The Making of Chassidim - Sixty years ago, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, the Previous Lubavitcher Rebbe, sent a long letter to his daughter, Rebbetzin Chayah Mushka, describing the personal metamorphosis several individuals underwent as they accepted the chassidic way of life.
The letter is dated 16 Shevat 5695, and was apparently written while the Previous Rebbe was in Purkersdorf, a health resort near Vienna (where he spent the period between Chanukah and Pesach of that year), while the Rebbe and Rebbetzin resided in Paris.
Although it is a personal letter from father to daughter, the first 120 pages of the manuscript somehow became public under somewhat mysterious circumstances. Copies were then made and circulated among a select group of chassidim. This manuscript was known simply as "the Long Letter." The conclusion of the letter, however, remained private.
The original Yiddish text and a Hebrew translation were published in Shemuos VeSippurim by the late Rabbi Raphael Nachman Kahan. According to rumor, the Lubavitcher Rebbe (son-in-law of the author) gave Rabbi Kahan permission to print the letter, but declined to make the remainder of the manuscript available. Subsequently, these 120 pages were reprinted in the Previous Rebbe's collected letters, Igros Kodesh of the Rebbe Rayatz, Vol. 3, No. 750 pp. 156-279. The present English translation first appeared in serial form in Beis Moshiach Magazine, between January and July 1995.
In this letter, we are treated to a glimpse into the lives of several early chassidim, who were instrumental in spreading chassidic teachings and the chassidic way of life in the regions where Chabad Chassidus originated. Foremost among these early pioneers were the three famous companions: Reb Mordechai Bayever, Reb Chayim Mazierer, and Reb Yissachar Dov Kabilniker. Referring to the present letter, the author writes (in No. 751):
The first person to bring the shining light of the Baal Shem Tov's Torah into the province of White Russia ... was the young scholar, outstanding in Torah and fear of Heaven, possessed of superior intellect, Reb Mordechai of Bayev ... [together with] Reb Chayim and Reb Yissachar Dov ... the first to implant the Torah of our Holy Master, the Baal Shem Tov, in the four White Russian Counties: Minsk, Mohilev, Vitebsk (Polotzk), and Czernigov.
In uniquely rich prose, the Previous Rebbe gives us a graphic portrait of the spiritual rhythms of life in the shtetl, what inspired the Jews of the era, and the focal points around which their lives revolved.
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