מנחם מנדל מוויטבסק

Rav Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk (5490/1730–1 Iyar 5548/1788) was among the great Admorim of the third generation of chassidut after the Baal Shem Tov, and the leader of the aliyah of three hundred that carried chassidut up to Eretz Yisrael. He was born in Vitebsk in White Russia; his father Moshe was among the close ones of the Baal Shem Tov, and brought his son before him already at the age of nine. He later lived in Minsk, and became one of the foremost talmidim of the Maggid of Mezeritch, spreading chassidut in his name through Reisin and through Lithuania, where he worked alongside Rav Aharon HaGadol of Karlin. A saying is repeated in his name: in Reisin he found whole hearts and torn garments, and he turned them into torn hearts and whole garments.

After the petirah of the Maggid he returned to Vitebsk and then moved to nearby Horodok — from which he is also called Menachem Mendel of Horodok — and by the Maggid’s tzava’ah he was crowned leader of the chassidim of White Russia. Together with Rav Shneur Zalman of Liadi, who took him as his Rebbe once the Maggid was gone, he sought out the Vilna Gaon to move him from his opposition to chassidut, but the meeting never came about.

In Adar 5537/1777 he went up to Eretz Yisrael accompanied by three hundred people, most of whom joined along the way, among them his talmidim Rav Avraham of Kalisk and Rav Yisrael of Polotsk. Rav Shneur Zalman of Liadi set out with them but turned back in mid-journey at their instruction, to lead the chassidim of White Russia in their place. He settled first in Peki’in and then in Tzfat, and after persecution by the Turkish and Arab authorities and a libel raised against him he moved to Teveria, where he founded the chassidic settlement and put up a three-storey building that served as the center of the chevrah — the chassidim sheltered in it through the plague of 1786, and a Karlin-Stolin kollel stands on the site today. He guided the chassidim he had left behind in Europe through letters carried by emissaries, and was among the founders of the kupat ma’ot Eretz HaKodesh, which brought funds from abroad for the chassidic yishuv. He spent all that was his on the settlement of the land and the upkeep of his community, until he was niftar in poverty.

His name is carried by Pri HaAretz, his commentaries on the five chumashim in the way of chassidut, at whose end stand the letters he sent to his chassidim in Eastern Europe — some of them written by Rav Avraham of Kalisk, his foremost talmid — with words of chizuk for the renewed settlement of Teveria, requests for support, and directives for the conduct of the chassidim. He also left Pri HaEitz and Likutei Amarim, and the Tanya of Rav Shneur Zalman rests in part on his works. His humility was known: he signed his letters “the truly lowly one,” and would not agree that words of praise be written on his matzeivah, only his name. He was niftar on 1 Iyar 5548/1788 in Teveria and buried in the old cemetery there, in the plot of the talmidim of the Baal Shem Tov; the small shul he built in Teveria in 5545/1785, rebuilt after the Galilee earthquake of 1837, stands today as the Karlin-Stolin shul.