Saturday night.