We are in the twenty-fifth lesson in the chain of lineage, in the history of the Rebbe Maharash in the third part. Today we will tell about the sons of the Rebbe Maharash. The first son who appears here, among his sons, is Rabbi Shneur Zalman Aharon. He was born on the 19th of Menachem Av 5619, and passed away on the 11th of Marcheshvan 5669.
Let us tell a bit about this son. He was named after the Alter Rebbe—the name Shneur Zalman—and the second name, Aharon, after his grandfather on his mother's side. His mother was the Rebbetzin Rivkah, and her father was Reb Aharon of Shklov, who was a son-in-law of the Mitteler Rebbe. So the first son was named after the Alter Rebbe, and after the grandfather on the other side.
At his brit, the grandfather, the Rebbe Tzemach Tzedek, after the name was given, nicknamed him "Raza." That is why he was always called by the name Raza, an acronym for Rabbi Zalman Aharon. And when the Admur Tzemach Tzedek called him Raza, he used the expression written in the Zohar, "d'raza temira" — this is the hidden secret. Raza means secret, and Raza is the acronym of his name.
There are several stories told about him; we will bring, very briefly, a few things. It is told about him that he was a person of good character by his very nature. But on the other hand, he had a strong heart, he was a very strong person. Even when he suffered harsh afflictions, and he had much suffering in his life, he always smiled. He never shed a tear in his life, but this was all when it came to his own afflictions. When it came to the pain of another, it simply affected him very, very deeply.
Once, someone asked the Raza"a, after his brother, the Rebbe Rashab, became a Rebbe—and he was the older brother: Tell me, is your brother fit to be a Rebbe? He was asking about the Rebbe Rashab. So he answered like this: "Listen, everything in the world has an intermediate point between the extremes. For example, there is a person who is exceedingly wealthy, and there is one who is a pauper going around begging at doorways, and there is always an intermediate between them. Or, for example, there is one who is a man of kindness at the highest level, and there is a person who is greatly cruel, and there is always an intermediate between them. But between a Rebbe and an ordinary person there is no intermediate—either he is a Reb'e or he is a rama'i (swindler), there is no intermediate." So he said: "And my brother is certainly not a swindler." With this he essentially answered the matter.
He also said something else beautiful. Once he saw a chasid who was truly practicing many forms of self-affliction through fasting—he did not eat and he fasted. So he said to him: "Come, let me tell you 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 expenses of building the bathhouse. The wealthy have money, so they give. The poor have no money, so they bring utensils from their homes as collateral, so that when the day comes they will come to redeem the utensils and pay. There was a clever man there, who came to the head of the community and said to him: Listen, if you want to build a bathhouse, take more money from the wealthy, and release the poor, for what will you get from them? Worthless objects? You will gain nothing from this."
What is the analogy? The body is the city, and in this body there are inhabitants, who are the limbs. There are wealthy inhabitants - the eyes, the ears, and the mouth. And there are poor inhabitants - the stomach and the belly. You want to collect taxes? Don't deal with the poor, don't start fasting, but rather deal with the wealthy. Guard your eyes and your mouth and your ears, from there take the taxes. Don't deal with those from whom you won't get anything serious. There are many more stories, but these are only light excerpts.
The second son who appears here, "beis," his holiness the Rebbe Rabbi Sholom Dov Ber. This is essentially the Rebbe Rashab. We will speak about him, God willing, at length, when we reach further on to the life story of the Rebbe Rashab.
Third, Reb Avraham Sender, who passed away at the age of eight. This third son who appears here—there are places where it appears that he was actually the first, the eldest. Here we see a wondrous thing: first of all, an eight-year-old passed away, and he is called "the Rav." The Rebbe Rashab, who was his brother, told about him that Reb Avraham Sender was wondrous in his faculties. He possessed both intellect (mochin) and emotional attributes (midos), and he passed away at the age of eight, during the lifetime of the Rebbe the Tzemach Tzedek.
