4. An Unexpected Pesach

00:15 Many, many years ago, there was a city called Prague. Prague is a city far away in Czechoslovakia. Can you say it with me together? Say, "Czechoslovakia." Say it again. Czechoslovakia. And this-- That's the country's name. The name of the city in Czechoslovakia was Prague . And the Rav of the city of Prague was the very famous Reb Yechezkel Landau. Can you say it with me? Say it together loud, "Reb Yechezkel Landau." Reb Yechezkel Landau was a very big, big, big chacham. He knew the whole Torah by heart, and he was very respected by everyone. He was also a big tzadik. One day, he's walking down the streets of Prague, and he goes across the marketplace. In every city, there is a marketplace in the middle of the city where all the different stores sell different foods. Some stores sell fish, some stores sell bread, some stores sell, uh, uh, vegetables. Everybody sells something else. And when he walks through the market, he sees a little boy holding a big basket full of bread, and he's crying and crying and crying. And the Rav, when he saw that little boy, that little boy was not Jewish. He was a goyishe kid, but he's holding this basket, and he's pouring and crying and crying. And the, the, the Rav, Reb Yechezkel Landau, asks him, "Why are you crying, little boy?" And the boy says, "Because um, uh, m-my, my, my, my tatti, uh, uh, told me I need to go and sell these breads in the market,

02:43 and because we need food, we need, we need money. And he bakes the bread at home, and then he sends me out with a basket full of bread. I should sell it to people in the market so that we can have money. And when I bring the money, then he's happy. But today, I wasn't able to sell any bread. Nobody wanted to buy my bread. So I-- if I go home now with a basket full of bread without any money, he's gonna beat me up . 'Cause my father is a very mean person. He beats up the children so hard, he makes them cry. He makes them cry, and, and I'm, I'm, I'm very afraid to go home, and, and I c- don't have any money to sh- give him because I couldn't sell anything." So Reb Yechezkel Landau said to the boy, "How much money does it cost to buy all the bread?" And the boy told him, "Uh, uh, twenty f- twenty dollars." "Twenty dollars? Okay, don't worry. I'll buy all your bread from you." And he gave him the twenty dollars, and he says, "You know what? You can even keep the bread too. I'm giving you the twenty dollars, and you don't have to give me the bread. You can try to sell more of the bread, and then you can come home and show your mean father that you have the money, and he won't beat you up." Because you have to understand, some of these goyim were very cruel

04:16 people, and they used to beat their children so hard that the, the children were afraid. So the boy was so happy, and he thanked the Rav. He says, "You know, I'm not even Jewish, but you're so nice to me. I, I, I'm so, I'm so happy you helped me out." And, and he thanked him, and he thanked him, and he said, "Uh, you know, Hashem of the Jewish people should bless you. I'm so happy you did this." And the boy went home, and he brought the money to his father, and he even gave him the extra bread because he c- he didn't have to sell it. This story was forgotten by the Rav. The Rav did not remember that story 'cause many years had passed since that story happened. And it was one year on Pesach. Everybody was in the shul davening on the first day of Pesach, were davening. Everybody was in shul. They had the Seder the night before. And something happened in the city while the Jewish people were celebrating Pesach and davening with great joy and simcha and singing songs, and everybody was so happy it's Pesach. And everybody had their matzah, and it was so exciting and happy. Suddenly, in the middle of davening, while everybody-- the shul is packed with people, and the tatties are in their tallisim and the children are, are, are davening next to their tatties in a siddur, and everybody's so excited and singing along with the chazan- And the chazan is singing so beautifully,

06:08 and the rav is standing in front of the shul by his, by his, um, shtender, and, and everybody's so happy. It's Yom Tov. Suddenly, in the back of the shul, the door opens up, and who walks in? A Goyische young person. He walks straight over to the rav, and he taps the rav on the shoulder and said, "Rav, I need to talk to you. It's very urgent." The rav said, "But I'm in the middle of davening." He said, "But it's very, very urgent. I have to tell you what happened." And the rav walks outside with this boy. This boy's already older now, and he says to the rav, "Rebbe Yechezkel, do you remember me?" And the rav says, "No. Who are you?" He said, "Do you remember many, many years ago, uh, you saw a little boy in the marketplace crying because he couldn't sell his bread which his Tatty gave him, and he was afraid his fa-father, his Tatty, is gonna beat him up, and so you gave him the money?" He said, "Oh, yeah, yeah." "And that's me, and now I'm a grown, grown up, and I came to pay you back. You did me such a special favor. You were so nice to me, and I'm gonna help you now. Let me tell you what happened." He said, "You know my father is a baker. He bakes bread. So I found out a secret plot, a secret plan that all the bakers in the city of Prague are planning to do something

