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The Story of the Alter Rebbe requesting from the gentile to stop the boat so he could say Kiddush Levana (paragraph 7), stresses the point that the Alter Rebbe would only say Kiddush Levana once the boat was stopped.

What is the reason for specifically stopping the boat?

I have looked over the halachot of Kiddush Levana, and it does not mention any halachot regarding moving, other than having to put your two feet together. I am not looking for the answer that you can't daven on a camel or a horse (which I don't have the source for that right now), since halachically you can daven on an airplane, a train, or a boat.

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  • Perhaps because standing on a rickety boat while its moving across a river in the middle of the Russian winter night is dangerous thing ? And if it is indeed dangerous then the Rebbe would have been exempt from Kiddush LeVanah. So to bring about a obligation to say KL he asked that the boat be stopped.
    – eramm
    Nov 25, 2013 at 10:51
  • From your link in Lekutei Diburrim it seem the previous Rebbe derived two lessons from the story neither of them pertain to practical halacha observence. So there may not be a Maaseh Rav here to learn a chiddish in KL from.
    – eramm
    Nov 25, 2013 at 10:55
  • The story as told here webcache.googleusercontent.com/… says the issue was not saying Kiddush Levana through a window and the Rebbe stopped the boat with superpowers until they let him get off somewhere to say it not through a window.
    – Double AA
    Dec 20, 2015 at 1:58

2 Answers 2

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Harav Shneur Zalman Farkash, a Mashpia in the Chabad Yeshiva Gedola of Buenos Aires, wrote in Haoros.com there was no Halachic reason to stop the boat. The main reason was in order to say Kiddush Levana with Yishuv Hadaas.

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The Rebbe says this story in a sicha (19 Kisleiv tof shin chof beis) and explains that the Alter Rebbe wanted the boat stopped so that he could bentch the moon "with hisbonenus, with menuchas hanefesh, with kavannah."

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