Rabbi Shlomo Dovid Yehoshua Weinberg, HY”D, the fourth Rebbe of the Slonim Hasidic dynasty, was born in 5674 (1914) to Rabbi Avraham Weinberg of Slonim. He was chosen as Rebbe at the age of 21, following the sudden passing of his father on the 1st of Iyar 5693 (1933). He married Sima, the daughter of Rabbi Yitzchak Menachem Mendel of Alexander, on the 6th of Adar 5694 (1934). He and his wife lived with his father-in-law for about two years, after which he returned to his city, Baranovitch. He was heavily involved in communal affairs, and despite his young age, was greatly respected. He was known for his humility, wisdom, diligence, and his niggunim (chasidic melodies).
At the beginning of the Second World War, his chasidim in the Land of Israel and the United States begged him to escape to Vilna, but the Rebbe refused to leave his chasidim and was deported to the Baranovitch ghetto. There, he continued to care for all those in need, and to function as a rebbe in every sense with self-sacrifice, until he was murdered on the 6th of Cheshvan together with eight other Jews. As they were being led out, he said to the Jews that were with him: "It is brought in the Midrash that the Holy Blessed One, dyes His garments with the blood of those killed for the sanctification of His Name, and on the Day of Judgment, He wears that garment. What could be more important than to be inscribed on the garment of the Holy Blessed One?"
Rebbe Shlomo’s holy way was to draw those who were distancing themselves from Torah near, while from those close and beloved to him, he demanded much piety and effort.
There was once a young man in Baranovitch who had strayed from the Torah path, and the rebbe, of blessed memory, did not give up on him and always drew him very close. In the middle of the tisch (chasidic gathering), he called him Itzele, affectionately, gave him shirayim (leftovers from the rebbe's plate), and told him: “The door is always open for you.”
Once, this young man was inside the Rebbe’s room, and the yeshivah students standing outside heard him arguing with the Rebbe: “Are we not the chosen people! So why, is it that when I walk in the street, a non-Jew approaches me, slaps me, and call me a Zhid?!” The rebbe, of blessed memory, answered him, “You want to forget that you're a Jew! That's why this non-Jew comes and reminds you that you're a Jew....”
The young man further challenged: “Why did they burn Torah scrolls in Germany?” (This was before the Holocaust.) The Rebbe answered him: “Because the Jews didn't fulfill the Torah. After all, what is a Torah scroll, essentially? We take animal hide and write letter on it with ink. They didn’t want to fulfill what is written on the scroll, so the parchments were burned and the letters flew into the air.”
Rebbe Shlomo then asked Itzele to come every night after work to the shtiebel [small synagogue] to learn some Mishnah and the like. Itzele asked, “What will I gain from this?” Rebbe Shlomo replied, “It is written, ‘God will count when He writes in the register of peoples.’ The meaning of this verse is that in the language of the nations, they write from left to right. When you go about work during the day, it is neither a good deed (mitzvah) nor a transgression (aveirah). So, for everything you do, in Heaven they register a zero and then another, and for every moment a zero is registered, until many zeros accumulate in the register. But at the end of the day when you go to the cinema or theater, then they add at the end of all the zeros, on the left side, a number 1, for one transgression, and now everything you did all day becomes a million transgressions. But if at the end of the day you come to the synagogue, then they will write at the end, on the left side, the number 1 for this mitzvah you have performed, and all the zeros will become a million good deeds.”
We can contemplate this story from several angles. But we can derive the most benefit from it if we stand in the room beside Itzele, the young man who has lost his way, and listen to both the rebuke and the hope that the rebbe gives him. In essence, the rebbe is saying to him: you are nothing but a zero because your actions are meaningless in themselves, and they all revolve around an axis that is neither a positive deed nor a transgression. You are an average person. But the way out of this, in either direction, is that one action has the power to influence the entire system and give it true meaning.
