Emor: 5785 - A stirring story told by the chossid Reb Tzvi Grunwald a"h, in which he himself was involved, when he was a yeshiva student and an underground fighter, about a paralyzed man who was healed at the tziyun of Rabbi Shimon Bar…

00:01 Speaker 1 Today is a special day, Lag BaOmer, the yahrzeit of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, the Rashbi. Rabbi Shimon said, “I can exempt the entire world from judgment.” And surely the Rashbi said that because he also brought it about. So this is an auspicious and special day. Many people who needed help experienced salvation on Lag BaOmer. One of those stories is told in “The Rebel Tzvi,” a book about Tzvi Greenwald. When he was a young man, he was both a yeshiva student and a fighter in the Irgun underground. He would go out on various operations against the British enemy and then return to the yeshiva bench. He tells this story himself. I don’t know if it happened specifically on Lag BaOmer, but it happened at the Rashbi’s resting place. At the time, many new immigrants were arriving from Europe. It was a time of war, before the establishment of the state, and many of those who came from Europe after the war were immediately recruited into the Haganah and the underground organizations. There was one young man whose entire family had been wiped out in Germany, in Poland. He was left all alone. He, too, had been through that entire inferno, but somehow he survived and reached the Land of Israel. When he arrived, he immediately joined the Irgun. He had not yet gone through all the training and everything, but he joined right away. During one of their operations, he was wounded. A bullet struck his spinal cord, and he was left paralyzed. They took him to a hospital. At the hospital they tried to help him, but there was nothing they could do. The injury was in a place that caused paralysis, and he could not move. He lay there for a very long time. He had no family. There was no one at all to care for him or take an interest in him. And Tzvi Greenwald, the chossid, and another friend

02:34 Speaker 1 decided to take him under their wing. They arranged to take turns visiting him twice a week: one visit from Tzvi, one from his friend. Twice a week they would visit him in the hospital, see if he needed anything, talk with him and keep him company. One time, the young man poured his heart out to Tzvi. He said, “When I was a young man in Europe, I dreamed of coming to the Holy Land and visiting Meron, the resting place of the Rashbi. But in my condition now, that’s simply not possible.” It pained him terribly. Tzvi told him, “I’ll take you. In a few days we have an operation up north. I’ll come, take you by vehicle and bring you back to the hospital.” The young man was overjoyed. A few days later, Tzvi came with a very old truck. He told the medical staff that he wanted to take the young man out for a bit, to let him get some fresh air. The staff said, “Go ahead.” So he and his friend carried the young man out on a stretcher, put him in the truck and drove off. No one on the staff knew where they were going; they thought he was just being taken out to the courtyard for a moment. In those days, the drive to Meron took five or six hours, especially in an old truck like that. It took a long time. He lay there in the truck on his stretcher until they reached Meron. When they arrived, they carried him down on the stretcher and placed him in a corner of the courtyard by the Rashbi’s resting place. They left some food beside him in case he needed it. They told him, “We’re going out on an operation. When we’re done, we’ll come back and get you.” Then they left and did what they had to do. Meanwhile, the young man lay there, and as

04:51 Speaker 1 he lay there, his heart was stirred...

04:58 Speaker 2 Hurry up.

05:00 Speaker 1 And he began thinking about everything he had been through. Not one person in his family had survived. He had no brother, no relative who could care for him or help him. He had dreamed of coming to Meron, to the Rashbi, but now he was paralyzed. As he lay there thinking, he began to cry. He spoke to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, praying and asking Him to help him in the merit of the holy Tanna, Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. And as he lay there, he began to feel tingling in his legs. He had never felt that before. Lately he had not felt his legs at all, and now he felt this tingling. He thought, “I’ll try moving my legs. Maybe I can?” He tried, and his legs moved. He said, “I’ll try to get up.” He tried to rise and found he could stand. He went over to the resting place, took a Tehillim and began to pray and recite Tehillim. Meanwhile, Tzvi finished what he had to do, and they came back to Meron to pick him up. He went to the corner where they had left the young man on the stretcher. The stretcher was there, but the young man was gone. He was alarmed. What had happened? The young man couldn’t move, so where could he be? They began looking for him. Then Tzvi went inside and saw him standing beside the Rashbi’s resting place, praying and reciting Tehillim. He asked him what had happened, and the young man told him the whole story. In short, they took him to the truck—there was no need to carry him anymore; he walked on his own two feet—and drove back to Jerusalem. At the hospital, no one knew what had happened. The young man had disappeared. They had looked for him everywhere and could not find him. When they returned from Meron to Jerusalem, they took him back to the hospital, of course. The young man walked in on his own two feet. The medical staff were stunned. This young man had been

07:11 Speaker 1 paralyzed. There had been nothing they could do for him, and now they saw him walk in on his own two feet. They asked him what had happened, and he told them the whole story. Tzvi relates that the young man regained his strength, married and raised a family—all in the merit of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. May it be Hashem’s will that, in the merit of the Rashbi, we experience salvation and comfort very soon indeed.