We are in the fifth lesson in the chain of tradition. We are in the description of the life of the Alter Rebbe. Today we are in the fourth part of the description of the life of the Alter Rebbe. We have reached the year 5534. What does the Rebbe write about this year, 5534? He travels with the holy Rav, Rav Menachem Mendel, to Vilna. He traveled together with Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk, to meet with the Gaon Rabbi Eliyahu, to meet with the Gaon of Vilna. And the conclusion of the sentence is: the Gaon Rabbi Eliyahu, that is, the Gra, does not receive them for a meeting.
What was the story there? This is after the passing of the Maggid. In those years after the passing of the Maggid, something he does not describe here, it is told in the book of chronicles that the Alter Rebbe visited several times in secret, so that he would not be recognized, in the towns of the misnagdim, such as, for example, in Shklov, in Minsk, in Vilna. He would be there in secret so that no one would recognize who he was at all. Among the things told is that he was then in Vilna, alone, for six weeks. He wandered from one beis midrash to another, as a guest who would not be recognized, and he ate only bread and water, even on Shabbos. And during those six weeks he would engage in the give-and-take of learning with all the Torah greats who were there in Vilna, except for the Gaon of Vilna. With him he did not speak, because he did not want him to recognize him, that he not identify him. He wanted in this way to instill the matters quietly. This was generally during that period.
What we read here is about something else. Here we read that there was a special journey. The Alter Rebbe traveled together with Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk to Vilna to meet with the Gaon Rabbi Eliyahu, with the Vilna Gaon. And the Vilna Gaon did not want to receive them. He said: it is forbidden to debate, he does not want to receive them. They went to him, twice to his home, and did not succeed in entering—he closed the door on them, and they did not enter to him.
All the leaders of Vilna who wanted this debate came in to the Gaon and tried to convince him to agree to a debate with the Alter Rebbe and Rabbi Menachem Mendel, and he did not agree, and the Gra himself left Vilna because they pressured him. The leaders of Vilna—he left Vilna, and he did not return there until he verified that the Alter Rebbe and the Gaon Rabbi Menachem Mendel had left the city, then he returned there. The Rebbe here writes in a line and a half, briefly, the description of this event, which took place in [the year] 5534.
He continues further, the next passage, 5537. This was after Pesach of 5537. Here it is written thus: accompanying the holy Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel, on his journey to the Holy Land, may it be built and established. Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk traveled with a large group of chassidim and disciples, they traveled to the Land, and the Alter Rebbe very much wanted to join as well and travel to the Land together with them, to leave Russia and travel to the Holy Land. And the Alter Rebbe went with them, accompanied them until the city of Mohilev, which is on the Dniester River, until there he arrived.
There, in this city, it is told that they stayed for about three weeks, and there they appealed to the heart of Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk, who was together with Rabbi Avraham of Kalisk, as they were traveling to the Land. They appealed to the heart of the Alter Rebbe that he should not travel to the Land, that he should not abandon those connected to him in Russia, that he should remain. The Alter Rebbe very, very much wanted to travel, but they appealed to his heart that he should stay, and in the end, as is known, the Alter Rebbe did not travel to the Land. He remained there.
During those three weeks that he was in Mohilev, a wondrous story is told, there were wonders there. One of the wonders that is told about, in brief, is that there was a certain woman who for two years was unable to purify herself for her husband, and they could not succeed. And all the great ones deliberated over this, and there were questions about it, and there were questions and answers, and it was a subject much, much discussed among the geonim, and they found no solution. When the Alter Rebbe was there during those three weeks, they came to him with the examination to hear how he would rule on it. The Alter Rebbe said that although it is written that today we are not so expert in the shades of blood, nevertheless he looks and says: I tell you with certainty, this is the blood of a dove. This is something else entirely.
Now, he said, how shall we test this? He gave them advice, he gave the couple advice, that the next time she would need to perform all the examinations, they should travel to a distant, isolated place, and there she would carry out the entire process, and everything would be fine. Therefore everything was pure, everything was good. What became clear afterward was that there was a certain woman who was very, very jealous of this woman, and wanted to take revenge on her. So she would always make an effort to arrive with a dove that she had slaughtered, with the dove's blood, and she would cause all the things there to be soiled with the dove's blood, and this went on for two years, until the Alter Rebbe arrived then, and was in that same city, in Mohilev, on the way to the Land of Israel which in the end he did not travel to, so he performed this wonder, whereby she succeeded in becoming pure for her husband.
In the following passage, one more line. 5543. The continuation of the account. Here the Rebbe writes about 5543, one line: the great debate in Minsk, and he emerges victorious in his debate. What happened here? This is described at great length in the notes of the previous Rebbe. Here it is presented as a heading. The debate in Minsk—this is a very, very famous subject surrounding it. We will briefly elaborate on a few points.
The chassidim very much wanted this debate to take place, so that finally the mitnagdim would understand that all their opposition had essentially no basis. But the mitnagdim did not want to debate, so what did they do? They pulled off a trick. They took a group of chassidim who, in a hidden manner and in a way that they would not be recognized, went around all the towns of the mitnagdim and spoke as darshanim in the synagogue. They spoke as though against the sect of the chassidim, and they stirred up the notion that there was no choice, that one must finally debate with them. They aroused the ground from below in all sorts of places, in order to awaken a desire among the mitnagdim that the debate must take place. And thus they gradually succeeded in stirring things up, and great pressure built up. It reached the Gaon of Vilna himself, and he said: there is no need to debate with them, but if they insist forcefully, then there is no choice, one must give them a hearing. There was already conviction that one should indeed do so, not to spurn them.
And thus developed the crux of the matter, that there was a great debate in Minsk. Minsk was a large city of the misnagdim. Many geonim came there, and there was also a very detailed process regarding how the order of the debate would proceed. The Alter Rebbe argued: I cannot stand before hundreds of people, to debate with hundreds of people. The choicest ones must be selected. So how would they be chosen? There was a preliminary discussion about how to choose the choicest ones, and in the end, as it is written, he prevails in the debate. The Alter Rebbe defeated them. They were greatly astonished by his greatness, by his sharpness.
And the previous Rebbe relates that one of the "spoils" that the Alter Rebbe took with him from Minsk was the chassid Rabbi Yitzchak Aizik of Vitebsk, a well-known chassid, and several more minyanim—dozens came after him. After the Alter Rebbe, they joined him. And the conclusion of the passage states that Rabbi Yitzchak Aizik says: before we came to the Alter Rebbe, we were certain that we were such great servants of Hashem that the angels envied us. We did not even know that anything was lacking in us. But after the Alter Rebbe took us, first of all we understood that we were lacking something; he took us with him afterward to his city, to Liozna. So he concludes his words and says: the Alter Rebbe opened two windows. One window he opened in order to remove the tumah, to remove our egotism, our coarseness of spirit. The hundreds of pages of Gemara that we had learned had turned us into arrogant people, and the Alter Rebbe opened one window to remove our arrogance. And then he opened a second window, to bring in light to us, the divine light into the soul.
This is essentially what the Rebbe says here in the chain, summarized in one sentence: he wins his argument. This victory is expressed in this description, and it is of course worthwhile to read all the descriptions in the original at length. Here it is written in a very abbreviated form.