When Rabbi Shneur Zalman ascended the podium at the central study hall of Shklov, the large room was filled to overflowing. Virtually all the town's scholars were there. Some had come to hear the Rebbe speak, but most were there for what was to follow the lecture, when the town's scholars would have the opportunity to pose their questions to the visiting scholar. All had heard of Rabbi Shneur Zalman's strange behavior earlier that day, when all the questions put to him were met with silence. Many hoped to humiliate the chasidic leader by publicly demonstrating his inability to answer their questions. In the background, of course, loomed the recent controversy over the Rebbe's unconventional interpretation of the Talmudic passage about animals' collars on Shabbat.
Rabbi Shneur Zalman began to speak. "All those of shir go out with shir and are drawn by shir. The masters of song," explained the Rebbe, "the souls and the angels, all go out in song and are drawn by song. Their yearning for G-d, and their drawing back to fulfill the purpose of their creation, are by means of song and melody." And the Rebbe began to sing.
The room fell utterly silent as the Rebbe's melodious voice enveloped the scholars of Shklov. All were caught in the thrall of the melody, a melody of yearning and resolve, of ascent and retreat. As the Rebbe sang, every man in the room felt himself transported from the crowded hall to the innermost recesses of his own mind, where a person is alone with the confusion of his thoughts, alone with his questions and doubts. Only the confusion was gradually being dispelled, the doubts resolved. By the time the Rebbe finished singing, all the questions in the room had been answered.
Among those present in the Shklov study hall that day was one of town's foremost prodigies, Rabbi Yosef Kolbo. Many years later, Rabbi Yosef related his experience to the chasid, Rabbi Avraham Sheines. "I came to the study hall that day with four extremely difficult questions - questions I had put forth to the leading scholars of Vilna and Slutzk, to no avail. When the Rebbe began to sing, the knots in my mind began to unravel, the concepts began to crystalize and fall into place. One by one, my questions fell away. When the Rebbe finished singing, everything was clear. I felt like a newly born child beholding the world for the first time.
"That was the day I became a chasid," concluded Rabbi Yosef.
Reprinted from The Week in Review, published by V.H.H.
