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After his arrest, Rabbi Shneur Zalman was at once escorted to
the secret cells of the dread Peter-Paul fortress in St. Petersburg, where he
was to spend over seven weeks until his miraculous release on the 19th
(Yud- Tet) of Kislev, 1798. For the first three weeks he was held under
the severe conditions which were the lot of those impeached for rebellion
against the Czar. The rationale for this was simple: one of the principal
charges against the rebbe was that he had treacherously raised funds for
Russia's traditional enemy, the Turkish sultan. (He had collected money through
the charity boxes of the Rabbi Meir Baal Haness Fund for the support of his
disciples in the Holy Land, which was then under Turkish rule!)
This interrogation took place not there, but in the headquarters
of the Tainy Soviet, the Secret Council on the other side of the Neva River, so that
the Rebbe had to be taken across each time by ferry.  | | " If I want to, I can stop the boat myself...." | | |
On one such occasion, the Rebbe asked the gentile official
accompanying him to stop the ferry so that he could stand and recite Kiddush
Levana, the blessing recited over the New Moon. He refused, whereupon the
Rebbe said, "If I want to, I can stop the boat myself."
And indeed, after the man again refused to oblige, the boat
stopped in the middle of the river. The Rebbe then recited the verses of Psalm
148, which are said before the blessing over the moon, but did not pronounce the
blessing itself. The ferryman realized that unusual forces were at work. He
begged the Rebbe to release the boat. The ferry then proceeded on its way.
When the Rebbe again asked the official to stop the boat, he
asked: "What will you give me in exchange for the favor?"
In reply, Rabbi Shneur Zalman gave him a blessing. The man then
demanded it in writing, and the Rebbe recorded it on a note in his own
handwriting.
In later years, when that official rose to a position of power
and enjoyed an old age of honor and prosperity, he treasured that note, which he
kept under glass in a heavy gold frame. Indeed, it was seen and read by a
renowned disciple of the Rebbe by the name of Rabbi Dov Zev, who, before he was
appointed rabbi of the Chasidic community in Yekaterinoslav, lived in Stradov,
where he was given the main responsibility of teaching Chasidic philosophy and
the guiding chasidim in observance and self-refinement. He had heard from
an aged chasid that there lived a gentile squire not too far from Stradov
who was the son of the official who had received that written blessing from
Rebbe Shneur Zalman halfway across the River Neva. The son too revered the note
in the frame, he said. Hearing this, Rabbi Dov Zev made it his business to
locate that nobleman, and was thus able to see the note.
One year on the 19th of Kislev, on the anniversary of
Rabbi Shneur Zalman's release, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak related the above episode
and added that as a boy he had been left with a question. Since the Rebbe had
already stopped the boat, why did he not recite the blessing as well, and then
he would not have to depend on the favor of the gentile? When he had grown
older, he continued, and had grasped the approach of Chasidism more profoundly,
he understood that here was a point of principle involved. The Rebbe had been
obliged to act as he did, for a mitzvah is made to be performed only when it is
clothed in the ways of nature, and not through supernatural miracles.
He added incidentally that the very fact that a manuscript page
of Rabbi Shneur Zalman's handwriting should be found in the hands of a gentile
is a mystery known only to the Knower of Secrets.
[Adapted from Sipurei Chasidim by Rabbi S. Y. Zevin and Likutei
Dibburim by the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, R. Yosef-Yitzchak Shneersohn, both
translated by Uri Kaploun.]
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