The Previous Rebbe related that at one point in the days of the Alter Rebbe, the economic situation was so difficult that livelihood was very hard to obtain. Special, prominent Chassidim including the Mittler Rebbe, Aron Strellesher and Pinchas Reizes were granted an audience with the Alter Rebbe. They asked him to arouse great heavenly mercy so that the community could receive an abundant livelihood.
The Alter Rebbe responded. “When blessings flow from above, it is necessary to make vessels below to receive them.”
Those vessels, he continued, are love and harmony not jealousy and gossip. When the Kohanim bless the people, they make a bracha that Hashem “commands us to bless his people with love.” There is a dual intention in that blessing.
- The Kohanim should bless the people with love and
- That there should be love between those being blessed—the Children of Israel.
After that private audience the Alter Rebbe went into shul, ascended the bima, and announced in his powerful sweet voice “He gives abundant life in his great kindness but not in the factories where strong drink is made.
Hashem’s kindness is not like earthly kindness which requires a reason for doing the kindness. Supernal kindness itself is the source and flow of kindness. But it is necessary to make vessels to contain that flow of good, and the vessels are love and harmony. That year, livelihood came very, very abundantly.
The Previous Rebbe concluded that the words of tzadikim stand forever. When those words are hidden, it is only necessary for a Rebbe to tell the story for the blessings to be revealed.
The government had taken over manufacturing strong drink from which business the Jews had made ample parnosa up until then.