We too, each from our own place, know and recognize well the near meaninglessness that typifies most of our time. And not just our actions. Even in our understanding Torah, we often become like a zero and understand nothing. Furthermore, if we delve a bit deeper, isn't the purpose of man to refine his character traits, as Rabbi Saadia Gaon explicitly wrote? If so, if our seven emotional attributes (from loving-kindness to kingdom) remain as they are, they amount to no more than seven zeros. But one understanding in Torah, or one Mishnah learned properly, can stand beside the seven zeros and turn them into ten million. Likewise, in gematria, “one” (אחד), whose numerical value is 13, plus seven times “zero” (אפס), whose numerical value is 141, together add up to 1000, the secret of the thousand lights given to Moses at Sinai. 1000 is also the secret of the novel interpretations that “a dedicated student” (תלמיד ותיק), whose value is 1000, is destined to innovate, referring to none other than “Israel Baal Shem Tov” (ישראל בעל שם טוב), whose numerical value is also 1000.
Once, at a kiddush after prayer, the young rebbe asked the holy Rabbi Yudel Kozloychner, a disciple of the Yesod HaAvodah, to tell a story. Out of respect for the rebbe, Rabbi Yudel did not want to speak at all, so the young rebbe began to speak himself.
He related how the great scholar who invented the game of chess once brought the new game before the king, who was very impressed by it. The king asked him: “What gift do you want from me for this?” The scholar said to him: “Since the chessboard has 64 squares, I request that the king give me one grain of wheat for the first square, and then double it for the second, then double it again for the third, and so on until the 64th square.” The king laughed at him and commanded that a bundle of wheat be brought, thinking he would be done with him with a kilogram of wheat. He put one grain on the first square, two on the second, four on the third, eight on the fourth, sixteen on the fifth, until in the last square he reached a number with 24 digits, billions times billions, and he understood that there are not enough grains of wheat in the entire world to give the scholar.
The young rebbe explained, and concluded: “This is what is written, ‘If you forsake Me for one day, I will forsake you for two days.’ When a person is weakened one day in his service of the Almighty, if he weakens the next day, it will be counted as two days, and then four, and then eight, and so on, until it grows to many days.”
When Rabbi Yudel heard this, he began to cry out loud, and they feared that it would, God forbid, affect his health. But the rebbe, with his wisdom, calmed him down and said: “The sages of blessed memory said that the measure of reward is greater than the measure of punishment, and when a Jew returns to God and His service, he draws closer much faster, far beyond how far he had distanced himself.” And Rabbi Yudel was mollified.
As in the previous story, the Rebbe reveals his affinity for numerical games that turn into lessons about serving God. As in the previous story, he shows how something small becomes great and meaningful. Here, he teaches how the concept of exponential growth—which lies at the heart of a nuclear chain reaction, or the growth of a living organism from a single cell—figures in our service of God.
By employing this parable, and making it clear that “the good and beneficent measure is greater,” it is certain that Rebbe Shlomo’s own grasp of the Creator grew in this way every day. Nevertheless, he did not cease to feel like a “zero,” and encouraged himself that even the smallest progress traverses the infinite gap between zero and one.
On Simchat Torah night, the rebbe and his chasidim would sing special melodies and joyful songs in Russian and Polish. Finally, he said: “We haven't even started to do anything yet. The High Holidays are over, and we haven't even started to achieve anything.” And he became very bitter. He said: “Indeed we have not done anything. But now let’s start with the alef-beit (the first letters of the Hebrew alphabet).” And he began to sing the alef-beit melody. His chasidim were also very bitter that all the holidays had passed, and now they were going back to the weekdays, to the hard winter, and to the daily grind of poverty and hardship, and the atmosphere was very tense.
Then Rebbe Shlomo said in these words: “In any situation and place where a Jew finds himself, if he surrenders some desire to God or breaks some craving, then it is a festival day!” And with this, he revived and supported the world, teaching that one can make every day into a festival day.
