We are in the twelfth lesson on the chain of lineage. In the biography of the Mitteler Rebbe, in the second part. We have reached the year 5575. It is told here that in the year 5575 he endeavored and worked with the government authorities to allocate portions of land in the Kherson region, and he established Jewish settlements there. It is known that in the time of the Mitteler Rebbe the physical situation of the Jews was very bad. The Mitteler Rebbe proposed to the government that they give him land, and he settled upon it at least two thousand Jewish settlers who would be farmers, and these were the settlements that the Mitteler Rebbe established in Kherson, throughout the entire region.
And as the Rebbe recounts in his diary journal, all the land was registered in the name of the Mitteler Rebbe, and they exempted all two thousand settlers from taxes, and they helped them get there. That is, they gave them horses so they could reach the colonies, and they gave permission that all their animals, on their way to the colonies, could eat in the fields of the government. Apparently this was some sort of special benefit.
The Mitteler Rebbe also published a letter, which is printed in his Igros Kodesh, about the great benefit found specifically in agricultural work. One of the things he notes there is that this would cause less antisemitism, and that the government would draw the people closer and they would find greater favor in the eyes of the government, because the government does not like the types of commerce that Jews are accustomed to engage in, but when they become farmers this would proceed more quietly and calmly. So he answered.
I once heard a reasoning from someone—I did not see it written, but it sounded like a fine reasoning: that when one works the land, one remains with the family all the time, one stays in place, and this preserves the life of yiras shomayim of the families. In contrast, when the father is a merchant and must travel most of the year to all sorts of places, by the nature of things it is less possible to run a Jewish home as it should be. And therefore one of the reasons the Mitteler Rebbe wanted the occupation of Jews to be in working the land.
Continuing on. 5576-5577 [1816-1817]. In these years he establishes a Chabad chassidic settlement in Chevron. The settling of chassidim in Chevron apparently had stages, for there are several places that mention similar years or slightly later ones. It seems that 5576 was truly the first stage, when the Mitteler Rebbe gave permission to the chassidim to travel to the Land. In the chronicles it is described that at first they lived in Tzfat, and afterward they came to Chevron.
Interestingly, the Mitteler Rebbe notes in one of his letters: I found written in the name of the Radbaz, that anyone who has a possession of land in the holy city of Chevron will be saved from chibut hakever (the torment of the grave). And the Mitteler Rebbe purchased a plot there, which became the synagogue in Chevron, that was registered in his name. To this day this estate belongs to the Mitteler Rebbe, for he wanted to have a possession in Chevron. It can be said that the oldest Chabad synagogue in the world is in Chevron. From the time of the Mitteler Rebbe, when Chabad chassidim settled in Chevron.
The following detail recounted here is from [5]577, [when he] visited the colonies. Here the reference is to those colonies we mentioned earlier, which the Mitteler Rebbe established in Cherson. He would visit there from time to time, and would tarry there for several months, from Pesach until Elul—which is nearly half a year—in order to strengthen them and so forth.
The next detail is in the year 5587, the well-known imprisonment of the Mitteler Rebbe based on an informer's report. They informed against him with the same type of slander that they had used against the Alter Rebbe, namely that he was collecting money in order to rebel against the Russian government. And they took him to prison on the 28th of Tishrei, 5587.
As is remembered, the Mitteler Rebbe had a period at the beginning of his leadership when he traveled in order to reach Lubavitch, and along the way he collected funds from chassidim so that there would be a possibility to finance the operations. He wrote a letter to the chassid Reb Pinchas of Reisen, and described to him in the letter that along the way he had collected three or four thousand rubles. And he turns to the chassid Reb Pinchas of Reisen to choose two more chassidim, so that there would be three, and they should sit together to decide how to distribute the money.
This letter, over the course of years, reached the one who had informed against the Mitteler Rebbe. What did he do? He introduced a forgery into the letter. He added, all told, just two letters. Wherever it was written 3,000 or 4,000, he added a ק': ק"ג or ק"ד. That is, instead of three or four thousand rubles, one hundred and three thousand rubles or one hundred and four thousand rubles, which is an enormous sum. And then they claimed to the government: if in such a small place he collected so much money, apparently there is who-knows-what going on there, and they want to act against the government. And indeed they took the Mitteler Rebbe to prison because of this. As he says further on, "he was imprisoned on account of an informer, and on the tenth of Kislev he was freed." He was freed on the tenth of Kislev of 5587. This is the famous festival of redemption of the Mitteler Rebbe.
The next thing recounted here: when the king's decree became publicized regarding the taking of young Jews for army service, for there was a decree that Jews were taken into the army. The Mitteler Rebbe took this very hard, and wanted to act in a spiritual manner to nullify the decree, "making his journey to visit the sanctuary of Zion, the tent of the honored holiness of his father" in Haditch. He traveled from Lubavitch to Haditch, and remained there a long time. In one of the accounts it is written that he traveled there in Tammuz 5587, and delayed there until the middle of Cheshvan 5588. That is, he was in Haditch several months. And he did not leave the place, only in order to pray about this decree of the conscription of young Jews.
After he concluded in Baditz, in the middle of Cheshvan 5588, he began his journey back, and in the middle of the way, his passing occurred, as is described, on Wednesday the 9th of Kislev 5588, which is his birthday, the 9th of Kislev. While he was in the city of Nezhin, in the province of Chernigov, when he returned from his visit to the ohel of his holy father, he passed away. His passing was on his birthday.
As is told, the Mitteler Rebbe would always say that he feared the year 5588. He said about 5588, "This is a year that alludes to decrees," Rachmana litzlan. Once he said that when they took his father, the Alter Rebbe, to the second imprisonment, as we described in the stories of the Alter Rebbe, the Alter Rebbe was fifty-four years old. The Mitteler Rebbe says: "From Heaven they gave father a choice of what he wanted to select at the age of fifty-four: suffering or passing away. And father chose suffering, so they took him to the second imprisonment." And he concluded and said, "Apparently the second option he left for me." And indeed his passing was on his birthday, at the age of fifty-four, exactly the same age that father was when they took him to prison.
It is also told that once, apparently when he traveled to the resting place of his father in Haditch, he emerged one time from the gravesite in great joy and with a truly radiant face, and said, "I brought about with my father that they should release me from the rabbinate." The chassidim did not think he was hinting at his passing, since the Mitteler Rebbe constantly said that he wanted to travel to the Land [of Israel], so they were certain that he meant he had received permission from his father to leave the chassidim and travel to the Land. And they argued with him: "How can you leave the chassidim without a leader?" And he told them: "My son-in-law is with you." By "son-in-law," the intention was to the Tzemach Tzedek, who afterwards indeed became the leader, the next Rebbe.
And after this story he traveled from there, arrived in Nezhin, and there he became very ill and passed away. In the Beis Rebbe there are many wondrous descriptions of the manner of his passing. It was truly similar to the passing of the Rashbi in many respects.
In any case, on his fifty-fourth birthday, the fifty-fourth, on that very day was his passing, and his place of burial is in Nizhyn, where his passing took place.