The horrors of imprisonment in czarist and Stalinist Russia were seared into the memory of all who survived their sentences. Few, however, celebrated their release as joyously as the Lubavitcher rebbes, whose followers mark these occasions to this day

There are four new years,” declared the sages of the Mishna (Rosh Hashana 1:1), including most famously 1 Tishrei, better known as Rosh Hashana. Some fifteen hundred years later, however, the Chabad Hasidic movement added a fifth, Hasidic new year: 19 Kislev. On this date, Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liady (1745–1812), founder of the Lubavitch Hasidic sect and known as the Alter (Elder) Rebbe, was released from prison in czarist Russia in 1798.

Rabbi Shneur Zalman was incarcerated in St. Petersburg’s Peter and Paul Fortress after his enemies, early opponents of Hasidism, claimed he was fundraising for the Ottoman Empire in order to undermine the czarist regime. At the time, Rabbi Shneur Zalman was the most active collector and distributor of charity in White Russia. A group of Hasidim led by his colleague, Rabbi Menahem Mendel of Vitebsk, had left for the land of Israel (Ottoman Syria) in 1777 and lived on the Alter Rebbe’s support. These were the funds he was accused of funneling to the Ottomans. After fifty-three days of brutal interrogation and constant threat of execution, the rabbi was cleared of all suspicion and set free. 

Occupying fewer than three months in the extremely full life of Rabbi Shneur Zalman, this incident could have been regarded as minor. Furthermore, the date of his release, 19 Kislev, was also the day on which his teacher, Rabbi Dov Ber, the Maggid of Mezritsh (Miedzyrzec), passed away in 1772. One would have expected this date to be reserved for a hillula (celebration) of the Maggid’s life, especially since there are other candidates for the birthday of Lubavitch Hasidism, such as the publication date of its foundational work, the Tanya, in 1796. Even Rabbi Shneur Zalman’s second jail term – in 1801, after accusations of starting a new religion – gets far less attention. 

Nonetheless, for Lubavitch Hasidim, the Alter Rebbe’s release became a seminal event in the movement’s history, and 19 Kislev the most important celebration of their year. Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, Chabad’s seventh and last leader, characterized the day as no less than 

the festival of redemption, 19 Kislev, when our teacher the Alter Rebbe, author of the Tanya and the Shulhan Arukh Ha-Rav, was freed from imprisonment for disseminating Chabad Hasidism […], his redemption and emergence into freedom being the beginning of the emergence, spread, and dissemination of the methods and way of life of Chabad Hasidism in particular and Hasidism in general. (Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, Iggerot Kodesh, vol. 8 [Kehot Publication Society, 1998], sec. 2292, p. 48)

In recent generations, 19 Kislev has become a real holiday for Lubavitch Hasidim. They gather to listen to Rabbi Schneerson’s recorded sermons, greeting one another with “Happy Hasidic New Year!” and feasting to mark the completion of the study of Hasidic or other Jewish works. And, of course, they drink a l’chaim or two in honor of the day.

 

Hasidism on Trial

Rabbi Shneur Zalman isn’t the only Lubavitch leader whose release from prison is hailed as a spiritual redemption and commemorated as a momentous event. Similar importance is assigned to the date on which his son and successor, Rabbi Dov Ber (1773–1827), who settled with his followers in the town of Lyubavichi in 1813, walked free after being jailed in 1826 as a result of informers’ accusations. Though his arrest and extensive interrogation in Vitebsk was less dramatic and dangerous than his father’s three-month prison term, Lubavitchers see the one as the direct continuation of the other, much as the sages concluded that “the deeds of the [biblical fore]fathers are signposts for their children.” Parallels are also drawn between Rabbi Dov Ber’s imprisonment and release and the spread of Hasidism. He himself interpreted his suffering as a consequence of the struggle raging between Hasidic Jews and their opponents, the Mitnagdim. Attributing his generation’s economic and other difficulties to this schism, he warned: 

Causeless hatred prevents the holiness of God’s presence from resting upon [the Jews], however flawless their observance of His commandments, for they are divided from one another. (Discourses of the Middle Master [Kehot Publication Society, 1994], “Directives of 5577,” Mattot-Mas’ei, p. 226 [Hebrew])

Rabbi Dov Ber was acquitted and released on 10 Kislev, creating a second holiday of redemption for his followers. In their view, the whole Hasidic movement had been held to account and received a favorable verdict. 

Whereas his father evidently became even more active after his liberation, Rabbi Dov Ber died a year to the day after regaining his freedom. Nevertheless, his story inspired an entire book, The Imprisonment and Redemption of the Middle Grand Master (in Hebrew), and the arrest and release of both rebbes became a cornerstone of Chabad ideology. 

The acceptance of 19 Kislev as the Hasidic new year likely owes much to the concept of Rosh Hashana as the heavenly equivalent of an earthly trial. On the Jewish new year, man is judged by God. And on the Hasidic new year, just as the rebbe was judged in this world, a trial of his ideals is presumed to have occurred on high. A Rosh Hashana sermon delivered by the Alter Rebbe implies as much:

Just as the plight of an imprisoned captive, unable to go begging for his bread, arouses sympathy and mercy in the hearts of others […], an individual agonizing over his imprisonment in his body and at the hands of the animalistic part of his soul […] arouses great mercy in the heavens. (Likkutei Torah [Kehot Publication Society, 2002], “Deuteronomy,” Sermons for Rosh HaShana, p. 122)

Many other Hasidic masters were arrested and jailed, but their trials and tribulations were never given such cosmic significance. Rabbi Yisrael of Ruzhin, for example, spent two years in prison, sometimes in mortal danger. He managed to bribe his way out of czarist Russia, arriving in the Austro-Hungarian town of Sadagora (today Sadhora) in 1838. His escape was crucial to his descendants’ development of Hasidism in Romania, but the date was never glorified as the Ruzhin equivalent of 19 Kislev.