The year was 1844. The notorious Nicholai the First was the Tsar of Russia. Count Sergei S. Uvarov (the “Count”) was Nicholai’s minister of education for the entire Russian Empire. The Count’s goal and mission? To implement a malevolent scheme aimed at converting Jews to Russian Orthodoxy – the first step of which was to order the teaching of the Russian language in all of the schools in Russia. Russian Jewry was in a quandary. Would they relent and begin to teach Russian in Yeshivas? What else could be done? Perhaps a trip to St. Petersburg, the Russian capital at the time, to directly appeal to the Count to rescind his order could work. Perhaps a substantial bribe could be offered. Perhaps traveling to St. Petersburg to pressure the Count would not work or even be counterproductive. Jewish leaders gathered in the home of Rabbi Yisroel Salanter ZT”L (“Reb Yisroel”) in Kovno to discuss their options.
Reb Yisroel rose to his feet and declared, “We travel to St. Petersburg, now!” Now Kovno to St. Petersburg was a trip of about 500 miles. They asked, “Is Reb Yisroel coming as well? Generally, these types of trips are usually undertaken by just us, the Shtadlanim (the advocates who would appeal to the Count).” Rav Salanter answered affirmatively.
When they reached St. Petersburg, Reb Yisroel addressed the Shtadlanim. Everyone thought that Reb Yisroel was about to detail his plan of how to pressure the Count. To everyone’s shock, Reb Yisroel said, “Now, let us discuss whether we should put pressure on the Count to rescind his order.” The group of Shtadlanim responded, “We thought Reb Yisroel already decided that we should put pressure on the Count when we gathered back in Kovno and that is why, upon Reb Yisroel's direction, we are here in St. Petersburg?”
Reb Yisroel answered, “That is not why I said we should go to St. Petersburg. When we were in Kovno, we could not think objectively and any decisions we would have made would have been colored by bias. St. Petersburg is about 500 miles away from Kovno. In addition, the weather is rather cold this time of year. Knowing that we had a cold and long journey ahead of us, could have affected our decision making of whether to travel to St. Petersburg to pressure the Count. Accordingly, I said we should travel to St. Petersburg. Now that we are here, any bias we may have had has been removed and we can think honestly and objectively about what to do.”