07:53 terrible." "What do they plan to do?" asked the rav. And the goy said, "Listen carefully. I overheard them having a big discussion, and they said, 'Listen, every year after Pesach is over, when Jews finished their last day of Pesach, the Jews usually can already eat bread.' So what do Jews do? The Jewish bakeries don't have bread yet because all the Jews were eating only matzah, so there's no bread right after Pesach in the Jewish bakeries. So where do the Jews go get their bread? They go to the Goyische bakeries. So all the Goyische bakers got together and said, 'Hey, this is a good opportunity. This is a chance. We can poison all the Jewish people. We'll put poison into the bread, and when the Jewish people come to us after their Yom Tov of Pesach, right away after Yom Tov, they're gonna come, matzah Yom Tov, matzah Pesach. They're gonna wanna eat bread right away because Pesach is over, and the Jewish bakeries don't have bread. They're gonna come to us, the Goyim, to buy bread. So you know what? We're gonna put a lot of poison into the bread, and we're gonna sell them the bread, and they're gonna eat it, and they're all gonna die from the poison. And then when all the Jewish people die, we'll be able to go into their houses because they're all gonna die, and we're gonna steal all their money and all their silver and all their Hanukkah candles, everything. We're gonna steal everything they have.' And

09:38 all the bakers says, 'Ah, this is a great plan. Let's do it.' And they all planned and..." So now the Goyische boy said to the rav, Rebbe Yechezkel, "Listen, I came to tell you the secret so that you can save your Jewish people from the-- I want them not to eat the bread, because if they eat the bread, they're gonna die." The rav thanked the boy. He says, "Thank you. Thank you for telling me that secret." And he went back to the shul and continued to daven, didn't tell anybody about this terrible secret he just found out. But then the next day, people came to shul again, the second day of Pesach. The rav said that he wants to give a little speech, and he went up to the bimah, you know, where we read from the Torah, and he said, "Everybody listen carefully. I wanna tell you something that happened." He didn't tell them the story that the goy told him with the bakers, 'cause he didn't want anybody to know the secret plan of the bakers, and you'll understand later why he didn't want everybody to know. But, but he did wanna make sure that nobody will eat the bread right after Pesach, 'cause he knew it's dangerous to eat the bread. So what he told the people, "You know what, everybody? I realized I had made a mistake. The calendar says that today is the second day of Pesach, and yesterday was the first day of Pesach. But I made a mistake.

11:26 Today is actually the first day of Pesach. Today is the first day of Pesach. Yesterday was not Pesach yet. And therefore, we need to make Pesach an extra day. In other words, Pesach is a day later. Started a day later. Started today, not yesterday. So we need to make sure that we celebrate Pesach for the entire seven days." Now, the rav was thinking, "If I tell people that he made a mistake in the calendar and Pesach only started a day later, then people will, of course- Make Pesach an extra day because they'll start a little later. So when the bakers are going to make their bread, Jews are gonna think it's still Pesach. Nobody's gonna buy the bread. And then he'll go to the police and say, "Police, I want you to check the bread that the bakers have baked because there is actually poison in them." And then the police will catch the bakers. They'll take a dog, and they will make the dog eat a piece of bread, and if the dog dies, they'll know that these bakers plan to kill the Jews. But at least the Jewish people won't buy the bread because the Jews will think it's still Pesach, and they won't eat the bread. That was the plan the Rav had, but he didn't wanna tell everybody that the reason he's telling everybody to make an extra day Pesach is because he doesn't want them to eat the bread because the bread is poisoned. He didn't want people to know

