8. A Sheep Or A Dog

00:16 The Shpole Zeide. Have you heard of the Shpole Zeide? The Shpole Zeide was a big tzadik. He was a friend of the Alter Rebbe, and the Shpole Zeide would make a huge party on Purim, a huge meal, a huge seudah, a big seudah. It's a mitzvah to make a big seudah on Purim. One year, the Shpole Zeide, the great tzadik, in the middle of the meal of Purim, told a story, and this is the amazing story he told. And in the story, he showed how bad and wicked are the bad people who want to hurt the Jewish people, and how smart the Jews are sometimes when they are able to get away from the evil hands of those wicked people who wanna hurt them. And he told a story, there was once a Parets, a very rich Parets. He was from Poland, and he was very wicked and mean and didn't like the Jews. He once came back from a party. He was drunk. He drank. He was in his wagon, and on the way, he saw a Jew carrying a calf, a little calf, a shepseler. And the Jew tried to make business to sell the shepseler so he would have money to buy food for his family. But the Parets that was so drunk decided to make fun of the Jew, and he said to the Jew, "What are you carrying?" He opened up the window of his wagon and looked out and said to the Jew, "What are you carrying there on

01:58 your shoulders?" And he said, "Well, m- m- Parets, I, I'm carrying a, a, a, a, a, a shepseler, a, a calf for to be shechted so I, I can, I can eat some meat for my family." So the Parets got very angry and he said, "This is not a calf. This is a dog." And he thought it was funny. It was a calf. It was a shepseler, but the, the Parets made fun, "No, it's really a dog." So the Jews got up and said... So the Jew said, "No, no, no. Look, your, you know, Your Honor, Your Honor, you, Mr. Parets, don't you see this is not a dog? This is a shepseler." So the Parets got very angry at the Jew, and he told his, uh, uh, servant, "Go beat up the Jew. Beat him up. Beat him up really bad because he disagrees with me, and I say it's a dog, and he says it's a shepseler." And every time he beats him, he says, "Okay, is this a shepseler or a dog?" Right? "And, and say it again." And the Jew said, of course, he didn't wanna get beaten, so he said, "Yeah, yeah, okay, it's a dog. It's a dog." Again, again, he beats him up, "Tell me, is it a shepseler or a dog?" And the Jew has no choice because he's gonna get beaten more. And he said, "Okay, yeah, yeah, it's a dog. It's a dog." Finally, the Jew fainted. He couldn't... Like, he fell into unconsciousness. You

03:22 guys know what unconsciousness mean? Because he was so hurt, in such a pain, that he lost his consciousness. He's, like, fainted. And the Parets said to his servant, "You know, take off his coat and, and put on his coat on the shepseler, and take his hat of the Jew," who's now fainted, "and put it on the head of the shepseler. Take his payos, cut it off, and tie it up to the strings of his tzitzit, and tie the tzitzit to the ears of the shepseler. Cut off his tzitzit, and you tie the tzitzit to the ears of the shepseler." And then the Parets took the shepseler home, and he called the shepseler Moshe, like making fun of the Jewish people, that the Jewish people are like a shepseler. And of course, the Parets, for many, many days, decided to have a lot of fun with the shepseler. "Ah, this is the Jewish shepseler." And he made so much fun. This Jew who was beaten laid there on the ground, fainting, fainted. He was bruised. He had many bruises all over his body. And after a while, people stopped, and they saw the poor guy. They took him into the house, and they, they took, put bandages all over him with medicine and creams. For many, many months, the Jew was sick in bed from all his wounds that the servant of the Parets had made, gave him a lot of wounds. And when he got back, he said, "Okay, I gotta take revenge of that

