December 31, 2022; 7 Teves, 5783
Parsha The Gerrer Rebbe, Rabbi Yehudah Aryeh Leib Alter (1847-1906), author of the Sfas Emes lived and led his Chassidus in Tsarist Russia which was a very difficult time for the Jewish people.
The Jews of Tsarist Russia endured horrible mistreatment under Tsar Nicolai the First. In 1827, through the issue of “The Cantonist Decree”, he tried to convert young Jewish children by forcibly placing them on a path to become Russian soldiers where the chances of remaining Frum (observantly Jewish) were perilously thin...