Rabbi Yehuda Aryeh Leib Geliner, the Preacher of Polnoye, was among the first disciples of the Ba’al Shem Tov and one of the greatest disseminators of his teachings. Even before drawing close to the Ba’al Shem Tov, he served as a maggid (preacher) and cantor in Polnoye. When he came close to the Ba’al Shem Tov, he was sent to travel among Jewish communities and utilize his oratorical talents to draw souls to the Chasidic movement. Indeed, his sermons were very impactful, and under his influence, Rabbi Yaakov Yosef Katz of Polnoye, author of Toldot Yaakov Yosef, came close to Chasidut, and according to one tradition, so did the Maggid of Mezritch. Rabbi Yehuda Aryeh Leib Geliner passed away in Polnoye on the 21st of Tevet 5530 (1770) and was buried there. Twelve years later, Rabbi Yaakov Yosef of Polnoye was buried adjacent to him, and an "ohel" was erected over their graves.
In his youth, Rabbi Pinchas of Koretz was a teacher in the town of Polnoye, where they called him der shvartzer melamed [the black teacher]. He would frequently visit the home of the Preacher of Polnoye, who was very fond of him, for he recognized Rabbi Pinchas’ righteousness and holiness which others did not. The Preacher had a special room and a private mikveh (ritual bath) in the bathhouse, separate from the large mikveh for the townspeople. Rabbi Pinchas asked permission to use his mikveh whenever he wished, night or day. The Preacher agreed and instructed the bathhouse attendant to admit Rabbi Pinchas whenever he came.
Once, Rabbi Pinchas came to the mikveh to immerse after midnight, but the attendant refused to open it for him, as that day he had bought some geese and placed them there. Seeing that he was not allowed to enter, Rabbi Pinchas lifted some planks from the roof, entered and immersed. When he finished, he exited through the hole, but because it was narrow and tight the roof’s crossbeam broke and when he descended from the roof, the crossbeam fell on Rabbi Pinchas and killed him. As all of this took place in the middle of the night, nobody knew what had happened.
The Preacher suddenly awoke from his sleep and said to his attendant: "What is this noise I hear outside? Go out and see!" The attendant went out and heard nothing, came back and told the Preacher that there was no noise outside. The Preacher sent him again to look, for he heard a great noise from outside. The attendant went out again and came back, telling the Rabbi he heard no noise. When day broke, a dead man was found lying by the bathhouse. A great commotion arose in the town, and when the matter became known to the Preacher of Polnoye, he ordered that the deceased not be moved from his place until he arrived there.
Then the Preacher went to the synagogue to recite Psalms and wept greatly. He prayed before God in these words: "Master of the Universe, return Rabbi Pinchas’ soul to him and let him live! You will yet thank me for this; he is a great God-fearing man and a tzaddik!" He wept and prayed for some time, and afterwards went to the place of the deceased, moved him and said to him: "Pinchas'l! Get up and go teach your students, you are a day laborer!" Rabbi Pinchas rose and went to his home, and they saw, with God's help, a true revival of the dead.
“The smallest among you revives the dead” (Avodah Zarah 10b) said Emperor Antoninus to Rabbi Yehudah the Prince. But what is life itself, and how do the righteous renew it after it has ceased?
The verse states that “the fear of God [is the source] for life” (Proverbs 19:23) but life itself is “life and goodness” (Deuteronomy 30:15). From this we learn that the experience of life begins with a moment of awe because lifeforce, when it enters, shakes and strikes the soul, but afterwards the consciousness of life is present in its beneficence, causing one to sense the good permeating all of reality.
When the experience of life awakens the attraction to good, it transforms the initial point of awe into a full experience of love. Therefore, love, and ultimately the love of God—the Absolute Good—is the complete expression of the experience of life. In contrast, emphasizing the evil around us stems from a general experience that tends more towards death. But all this relates to one’s own experience, so how does love lead to the revival of the dead?
Three Levels of Love of God
The Torah instructs us, “Love Havayah, your God... for He is your life and the length of your days” (Ibid. v. 20). This love is revealed on three levels: life of the body, life of the soul, and the life of life. Each level of life begins with an initial point of awe, which shakes the vessel and brings it into a state of life pulsation.
At the level of bodily life, the feeling that “God is your life” stems from the consciousness of vitality embedded in physical reality, particularly in one’s own bodily life. For the Jew, the complete experience of vitality flowing through all parts of the body is connected to serving God in every bodily movement and every breath. Chasidut teaches that the physical experience of love of God can and should cause an increase in heartbeat and breathing rate, similar to the physical experience of loving another person. As the previous Lubavitcher Rebbe wrote (Hayom Yom 20 Av),
Just as with the mitzvah of tefillin, for example, there is a designated place for them on the head and arm, and one feels the weight of the head-tefillah and the tightness of the hand-tefillah, so too with the mitzvot of love and fear.... The degree of fulfillment of these mitzvot is that there be a bodily sensation, that the very flesh of the heart actually feel; just as when one meets a truly devoted friend. Not only does one feel good and forgets all his troubles, he even enjoys a newly awakened inner liveliness and optimism, all stemming from his cheerful mood.
The second level of love of God stems from the sense of vitality embedded in the soul itself. At this level, one is occupied with awareness and concern for the spiritual well-being of other souls, which are inherently connected to one’s own soul. To truly connect with love to another soul, transcendence above the experience of the body (and even the soul-body, meaning the self-image of one's soul, as explained by the Lubavitcher Rebbe) is required. Here, love and service of God are performed jointly by all souls, as one organic whole with the tzaddik of the generation as its heart. A person experiencing this love feels the life flowing from the tzaddik to all of Israel and to himself among them.
But when one experiences love and life at the level of the body, or even the soul, he is unable to overcome death. His vitality is limited and therefore susceptible to death and certainly does not have the power to revive another person. However, at the third level, God’s presence is fully revealed, and it is felt that life itself must live within God. This is the feeling that all vitality depends on its connection to the source of all life, to God as the life of life. Some awareness of this exists at all levels of love of God; if not, even the spiritual experience of soul life could degenerate into empty bodily vitality and even to actual death. But after the tzaddik achieves perfect awareness of the Life of life, he receives from the hand of the Holy Blessed One, “the key to the revival of the dead” (see Ta’anit 2a).