05:14 Parets." Um, he said, "Okay, I gotta find him." So he found who the Parets was and where he lived. He says, "Now I'm gonna sh- teach him a lesson. I'm gonna take revenge. He did this to me. He made me so sick with so many wounds, and now I'll teach him a lesson." One of the sons of this Jew, um, dressed up. He dressed up like a businessman, like somebody who's buying wood and so on, and he started knocking on the door of the mansion of the Parets. And the Parets had many forests- Many forests. He was very rich and he owned forests, and in the forest is a lot of trees, and from trees you make wood. So the Pozets would sell some of the trees and make a lot of money. And so this, um, Jew, the son of this Jew who fainted, came to the Pozets dressed up like as if he's some, some businessman. He says, "Listen, there's a... I know somebody who wants to buy many, many, many trees and many, many woods from your forest for a lot of money, and you can make a lot of money. You can become even richer. I'd like to present you with that businessman who wants to buy all your wood from your forest." The Pozets jumped up, "Oh, really? Somebody wants to pay me a lot of money for all my wood? Great." And he said, "Okay, tell the businessman who wants to buy all my wood to come in." And

06:56 of course, who was the person who came in? It was the Jew who was beaten by the servant of this Pozets. But of course, he was also dressed up. He was dressed up like a very rich man, and he said to the Pozets, "Okay, I wanna buy your trees for a lot of money, but can you come with me to your, to your f- forest, and you show me all the trees you have so we can take a look at them and how good they are and so I can buy the trees?" The Pozets said, "Sure, no problem." And he and this Jew and his son, who was dressed up like, you know, the guy who introduced the father to the businessman, they all went out, all three of them went out to the forest. And the Pozets didn't think of anything. He just thought, "Okay, let's go. I'll make a lot of money now. Aha, aha." So they go into the... They ride in the Pozets' wagon into, deep into the forest, and that's when the father and the son grabbed the Pozets. They stuffed his mouth so he couldn't scream. They tied him to a tree, and the Jew took a whip and began to beat up the Pozets. And he cries to him and he says to the Pozets, "Tell me quickly, is this a dog or is it a shepsle?" And of course, the Pozets realized, "Ah, that's the Jew that I beat up the other day, and I made him

08:24 cry. Is it a dog or a shepsle? And I made him say it's a dog. Now he's taking revenge of me." But they didn't... They asked him, "Answer quickly." And they beat him so hard till he had bruises all over, and the two left, ran away from the forest, and they went home. And the Pozets was there alone by the tree. Nobody was there to find him until the wagon driver who rode the wagon of the Pozets who was waiting outside the forest for the Pozets to come back, but the Pozets didn't come back. So he started calling for help, and they went and looked for the Pozets and they saw him fainting and all bruised up, tied to a tree. Oh, they brought medicine and doctors and they cured him, and they brought him back to his mansion. And the Pozets realized, "Ah, the Jew took revenge of me." But that's one revenge. The Jew said, "No, no, no, I have to take another revenge of this mean and wicked Pozets." The second revenge was that a few months later, the Pozets was still in his bed. He was so beaten badly in the forest that he must very many months he has to lie in bed from all the bruises. And, and the Jew decided he's gonna dress up like a doctor, like a very important doctor that knows how to cure sick people, especially people with bruises. He went with one of his children and went, like he pretended his child, his

10:02 son... It wasn't a child, it was a grown-up son. That his son is his helper, and they went to the village of where the Pozets lived, and they told everybody in the village, "A very famous doctor professor came to the town and he's going to cure the Pozets, and he's looking for the Pozets' house." When the Pozets heard that there's a famous doctor that came, so he said, "Oh, please, please, uh, uh, invite him to come here. I'll give him 50 silver rubles, a lot of money. Please have him come, I'm in such pain." The doctor walked in, he's... And of course, the Jew was dressed like a fancy doctor. Nobody recognized him. They walked into the Pozets and they said, "Okay, nobody should be in the room because I'm gonna do some, uh, you know, medicine for him. I'm gonna try to, to, to put, you know, creams on him, on his body, and I don't want anybody to watch. It's nothing... It's embarrassing, so everybody should leave. I should be alone with the Pozets." So first they gave him something to drink that would put him to sleep, and then they put, uh, little bugs on his back that would like suck his blood. And then they would put a, they put a, uh, a little note on his back, "Is this a dog or a shepsle?" And they left and disappeared from the village, and when... And they told the people, "Nobody should go into the room of the Pozets till in

