The Rebbe Maharash, Rabbi Shmuel (1834-1882) was the 4th Rebbe of Chabad. For a more detailed biography with links to teachings and stories on Chabad.org click here.

Here’s a list of ten distinctive things (that we came up with) a sampling of things unique to the Rebbe Maharash among the Rebbes of Chabad-Lubavitch:

(1) HIS NAME
He was named for an unknown water-carrier from Polotsk. See the story here. Other Rebbes of Chabad were named for family, or for great teachers. Who was this watercarrier? Was he a hidden saint? It wasn’t retold or recorded, we don’t know.

(2) WHAT HE LOOKED LIKE
We have a painting of his father, the Tzemach Tzedek (the 3rd Rebbe), and a picture of son, the Rebbe Rashab (the 5th Rebbe), but we don’t know what the Rebbe Maharash looked like. We have an inkling that he looked strikingly similar to his grandson, the Friediker Rebbe (the 6th Rebbe) from “The Train Story” in the Freidiker Rebbe’s diary. There is also a story the Rebbe retold several times about a Chassid of the Rebbe Maharash who moved to Israel, and fainted upon seeing the Friediker Rebbe there in 1929, so striking was their resemblance!

(3) A LAVISH STYLE
Most of the Lubavitcher Rebbes lived simple and modest personal lives, aside for the Rebbe Maharash. He had a fine wagon led by a team of horses. When he rebuilt his home after a fire, he put in extra-large fancier windows, to which his father commented: “My Zeide, the Alter Rebbe had a home with very small windows, but it was very luminous within!” We don’t know the reason for the Maharash’s more lavish and contemporary style, but we know it was so.

(4) HANDIWORKS
It is said that he wasn’t well (he passed at age 48) and doctors recommended that he do handiwork and physical activity. In the Rebbe’s room today in 770 in Brooklyn is a small round wooden table that the Rebbe Maharash built. The Chabad Library also has a Megillah that he wrote.

(5) HANDWRITTEN WORKS
Speaking of handwriting, his works were unique that they were published in the 20th century in book form – but as handwritten pages, a manuscript in book form, it wasn’t typeset for print. His “Toras Shmuel” works remained that way for many years until (the Rebbe agreed) for them to finally be published in more accessible print form.

(6) SIMPLE CHASSIDIM
To be sure, there were some Chassidim of great stature, accomplishment and learning in the times of the Rebbe Maharash, but overall the stories seem to suggest that he had many Chassidim that were more like the times of the Baal Shem Tov: simple, hard-working, earnest and sincere. Some stories that stick out in this vein is the one of Elya Abeler in the “Two Guests” or in the Rebbe’s “jealousy” of him or the story with the wagon-wheel-maker’s gift.

(7) HIS BIOGRAPHY
Of all the Rebbes of Chabad, the Rebbe wrote a biography only about the Rebbe Maharash. Today there are more extensive biographies about all the Rebbes, but it remains unique that the Rebbe wrote a biography only about this Rebbe.

(8) HIS WIFE
Of all the Chabad Rebbetzins, we received the richest sharing of Chabad history via the Rebbe Maharash’s wife, Rebbetzin Rivka. She shared many stories with her grandson, later to become the Friediker Rebbe, and instilled within him a love of Chassidic stories.

(9) EMPATHY
This obviously isn’t unique to the Rebbe Maharash, as empathy is a trait found in rich measure by all the Rebbes. But you see this trait in two commonly told stories about the Rebbe Maharash: “The Change of Clothes” and in the story the Rebbe told in his first farbrengen in 1951: “A Journey for a Soul in a Paris Hotel“.

(10) LCHATCHILA ARIBER
This is the teaching and life-advice most closely associated with the Rebbe Maharash, in fact the nigun that was beloved to him (originally named the (1,2,3,4 nigun”) was named for it. I’m not sure how the nigun reflects the message, but it is well-known this way throughout Chabad.

(11) ALWAYS IN LUBAVITCH
My son Moshe added this tidbit: The Rebbe Maharash was the only Chabad Rebbe to live all his life in the town of Lubavitch. He was born there and buried there. His father, the Tzemach Tzedek was born and raised before Chabad moved to the town of Lubavitch. His son, the Rebbe Rashab, was forced to leave Lubavitch during WWI and spent his last years in Rostov where he was buried. So the Maharash was the only Rebbe to live all his life in the town of Lubavitch.