7. The Purim Shpiel Ganev

00:06 Hello, children. Here I've got an amazing story about Purim. Many years ago, there was a city called Kosov. Kosov. Can you say Kosov? Kosov. There was a very famous tzadik who lived in the city of Kosov. His name was Reb Menachem Mendel of Kosov. Reb Menachem Mendel of Kosov, he was a big tzadik. Every Purim, he would, uh, ask his Hasidim to make a play. A play? Pretend, you know, one person will pretend to be the rav. The rav of the city. The other person will pretend to be, um, a police officer. Another person will pretend to be the king. Another person will pretend to be, uh, a garbage collector. And then they made a sh- a show, and they made a little show in front of the rebbe. And why would the rebbe want to have a play on Purim? First of all, it's Purim. Of course, everybody wants to be happy on Purim and make fun, but this was a different thing. The rebbes, the tzadikim, when they made a play on Purim is because they knew there was something terrible going to happen to the Jewish people. Some very bad, mean, wicked, um, uh, hater of the Jews, who hated the Jews, is going to make a bad decree against the Jews. And so w- he would make a play, and he would tell people what they should play, who should be what, who should be the officer and who should be the king. Then he would tell them in the play

01:44 that they should pretend the king is making a decree against the Jews, and then the rav tells the Jews that they should daven to Hashem. And then the rav says that Hashem is going to destroy the decree from the king. And when the rebbe, the tzadik, would make this play, it would actually happen like that. The tzadikim have a great power. They can... In Shamayim, they can... They made it through a play, but, but in... They would probably, uh, uh, be able to tell Hashem that Hashem should change the, the decree and not allow the king to, to hurt the Jewish people. So they did it through a play. So one year, they, uh, Hasidim of the Reb Menachem Mendel of Kosov, uh, put together a play, and they had a rav. The rebbe himself was the rav. Reb Menachem Mendel of Kosov, he was the rav. And then they had, like, guards, police officers. And what they did is they went out into the street and stopped people and said, "Hey, do you have a, a license? Do you have a right to travel?" In those days in Russia and Poland, if you wanted to travel from one city to the other, you needed a special permission. Today we don't need that because it's, it's, you know, it's, it's ridiculous. But in those days, you, you had to have a permission. So two Hasidim go outside, they're dressed like police officers, and they stopped somebody, "Hey, where are your papers? Do you have a,

03:22 a permission from the government to travel here?" And this man was a very poor man. The man they stopped was a poor man. And they asked him for his papers. He says, "Oh, no, I don't have any permission here with me. I left it at home. Please, please, let me go. I have to go on my way. I have to go to the other city." They said, "No, no, no, no, no. Uh, you're under arrest." And this poor man thought may- maybe they're really police officers, 'cause they were dressed like police officers. So he thought, you know, they're really police officers. So he followed them. He said, "But please, please, please, I, I, I, I do have paper- I have permission, but I just didn't carry it with me. Can you please let me go?" And they said, "No, no, no, no. You gotta come to the judge. We're gonna take you to the judge." And of course, they took him inside the shul where the rebbe was sitting. Says, "Here's our judge." And they told the rebbe, "We found a Jew who is, uh, going from one city to the other without a permit. He doesn't have permission." And the rebbe said, "Ahim." Mm, the rebbe looked at him, at this poor man, and said, "Take him to my son. My son, Reb Chaim. Let him decide what to do with him." And they took him to Reb Chaim. Reb Chaim was in a different room. Said, "Reb Chaim, your father says that we