11:31 the morning. He needs rest. He needs rest." But really, they didn't want anybody to see what they did to him. In the morning, the Pozets woke up and he was crying, and when his servants walked in, they saw him lying with all the leeches, all the different bugs on his back, so they couldn't understand what is going on. When they saw the, the note, "Is this a dog or a shepsle?" They all knew it was that Jew that's taking revenge. He dressed up like a doctor. Oy vey. They believed him. They thought he was really a doctor. It was really the Jew who wanted to take revenge again from the Pozets. And then came the third revenge months and months later. The Politz was still in bed the whole day because he was still in pain with a lot of wounds. But slowly, slowly he got better and better, and he started walking around a little bit on a cane. He couldn't walk well, but he c- walked around. When the Jew heard that the Politz is already walking around, he said, "Aha, I gotta take revenge of him again." And he says, "Now I'm gonna take revenge for the tzitzit and my payos that he cut off, and that's what I'm gonna take revenge for now." So he went by himself and, um, he pretended he's a kishef maker. You know what a kishef maker? A kishef maker is somebody who makes like magic. Magic, like a very, very, like he looked like a

13:05 very scary magician. So, um, when he came to the, the, the Jew dressed up like a magician, went to the village of the Politz and he made a... And everybody heard, "Wow, this is magician. He's dressed up like a magician." And everybody is scared of him because he can make magic and hurt people with his magic. So the Politz said, "No, no, no, let him come to my house. I'll give him a lot of money. I want him to do magic and to hurt the Jew that hurt me so much." The Politz didn't realize that the magician was actually the Jew himself, but of course, he didn't know that. So the, the, the, the, the, the Jew dressed up like a, like a magician came to the Politz. Um, so the, so the Politz said... The Jew said to the Politz, "Tell me, do you have anything that belongs to the Jew that you have in your palace? Things that o- he owned and you took away from him." The Politz said, "Oh, I have the tzitzit and the payos that I cut off from his head. They're still in my house." Um, so do you know what happened? So he said to him, "You know what? Come with me in the middle of the night. We'll go under a bridge far away and under a bridge outside, and you bring a big, big box with a lock so I can put the Jew that you wanna curse. You want me to do magic against

14:52 him, so I can put him in the box. I'll make magic, and the Jew will suddenly appear in the box, and we'll lock the box and, and, and, and he won't be able to get out." So the Politz did what the, what the magician did- said, and he took a big box and they walked together to this bridge. So the Jew said, "The Politz, um, I'm afraid that, uh, you're gonna get hurt from, you know, from the Shin Dalets." You know, he made up that there's these spirits, "They're gonna hurt you. So I think you should go into the closet, into the box that you brought for the meantime until I'll be able to catch the Jew that you wanna curse." So the Politz listened to him and, um, went into the box. But the Jew immediately locked the door of the box and he dragged the box with the Politz inside locked up, uh, to the bridge, and he's screaming, "It is Adar the Shapseler. It is Adar the Shapseler." And the Politz realized, "Oi, that's the Jew again who dressed up like a magician, and he got me into the box and I can't get out." He started begging the Jew, "Please open the box. Let me out. Let me out." But the Jew left him inside the box, and he went home. When everybody noticed in the palace, in the mansion of the Politz, the Politz is not here, they started looking for him. Took two days till they found the Politz

16:29 in a box next to the river, where he hadn't eaten for two days. He was so weak. And from that point on, the Politz never, ever hurt a Jew again. All this story was told by the Polizader. When he finished the story, he said, "This is story is the story of Amalek." When Amalek want to hurt the Jewish people, and all because of the Chet Ha'egel, because we've worshiped the golden calf. You remember the story after the Eden came out of Mitzrayim and after the, the Hashem gave them the Torah, 40 days later they made a golden calf. So it was a Shapseler that they worshiped. They worshiped a golden Shapseler. So the story with the Jew and the Politz is not a real story. It's just a mashal. It's a mashal for the Jewish people and Amalek. It's because of a Shapseler that Amalek came and attacked us and was able to hurt us. And then Hashem said to Shaul HaMelech, the King of Shaul, the king of the Jewish people, "Go and take revenge of Amalek," the first time. Then a second time, Hashem told David Melech, "You go take revenge of Amalek." And the third time was Mordechai. Hashem said, "Mordechai, you're going to take revenge of Haman." And in the end, Haman got killed. That's the end of the story.