13:04 that the bakers are going to poison the bread, 'cause if everybody knows it, then the goyim are gonna find out, and they're not gonna put the poison in, and they're not gonna be able to tell the police and catch them. So he wants nobody to know about the plan from the goyim and the goyishe bakers and let them go on with their plan and put poison in the bread. But the Jews won't buy the bread because they'll realize, "Oh yeah, we need to make an extra day Pesach so they can't eat the bread." And then he'll be able to tell the police, "Look, they have poison in the bread." You understand the plan of the Rav? He was very smart. He had a very clever plan how to catch the bakers and, and at the same time, how not to have the Jews eat the poisonous bread. All the Jewish people looked at each other when the Rav said, "Oh, we made a mistake. Pesach really started today. Today is the first day, not the second day." Everybody said, "Wow, how could it be we make such a mistake?" Oh, but the Rav says everybody trusted the Rav, and everybody said, "Okay, we'll make Pesach one day later, and we'll, we'll make it-- We'll finish Pesach a day later, too." Came to the last day of Pesach. Everybody, um, everybody, um, uh, the, the bakers thought that Pesach was over, so they started preparing all their bread with poison. But the Jewish people, they thought

14:38 that now it's still Pesach because the Rav told them there was a mistake, and Pesach is a day later. Meanwhile, the bakers didn't know that, so they kept putting poison in their bread, and they're waiting for the Jews to come and buy the bread. But they're waiting and waiting, matzah Pesach, and they're waiting in their bakeries, and they're all laughing and saying, "Ah, let's wait for the Jews to come and eat their bread. Tomorrow we'll be rich. We'll be able to go into the homes of the Jews because they're all gonna die, and we're gonna get all their money." But no one came, so they start getting, "Why are the Jews not buying? How come they're not buying our bread? Every year they come matzah Pesach to buy our bread. How come they're not coming?" Nobody knows. And the Jews think it's still Pesach, so they-- everybody's still eating matzah. Meanwhile, the Rav secretly went to the police and said to the police, "I want you to know that the bakers in town have prepared bread with poison to poison the Jewish people, and I told the Jews that it's still Pesach, so they shouldn't eat the bread. I lied to the Jews. I told them something which is not true because I wanted to save them from eating the, the, the poisonous bread." And the police said, "Really?" And they went and checked the bakery, and they said to the baker, "So how is your bread? Is your bread good? Came out good?" And

16:04 he said, "Yeah, it's great. It's tasty, but the Jews are not coming. I don't know. We don't know why." And the police said, "Wait a second. Are you sure you didn't put any poison in those breads?" Said, "No. Poison, why should we put poison? What are we-- We make, we make good bread." The police says, "Well, I have a dog here. Please feed a piece of bread from your bakery to this dog right now, and if you don't, I'll put you in jail." And the baker was scared now because now he's gonna have to feed the dog this poisonous bread, but he had no choice. He gave the dog a piece of bread. The dog was very hungry, so he ate it all up, and within two minutes, the dog died. And the police said, "Aha. You guys put poison in the bread." Then he went to the next bakery, the same thing and the same thing, and they took all the bakers, all the goyishe bakers, and they put them all in jail for many, many, many years. And none of the Jewish people ate the poisonous bread. After Pesach, the Rav Reb Yechezkel again went onto the bimah where we read the Torah, and he made an announcement, "I want you Jews to know that we never made a mistake. I was a lie. I just made it up. I told you that Pesach is a day later because I wanted to save you all from the terrible, t- terrible, dangerous plan of

17:46 the bakers who wanted to poison everybody. So I made it, I made it up that, that, that Pesach is a day later so you wouldn't eat the bread. But Hashem made such a miracle, and I want to tell you something. Do you know what made me save you and why you were saved from the poisonous bread? Because many years ago, I saw a little child in the market, a goy, not a Jewish child, who was crying. He needed money, and I helped him. And many years later, he was so grateful to me that he came and told me that secret plan that his father and other goyishe bakers wanted to do." So this teaches us a lesson. You never know when you see somebody needs help, even if you don't know them and even if they're not Jewish, always help them. You never know how many years later this can help you and maybe even save the entire Jewish city, and that's what we learn from that story.