With the rapid expansion of the Chassidic movement under Rabbi Schneur Zalman’s leadership, its opponents resorted to the most extreme measures to undermine his work. He was denounced to the Russian government as a traitor and heretic, an accusation leveled also against certain other Chassidic leaders.
In the year 5558 (1798), Rabbi Schneur Zalman was arrested and taken to the capital, St. Petersburg, where he was thrown into prison to face trial for high treason and subversive political activities. Numerous tales of his sagacity, presence of mind and majestic poise attest to the impression he made on the Czarist commission selected to try his case. Czar Paul I, incognito, and other men of the highest social and military standing visited him to test his sincerity and to fathom his wisdom. On Yud Tes Kislev in the year 5559 (1798), he was freed on the express orders of the Czar. This date has since been a great Yom Tov amongst Chassidim.
Hardly two years after the first attempt, the extreme opposition again denounced Rabbi Schneur Zalman on false charges. Again, he was brought to the Russian capital and imprisoned, but as before, he was cleared of all guilt and released with the approval of Czar Alexander I, who shared the admiration of his predecessor for the venerable leader of the Chabad movement.
During the war between France and Russia, Rabbi Schneur Zalman espoused the Russian cause, and through the cooperation of his followers proved of great service to the Russian High Command. Other Chassidic leaders were loud in their acclaim of Napoleon, who promised freedom and equality to all the oppressed, including the Jews. But Rabbi Schneur Zalman realized that the spread of French influence would bring great moral harm to Jewish identity and Jewish continuity.
In founding Chabad, the Alter Rebbe bridged the gap between the mind and heart by his masterly synthesis of intellect and emotion within the framework of Chabad ideology as masterfully expounded in Tanya and other Chabad seforim.
Today the Chabad influence reaches every part of the globe thanks to the leadership of the Rebbe, who took the movement’s reins in 1951 and built it into the international movement that it is today, whose main goal is to put an end to the golus and bring about the Geulah Shleima imminently NOW.
