Shalom al Yisra’el (Peace upon Israel)

A Memorial to the Children of Israel, or The Guilt of Hasidim

Upon you, great ones, the rebbes of the Hasidim, who follow the path of the Ba‘al Shem Tov, and of whose glorious name they boast and by whom they justify themselves, upon you, who are considered the righteous of the generation and those who sustain it, upon the men of holiness and of wondrous deeds spoken of in the mouths of thousands, nay myriads of our brethren, of those who sanctify you and revere you, and most especially upon you, the sons of the renowned tsadikim R. Mordechai of Chernobil, R. Israel of Ruzhin, and R. Menachem Mendel of Lubavitch—may the memory of them all be for a blessing—do I call with love and affection, with glory and honor, in supplication and with a plea, that you listen carefully and pay attention to my words, as they are words worthy of being uttered and heard, compelling words both for you and for us, words issuing from the depths of the heart, words from which, through their acceptance, much good and benefit will ensue. [ . . . ]

1. Issue an order, and announce in the synagogues and houses of study, with the force of a rabbinical decree, that no Hasid of any one tsadik may dare to speak erroneous and perverse words against the Hasidim of another tsadik, or against another sect, and that they are to refrain from falsely slandering one another in the gentile courts. [ . . . ]
2. To exhort your followers, by means of fearsome warnings, not to introduce any fresh custom, even of a trivial nature—not even a single word—into the prayers in the synagogue, since, as a result of things such as these, congregants frequently come to blows and descend to uttering abuse at prayer times. [ . . . ]
3. To remove from yourselves, and from all the charity collectors and all those engaged in the requisite distributions of the funds designated for the Land of Israel, all evil talk, slander, and mutual suspicion and to take care that all the monies donated by our brethren, the Jewish people, for the needs of the poor of the Land of Israel, should actually reach those persons on behalf of whom such donations were made. [ . . . ]
4. When those who are in your camp come to take counsel with you regarding traveling to the Land of Israel, and explain their arguments and their reasons compelling them to pursue this course, be deliberate in judgment, and make ample investigation and inquiry as to whether they are really sincere, as to whether they do not have another purpose and an alien objective lurking behind their desire and their proposal, since in the majority of cases, their primary motive is nothing more than a love of idleness and of throwing themselves upon the community for financial support. The sanctity of the Land of Israel, and their choice of the wholehearted worship of the Almighty, are nothing but a mask and a secret screen for facilitating the collection and assembling of donations both from private individuals and from the public to enable themselves to live without pain and struggle. [ . . . ]
5. To impose a strict prohibition upon the Hasidim not to make light of the sanctity of the Bible with the Bi’ur [of Moses Mendelssohn], and not to treat it with contempt, as is their normal regular practice. [ . . . ]
6. To distance yourselves from anything repulsive and the like when you prepare your letters for dispatch to your followers, by not employing phrases indicating that the keys of heaven have been delivered into your hands, and that you have been placed in charge of the hidden treasures of life and peace, and that you are meting out penalties and punishments by virtue of the power conferred upon you from above; for such words lead to laughter and scorn, to derision and mockery. [ . . . ]
7. Place a distance, little by little, between yourself and the rabble, they being the empty-headed and unstable individuals who strive after wind and pursue vanity, whose journeys and visits to you are not motivated by any good intentions, but, on the contrary, constitute a wasting of their time with emptiness and idleness, to assist with a portion of the singing and to excel in grabbing the leftovers of the rebbes’ meals. But these men bring you no honor. [ . . . ]
8. Remove the “filthy garments” from yourselves—that is to say, the fattened and stuffed-up administrators, the fools, the gluttons and the drunkards, who suck the blood of the poor and the needy, and squeeze the last drop out of them, who treat all their days like festivals, who live a life of wealth and comfort by means of impudence and insolence, of rudeness and cruelty. They guard the entrances of their rebbe, but do not allow entry to God-fearing and wholehearted men, men who are distressed and bitter of soul, whose entire motivation is for the sake of Heaven. [ . . . ]
9. Speak to the hearts of those close to you; exhort and urge those who listen to your voice, in regard to their learning the script and the language of the country in which you live, so that they should be entirely fluent in it, and that they should not stutter when speaking it, and that they should endeavor to teach their children, at least, that script and language:
   1. Because it is the wish of the government, whose wishes must be deemed sacred in our eyes;
   2. So that we do not bring harm and a grievous curse upon ourselves, for to sojourn and to mingle with a nation whose very language we cannot fathom and understand is one of the ninety-eight curses contained in the portion of “Rebuke,” in Deuteronomy. [ . . . ]
   3. That anyone who lacks knowledge of and familiarity with one of the living languages, lacks a double portion in his comprehension of the holy scriptures. [ . . . ]
10. There is a major halakhah applicable to every individual within Israel, a halakhah upon which the entire honor of the nation in exile is dependent, yet it is laid to rest in a corner, with no one enquiring or seeking information about it. [ . . . ]

And thus it is an obligation devolving upon all the great men of the generation that their words be listened to by the public, and specifically upon men who are like you, for your statements are deemed to possess the status of oral tradition, and are sanctified with the holiness of the divine mysteries, to proclaim and to inform and to publicize, and to emphasize, supported by several reasons based upon allusions and mystic lore, how severe is the prohibition against swindling a gentile, stealing his money, deceiving him, misleading him, or holding on to a lost object of his. Select for yourselves the most powerful sources to be found within our ancient authorities which speak earnestly about this, and which have their basis in the mountains of holiness—words which form part of the fundamentals of the requisite conditions of Jewish piety and saintliness, and discourse generously upon them with elegant expositions. [ . . . ]

My masters and my friends! My brethren and my companions! My beloved and my honored gentlemen! I have indeed made a great request of you, but—Heaven forbid—it is not a hard thing that I have imposed upon you. I am in no doubt that your opinion and mine are precisely identical on all of the ten points mentioned herein by me. [ . . . ]

Restore Hasidism to a state of wisdom, and wisdom will return to it! Behold, we are one people, we are the children of one Father, we are the children of one God—let there be no strife among us, and peace be upon Israel!