Rabbi Shmuel Schneersohn, the Rebbe Moharash, was the fourth Rebbe of the Chabad-Lubavitch dynasty. He was born on the 2nd of Iyar, 5594 (1834) to his father, the Rebbe the Tzemach Tzedek and to his mother the Rebbetzin Chayah Mushka. He was named after the hidden tzaddik, Rabbi Shmuel the Water-Drawer of Plotsk. Though the youngest son, he continued his father's leadership in Lubavitch, while most of his brothers led Chasidic courts in other towns. He married his niece Sterna Schneersohn, and after her passing married his cousin the Rebbetzin Rivkah. He labored greatly on behalf of Russian Jewry and the Jewish people at large, establishing Jewish settlements and interceding with the authorities. He coined the famous Chasidic expression "Lechatchilah Ariber,” which means "From the outset, go over the top.” He explained it in the following way: "The world thinks that when one cannot go beneath an obstacle one should go over it. But I hold that from the very outset one must go over it. From the outset one must act with full force, be undaunted by anything, and do what must be done. And when one begins this way, the Holy blessed One helps." The Rebbe Moharash was known for conducting himself with great generosity and affluence. He departed this world on the 13th of Tishrei, 5643 (1882), at the age of 48, and was interred in Lubavitch in the ohel of his father, the Tzemach Tzedek. His son Rabbi Shalom DovBer succeeded him in the leadership.
The Chasidic leader and influencer, Rabbi Dovid Tzvi Chen, rabbi of Chernigov, was once visiting the Rebbe Moharash in Lubavitch, as was his custom. He had arrived late for his private audience, so he went to the room adjacent to the Rebbe’s chamber and waited there for the Rebbe to pass through, intending to ask him what to do, as he was obliged to travel home. At that moment the Rebbe's attendant came into that room to replace the Rebbe's linen after the previous private audience because during the sessions the garments would become soaked with perspiration. The attendant said to Rabbi David Tzvi: "Perhaps you know why he sweats so much in there when he gives a private audience? Today, even though the sessions lasted only a total of an hour, he sweated a great deal!" Rabbi David Tzvi was silent. The attendant said again: "What is it, for heaven's sake, that makes him sweat so much in there?"
At that moment, the door of the Rebbe's chamber opened, and the Rebbe turned to his attendant and said: "From this day forward you are dismissed from your position. Not a penny will be deducted from your wages. Go home, and every week I will send your salary to your home."
He then added: "You cannot understand why I sweat. During that hour, twenty-five people came to me for a private audience. To give each person the right counsel, I must feel his distress exactly as he himself feels it. I must strip away my own “garments” and clothe myself in his. And when I then need to give him advice, I cannot do so while still wearing his garments, just as he himself cannot counsel his own soul from within his situation, so I must once again remove his garments and clothe myself in my own again. Thus, for each individual who comes to seek a private audience, I must undress and dress twice. Now consider this: if in the course of one hour a person must undress and dress fifty times, is it possible not to sweat?"
The profound depth of the Moharash's concern for his chasidim is bound to the fact that the Rebbe Moharash belongs to the sefirah of beauty (tiferet). One of the signs for this connection is that he was born on the day that is the “beauty of beauty” (tiferet shebetiferet) in the Counting of the Omer. His day of passing is the 13th of Tishrei, which according to the holy Ari is likewise connected to this sefirah for the four days between Yom Kippur and Sukkot correspond to the letters of God’s essential Name, Havayah, with the 13th of Tishrei corresponding to the letter vav of Havayah and representing the sefirah of beauty.
Among the soul's faculties, the inner experience of “beauty” is the quality of compassion (rachamim). More than any other quality, compassion is characterized by a felt sense of the recipient's situation and a genuine understanding of where he stands and it is from this understanding that the giving flows toward him. Another story about private audiences describes a conversation between the Moharash and his father, the Rebbe Tzemach Tzedek:
The Tzemach Tzedek, like every Rebbe, had set times for private audience. It was an immensely demanding labor, and once, at the end of a long night of receiving people privately, he opened his heart to his son the Moharash, who was present in his room at the time: "Why do I need this? Would it not be simpler and better if I wrote Chasidic discourses and disseminated them, and each person would find rest for his soul in the living words of God?" The Moharash, who was then a young man, replied at once. He went to the bookshelf, drew back the curtain covering the shelves, pointed to a single shelf containing dozens of his father's handwritten Chasidic manuscripts, and asked his father whether he could have written such works had he not received people for private consultation. His father immediately acknowledged that he could not.
The Tzemach Tzedek had several sons who served as rebbes, yet he chose his youngest son to carry on his leadership in Lubavitch. Before his passing, the Tzemach Tzedek recited to his son the verse from Job, “One is so near to one that no air can come between them” (Job 41:8). The Moharash did not understand what his father meant. Only after the Moharash himself passed away did people understand. The value of “one” (אֶחָד) is 13. So “one is so near to one” refers to thirteen and thirteen, the 13th of Nissan—the date on which the father, the Tzemach Tzedek passed on—and the 13th of Tishrei—the date on which the son, the Rebbe Moharash passed on. The deep bond between them allowed the Moharash to penetrate the depth of his father's mind and to put his mind to peace regarding the difficulties of relating to his chasidim and enclothing himself in their garments during their private audiences.
The relationship between the Moharash and his father resembles the relationship between the sefirot of knowledge (da'at) and beauty (tiferet); knowledge is considered the soul of beauty. The meaning here is that the Tzemach Tzedek inclines toward a more "spiritual" and abstract mode of identification with his chasidim, just as the sefirah of knowledge is considered part of the intellectual sefirot. Even though it includes emotion and the soul's power of identification (both of the self as well as empathy for others), it remains, relative to beauty—the center of all the emotive sefirot—abstract and conceptual. The Moharash, by contrast, seeks to be a Rebbe who reaches his chasidim and truly meets them, a meeting of the yechidah (singular one) meeting another soul’s yechidah, out of complete identification between the souls.
The Tzemach Tzedek once compared himself to a hat-maker. A hat-maker places hats of various sizes in his shop without having any particular customer in mind. So too a rebbe writes varied Chasidic essays without intending them for any specific person. People then come, study the discourses, and choose the one that has touched their heart, in a sense, they find the hat that fits them. But the Moharash insists on demonstrating that all the richness of his father's Chasidut flows from the direct encounters he has with the chasidim, and not from influencing them from afar. The exhausting personal encounter refines the vessels of the mind and the heart, and it is from that refinement that one merits to reveal and understand the deep mysteries of Torah.
A further well-known story relates that the year 5608 (1848) was considered an auspicious time for Mashiach to come. But, when the year had passed and Mashiach did not come, the Tzemach Tzedek said to his son that in fact, the coming of Mashiach had occurred that year, for that was the year that Likkutei Torah a seminal anthology of the Alter Rebbe’s essays was printed. The Moharash replied that this was not the Mashiach they were waiting for. The sefirah of beauty is unwilling to compromise on compassion when the matter truly touches the heart of the other, nor is it willing to compromise about the Mashiach—he must be a flesh and blood human being who will redeem compassionately.