04:35 should bring this man to you. He traveled without a permission, and therefore we want you to tell us what to do with him." Reb Chaim looked at him for a few minutes and then said, "Him? For traveling without permission? You gotta put him in prison. In my basement of my house, there's a basement. You can put him in my basement and lock up the door really well. Make sure there's food there on the table so he doesn't starve. Give him, uh, all kinds of food so he should not starve, but he's going to be in jail until we decide what punishment to give him for traveling without a permit." The poor man starts crying, "No, no, don't do that to me. I, I wanna tra- I need to travel. I... It's Purim today, and I, in Purim I can raise a lot of money. I can go collect money for tzedakah 'cause I'm poor, so people give me tzedakah on Purim. But, but, but please, please let me go." And Reb Chaim says, "No, no, no. You broke the law. You went against the law. You, you, you traveled without a permit, you're going into jail, and this is in my basement." They put him in the, Reb Chaim's basement, and they locked the door. They gave him plenty of food and said, "You gotta stay here until we decide what punishment to give you." And so the poor man got very desperate, and finally he started screaming, "Let me out of here. Let me

05:58 out of here." And he pounded on the door so loudly that the whole house was shaking. And people said to the Rav, to the Rab Chaim, "Should we let him go?" "No, no, no, no, don't let him go. Even if he screams loud, we're not gonna let him go." And everybody was wondering, Rab Chaim is really gonna keep him in, in his basement? The poor guy, he's just a poor man who was walking. But the poor man realized it's a Purim play. He realized by now that this is not real officers, they're just playing the Purim game. But it's enough, okay? It's a nice joke, but I don't wanna be a joke for so long. I wanna go home. Please let me go. And he's screaming, and the Rab Chaim says, "Don't listen to him scream." Finally, the poor man started eating the food. He decided he's very hungry, so he started eating the food, and from eating so much food, he fell asleep. And a few hours later, a very, very fancy wagon and like with, with six horses, s- beautiful, beautiful horses, came into the town of Kasif. And in the wagon, it was a rich wagon, there was a rich man, a Jew, who came out of the wagon, and he go in straight into the shul, and he said, "Did anybody ever see a poor man with this and this color of a bag, and he looks like this and like that? He's short, and he has this tiny little beard,

07:28 and, and, uh, you know, and his nose is crooked, and his feet are upside down, and his, uh, belly button is, is, is, is on his back." Uh, well, and he gave signs, uh, that I just made this up, of course. Uh, but he, he told them what he looked like, and, and did everybody see. So people are asking, "How, well, which, who are you looking for? Who are you looking for?" He said, "He looks like this, he looks like that." Oh, two people remembered that, that this poor man is actually in the basement in the prison of Rab Chaim. Of course, they made it as a game, as a play, but they asked, they asked the rich man, "Why do you need this poor man?" Um, so he's, so he said, "I'll tell you later, but tell me where he is." So he said, "It's in, he is in Rab Chaim's house. He's in his basement." And so the rich man went straight to Rab Chaim's house, and the other people followed him and also went. Finally, the rich man goes to Rab Chaim. He says, "Rab Chaim, this poor man that is in your basement, he was in my house a while ago, and I gave him food. I was very nice to him. I know he's poor. I don't know him. He just traveled through my city, and he says he needs food, so I gave him a very nice meal, and I gave him a bed to sleep. And then the

08:48 next day, I see early in the morning before I could get out of bed, he disappeared. And guess what? He, in his bag, he stuffed all the expensive, uh, candlesticks and the gold and the silver, uh, uh, uh, you know, utensils of my house. He took a lot of very expensive stuff and put it in his bag, and he ran away. And I'm looking for him, I'm looking for him. It's a lot of money that he took." So they said, Rab Chaim said, "Oh, here he is. Let's look in his bag." And they went down to the basement, looked in his bag, and right there was all the stuff that he stole from this rich man. Then everybody realized that Rab Chaim wasn't just playing a game, it wasn't just a play. He saw that this man is a ganav, and he wanted to hold onto him in a prison so that the rich man could come here and catch him. Had they let him go, if this poor man would've gone earlier, then the rich man would've never catch him and would never get his lost, specially expensive stuff back. But now Rab Chaim saw with his mind, with his Ruach Hakodesh, that this poor man is really a troublemaker. We need to stop him so that the rich man can get his stuff back. Happy Purim. Froilechen Purim.