The Maggid of Kozhnitz

Rabbi Yisrael Hopsztajn of Kozhnitz (1737 – 14 Tishrei 1814 [October 8, 1814]) was the founder of the Kozhnitz Chassidic dynasty and a disciple of both the Maggid of Mezeritch and Rabbi Elimelech of Lizhensk. He is widely known as the Maggid of Kozhnitz (Yiddish: דער קאז'ניצער מגיד) — the preacher, or itinerant teacher, of Kozhnitz.

Life

The story of his birth is told as follows. The disciples of the Baal Shem Tov were sitting with him at a Shabbos meal when the Baal Shem Tov suddenly burst into loud laughter — three times. When the group pressed him for an explanation, he traveled with them after Shabbos to the town of Apta.

There they found a Jew named Reb Shabbsi, a bookbinder who lived in great poverty. One Friday, he and his wife discovered they had no money at all for the Shabbos meal. He walked despondently to the beis midrash (synagogue and study hall), but his wife decided to at least clean the house — and in doing so found a gold button. With it she bought everything needed for Shabbos, generously and with a glad heart. When her husband came home and saw what had happened, he was overcome with such great joy that the two of them broke into a dance right in the middle of the Shabbos meal.

The entire Heavenly retinue, the account continues, came to witness this Jew rejoicing before G‑d with pure and wholehearted joy — and that was the moment the Baal Shem Tov had laughed. As a blessing for this joy, the couple was promised a son who would be named Yisrael — after the Baal Shem Tov himself. A year later, the Maggid of Kozhnitz was born.

Under His Holy Teachers

In his youth, Reb Yisrael studied at the yeshiva of Rabbi Shmelke of Nikolsburg, who brought him to the Maggid of Mezeritch. The Maggid assigned him the sacred task of proofreading the siddur (prayer book) of the Arizal — the great Kabbalist Rabbi Yitzchak Luria — a manuscript that would later serve as the foundation for the Alter Rebbe's own Nusach HaAri siddur.

After the Maggid of Mezeritch's passing, Reb Yisrael accepted the leadership of Rabbi Elimelech of Lizhensk. Before Rabbi Elimelech's own passing, he bequeathed to Reb Yisrael the power of the heart — and this gift revealed itself afterward in the Maggid's extraordinary fire and passion during prayer, even as his body remained frail and ill.

Torah Scholarship, Divine Service, and Holiness

Because he was born to elderly parents, the Maggid of Kozhnitz was physically weak throughout his life, and in his later years he was often confined to bed due to illness. Yet the moment prayer began, he would rouse himself like a young man and pray with fervor and a loud voice.

He was celebrated for his towering scholarship in both the revealed Torah (Talmud and halachah) and the hidden Torah (Kabbalah, the mystical dimension of Jewish teaching). Before he came to the Maggid of Mezeritch, he had already studied eight hundred works of Kabbalah in their entirety. In Talmud, too, he was regarded as a genius of the first order, as reflected in his works Beis Yisrael on the Talmudic orders of Moed and Nashim. Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin attested that he had engaged him in sharp Talmudic debate and found him to know the Babylonian Talmud word for word, together with the language of the Tosafos.

He was also renowned as a worker of miracles and wonders — a figure in whom the ruach hakodesh (divine inspiration, a prophetic gift below the level of full prophecy) was openly manifest at a very high level. He performed salvations that went beyond the natural order, and he was known as a master Kabbalist who could expel a dybbuk (a soul that had attached itself to the living) and repair damaged souls.

He was exacting in his learning, insisting that every insight be completely true with no flawed reasoning. An incident is told in which Rabbi Yaakov Yitzchak of Peshischa challenged a Torah novella the Maggid had offered. Seeing that the objection had visibly weakened the Maggid, Rabbi Yaakov Yitzchak then exerted himself to resolve the difficulty and vindicate the Maggid's reasoning. Afterward the Maggid said that Rabbi Yaakov Yitzchak had been fortunate — because all of his Torah insights were completely true, without a single false point, and anyone who refuted them was in danger: from the word emes (truth) only the letters mes (dead) would remain.

During the Napoleonic Wars

When Napoleon of France waged war against the Czar of Russia, the Maggid of Kozhnitz shared the view of the Alter Rebbe — that it was better for Napoleon to fall. His reasoning was that Napoleon's program threatened to dissolve Jewish life through assimilation under the banner of democracy and emancipation. Rabbi Naftali of Ropshitz held the same view. This stood in contrast to the position of Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Rimanov, who favored Napoleon's victory — a view shared by many Chassidic masters of Poland and Volhynia.

On the Alter Rebbe and the Tanya

According to Chassidic tradition, the Maggid of Kozhnitz was present to greet the Alter Rebbe when the Alter Rebbe first arrived at the Maggid of Mezeritch.

The Maggid had a practice of studying the Tanya — the foundational Chassidic work authored by the Alter Rebbe — while wearing the tefillin of Rabbeinu Tam (a second pair of tefillin worn by some after the morning prayers, following the opinion of the medieval authority Rabbeinu Tam on the order of the scriptural passages inside). Once, Rabbi Asher of Stolin noticed this and expressed surprise. The Maggid replied that the Tanya is Torah from the Garden of Eden itself, and that its author is worthy to teach Torah in the presence of the Mashiach (the Messiah).

He also wrote a letter defending the Alter Rebbe's approach and taking his side publicly. He gave his approbation to the book Ohr HaGanuz LaTzaddikim, a work written to explain the Tanya.

He carved the wooden rollers onto which the Rebbe's Sefer Torah is wound.

Sources

• Nishiey Chabad U'Vnei Doran (Leaders of Chabad and Their Contemporaries), p. 27
• Rabbi Shimon of Zelichov, Naharei Eish, p. 232