The Rebbe the Tzemach Tzedek said to Rabbi Maharash, his son, about the grandson who passed away, Rabbi Avraham Sender: "He was the soul of the Alter Rebbe." Wondrous things are told about him. At the age of four, the grandfather, the Rebbe the Tzemach Tzedek, learned Mishnayos with him, and the child himself would make all the precise inferences that are stated in the Gemara; already on his own he would say them at the age of four. He was a very, very frail child, did not understand at all what it means to play, never played, and was constantly occupied with Torah and prayer.
The Rebbe once related, at the farbrengen of the 20th of Menachem Av 5702, and it appears in a sicha of the Rebbe, that it is known that the Alter Rebbe passed away before his time, for when the Alter Rebbe passed away, it was when they were fleeing from Napoleon, and in the middle of the journey there was some mistake in the direction of travel, and this caused the passing of the Alter Rebbe before his time. This son of the Rebbe Maharash, Avraham Sender, was the neshama of the Alter Rebbe, who came to live in the world the number of years by which the Alter Rebbe had passed away before his time.
It is told that at the time of his passing, an eight-year-old child, the grandfather, the Rebbe the Tzemach Tzedek, was present there, and his father, the Rebbe Maharash, was present there, and also the brothers, and he said wondrous things. He was in a state of wondrous composure of mind, and he said: "Grandfather, the Alter Rebbe, is calling me to come to him." He said: "Dress me in Shabbos clothes. Pray Mincha with joy." He finished saying "the praised God," began saying "Shema Yisrael," and when he finished saying the final words "Hashem is One," his soul departed. This was a wondrous child, mentioned here, Reb Avraham Sender, who passed away at the age of eight years.
The fourth son mentioned here, the fourth, Rabbi Menachem Mendel. He was born on the 7th of Adar 5627. We see from the date that he was born within the first year after the Rebbe the Tzemach Tzedek. The Rebbe the Tzemach Tzedek passed away on the 13th of Nissan 5626, as we have already related, and he was born before the conclusion of the year, so they named him after the Rebbe the Tzemach Tzedek.
He was also very, very talented. In the biography there appears something he wrote to his father, the Rebbe Maharash, when he was at the age of bar mitzvah. He wrote something in Aramaic, a complete acrostic following the entire alphabet, truly a very emotional letter, all in Aramaic in a very, very interesting manner.
He passed away at the age of seventy-five, in the year 5702. There is something interesting connected to his burial. Because of his financial situation, he left Russia and moved to live in Paris, France. Later he moved to live on the island of Corsica, which also belongs to France, and there he passed away and there he was also buried.
There is a law in France that after twenty years the grave is plowed over, so it was expected that this would happen also to his grave. Thirteen years after he passed away, in the year 5715, the Rebbe asked the chassid Rabbi Binyamin Gorodetzky to bring his body up from France to the Land of Israel. This was a secret operation, because there were family members who it was feared would object to it. So secretly they opened the grave, took him out, and put the tombstone back as if he had remained there. They took him out in the middle of the night, transported him by ship to the Land, and he arrived at the port of Haifa in the winter of 5716, and in the middle of the night they buried him in the ancient cemetery in Tzfat.
And even then they did not erect a monument, but rather made a monument of concrete without any inscription. Nothing was written, only a select few knew what was located in this place. This continued for years. In 5739 several of the elder chassidim came to Rabbi Bistritzky, may he rest in peace, who was a rabbi in Tzfat, and told him that they knew exactly where it was. He wrote to the Rebbe, and by the Rebbe's instruction they placed a new monument, and wrote all the details. The Rebbe paid; he wanted to be the one who covered all the expenses connected with this.
What is interesting is that when they brought his body from France in 5716, the Rebbe very much wanted, and asked Rabbi Ephraim Wolf, who was dealing with this, that they bring a photographer to photograph the body of Menachem Mendel. He said, "I want to see a picture of the body of the Rebbe Menachem Mendel." Rabbi Ephraim Wolf did not manage to obtain a photographer in the middle of the night, because 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, and this was fifteen years after his passing, and it was completely whole, as if he had just passed away. This is what Rabbi Ephraim Wolf said, and he was a great Jew, the son of the Rebbe Yosef.