שלמה מקרלין

Rebbe Shlomo HaLevi of Karlin (5498/1738–22 Tammuz 5552/1792) was a talmid of the Maggid of Mezritch and of Rebbe Aharon HaGadol of Karlin, and upon Rebbe Aharon’s early passing in 5532/1772 took up the leadership of Karlin chassidut in Lita. Born in Tulchin, he became one of the legendary figures of the movement’s second generation — famed above all for tefillah of consuming fire and for mofsim, wonders wrought through his berachot; the Tzemach Tzedek records the Baal HaTanya saying of him that “the world resounds with him and his miracles.”

He was a raiser of orphans of the movement’s royal houses: he brought up Rebbe Asher of Stolin, the orphaned son of Rebbe Aharon HaGadol, and the sons of Rebbe Avraham HaMalach — Rebbe Sholom Shachne and Rebbe Yisrael Chaim of Ludmir, who became his son-in-law. His talmidim carried Karlin’s fire across White Russia: Rebbe Mordechai of Lechovitch, from whom Lechovitch, Kobrin and Slonim descend, and Rebbe Uri of Strelisk, the Saraf. Driven from Karlin in 5546/1786 by the opponents of chassidut, he spent his last years in Volhynia and Galicia, settling in Ludmir.

He died as a martyr al kiddush Hashem: in the fighting between Russia and Poland before the second partition, a Cossack shot him in Ludmir, and he was niftar of his wounds on 22 Tammuz 5552 (1792). The tzaddikim of the generation saw in him Mashiach ben Yosef — the chassidic mesorah holds that the Cossack’s name was Armilus, the very name the ancient sources give the slayer of Mashiach ben Yosef — and Karliner chassidim to this day mark his hilula by saying shehecheyanu on a new fruit, even in the days of bein hametzarim. His Torah is preserved in the sefer Shema Shlomo.