Rebbe Shmuel Weinberg of Slonim was born in 5610 (1850) to Rabbi Yechiel Michel Aharon, son of Rebbe Avraham, the founder of Slonim Chasidism. He acquired most of his approach and teachings from his grandfather but often travelled to other Chasidic rebbes of his generation. He led extensive public activities and worked on several matters together with the Rebbe Rashab [about whom he remarked that he was the tzaddik of the generation] and with other great figures of his time such as Rabbi Chaim of Brisk, the Chofetz Chaim, and many others. In his connections with the rabbis of his generation, he was served by his nephew Rebbe Avraham Weinberg (the third), who later became the Rebbe of Slonim. Following the way of the Slonim Rebbes, he maintained close ties with the Chasidic settlements in the Land of Israel and supported them, visiting the Land twice in his youth. In 5660 (1900), he worked to establish the Or Torah Yeshivah in Tiberias, through his chasid Rabbi Moshe Kliers, the Ashkenazi rabbi of the city. He passed away on the 19th of Shevat, 5676 (1916), during World War I, while receiving medical treatment in Warsaw. Due to travel difficulties during the war, he was buried in the Jewish cemetery in Warsaw. His discourses and Torah teachings that survived were published in Tishrei 5729 (1968) by Rebbe Shalom Noach Berzovsky (the Netivot Shalom), in the book Divrei Shmuel.
During the time of the Saba Kadisha [the Holy Grandfather] of Slonim, Rebbe Shmuel’s grandfather, there was a minister who caused the Jews great trouble. Each time, to resolve the matter, the Jews had to collect a large sum of money and bribe him. The rebbe himself would collect money from wealthy local Jews and send it to the minister so he would not harass them.
After the passing of the Saba Kadisha, Rebbe Shmuel succeeded him. The wicked minister came to Rebbe Shmuel and declared, “If you do not pay me, I will turn you in to the authorities!” Instead of bribing him as his grandfather had done, Rebbe Shmuel rebuked him and said: “Get out of here. If you do not stop with your informing, I will turn you in to the authorities for extortion. I know very well that you are extorting money, and I will report you to the authorities.”
The minister left, and after some time appeared again with a loaded gun and said to the Rebbe: “Either you convert me, or I will shoot myself. Life as a non-Jew is not worth living.” The tzaddik immediately sent him to Brod, outside the country, and said to him: “Flee from here as quickly as possible, and there they will convert you. Here you cannot convert.” The minister fled to Brod and converted there. In Brod, he lived as a simple Jew and would distribute sweets to small children in the synagogue so they would answer, “Amen, may His great Name be blessed.”
In his first years as Rebbe, Rebbe Shmuel would travel to several tzaddikim of the generation such as Rebbe Chaim of Sanz and Rebbe Dovid Moshe of Chortkov. Once, on one of his journeys, he passed through Brod, where that righteous convert was living. When he met him, the tzaddik invited him to come with him to the rebbe he was planning to visit. In response, the righteous convert prostrated himself on the ground, crying, “How can I atone for the trouble I caused the Jews?” Rebbe Shmuel calmed him and said: “Rise. Your repentance has already been accepted.” The convert rose and travelled together with Rebbe Shmuel.
To complete the picture painted by the story, let us begin with a saying from Rebbe Shmuel of Slonim: “There are people in the capital Petersburg who spend the entire night deliberating on how to harm the Jews. If they knew that in a distant place there is a slight Jew who nullifies all their decrees, they would lose their will to live.” It seems that Rebbe Shmuel had the ability to make the Jew-hating gentile despise his own life. But in our story, it appears this was a non-Jew with a spark of holiness. Once he despised his life as a non-Jew, he immediately wanted to convert and become a Jew.
Interestingly, contrary to what is usually customary, the Rebbe did not reject him or recommend that he keep the seven Noahide laws and remain a son of Noah. The Rebbe correctly identified that the transformation the convert underwent was absolute; life as a non-Jew, even if righteous and observant of commandments, no longer interested him at all. This is an early spark of what we call the Fourth Revolution [in Torah learning], in which all the scattered sparks will gather to the people of Israel. Through them, the verse, “For then I will transform the peoples to a pure language, all of them calling in the Name of God, serving Him with one shoulder” (Zephaniah 3:9).
Similarly, it is told about the Ba’al Shem Tov when he spent Shabbat in the city of Homel:
On Sunday, the Ba’al Shem Tov left the city, and on his way out three Polish hooligans began to mock him and even threw stones at him. One of them laughed more than his friends and also derided the Ba’al Shem Tov in Polish: “This Jew’s beard is like a goat's beard.”
The Ba’al Shem Tov descended from the wagon, approached the hooligan, struck him on the shoulder and said to him in Polish: “Bendz Zhidem!” [meaning, “Be a Jew”]. The Ba’al Shem Tov returned to the wagon and continued on his way. The hooligan chased after the wagon but did not catch up with it until they reached the village of Asavin (about ten kilometers from Homel). The gentile fell at the Ba’al Shem Tov’s feet and begged him to cut off his foreskin. And there in the village they circumcised him according to Jewish law.
As long as the gentile world can tolerate its current life, it cannot open up to something completely different. It might agree, perhaps, to season its life with Jewish spirituality, and even to a power struggle in which sometimes it is defeated and sometimes victorious, but not to a transformation from one essence to another. But today, as the Lubavitcher Rebbe said, “Esau is ready for redemption” and many already feel the meaninglessness of life without Godliness.
Regarding this phenomenon, it is said to Israel and to the future converted Jews, those sparks coming to join in the inheritance of God, “And I will bring you out from under the burdens of Mitzrayim (Egypt, which also means “straits”). When the Overseer God desires to redeem us, He first removes the “burdens of Egypt,” the ability to tolerate the constraints of exile. When we merit this, we too will be redeemed, as the verse states “And I will redeem you from their bondage.”
