15. Reb levi Yitzchok of Barditchev and the schvartze klipah

00:15 Hello, children. How are you? I haven't spoken to you in a while. Here is a wonderful, wonderful story of the great tzadik, Reb Levi Yitzchok of Berditchev, and the story was told by the previous rebbe. Reb Levi Yitzchok of Berditchev once told his students that he wants to go on a trip. And it was one afternoon, so a few of his talmidim came with him. They went onto the wagon, and they had a wagon driver, and they rode off from the city of Berditchev many miles. And Reb Levi Yitzchok of Berditchev told the wagon driver, "We're going to a certain place." Uh, the place they were going to was actually a farm. There was no city there. It was just a huge farm which a, a German non-Jewish owner had built a, a big farm with lots of rivers and waterfalls, and there were forests on the farm, and there were animals in the farm, and there was wheat growing on the farm, and trees. It was a beautiful place. Huge, huge. And on the farm, he built houses for his family and for friends, so people that took care of the farm, of the animals, and of the grain, and of the forest. He needed people to take care of everything. One day, this farm owner hired a man from Germany. He should be the manager of all the things on the farm, because the farm had many, many things. It had a mill. You know what a mill is? Where you take grain

02:20 and make it into flour, and then you sell the flour to bakers who can make bread and pastries and cookies. He also had rivers where people can go fishing, so he'd- had fish and they could sell the fish. There was a lot of different things they could do with that farm to sell and make money, and there were also many Jews who had a lot of, uh, good businesses with that farm. The owner of the farm would let Jews buy from him certain things, and they would sell it, and they would make money. He also hired some Jews to manage certain parts of the farm, 'cause it was very big. But one day, he hired a manager for the entire farm, and that manager came from Germany. He was a man, a tall, very, very strong person and mean-looking, and he became in charge of everything. He made all the decisions on the farm. And when he came, a lot of trouble started. He hated Jews, and immediately as soon as he came, he made sure that none of the Jews can come onto the farm to buy stuff, to sell stuff. Or Jews that were hired by the farm to manage certain parts of the farm and being paid for it, he would fire them and tell them to leave. He didn't want Jews around. He didn't want Jews to make money from his fa- from this farm. He hated Jews. Now, this man also had a big black dog. This black dog was

04:10 also vicious. The only one more vicious than the dog is the manager himself. But this dog was very vicious, and the, the dog was trained in a very funny way. If a goy came to the farm, he would bark, but if a Jew would come onto the farm, the dog immediately would jump and bite him. Many Jews were bitten by this dog. Not only that, this dog was so bad and so vicious, he would go out of the farm sometimes. He would run a- out of the farm, and he would go to a little village where there are Jews, and he saw a Jew, he would bite him. All the Jews that lived in the villages around the farm were so afraid of this dog. They even had a name for him. They called him the Schwartze Klippe, the Schwartze Klippe. In Yiddish, Schwartze means the black Klippe. Klippe is a word which is used for something evil, bad, something despicable, not good. The Schwartze Klippe. And the Schwartze Klippe, people were so afraid of him. The children were afraid to walk, uh, you know, too close to the farm because the Schwartze Klippe would come running. He was huge. He was big, and he would come and bite them. It is to that manager's farm that the Berditchev was traveling to. It was very surprising. What does the Berditchev, a tzadik, want from this evil man? So, uh- As they got closer to the farm, the Baaal Shem Tov said, "Okay, please go... When

06:13 we get into the farm, don't go up to any house." There are many houses on that farm. It's a huge farm. There are different people living there, managers, people that worked on the farm, you know, people that helped with different things, with the animals. They all had houses on that huge, huge piece of farm. "So don't go to any house. I'll tell you which house we wanna go to, and we're gonna go daven Mincha in that house." Okay. As they drove onto the farm, Baaal Shem Tov pointed, "You see that house over there?" Huge, beautiful mansion, and there's light from every window coming, and there's this huge balcony on the second floor with a big fence, you know, where people can go on the balcony, can see the entire area, 'cause it was very high up. "Let's go to that house." And as they drove onto the driveway of that house, the Baal Shem Tov said to the wagon driver, "I want you to go out of the wagon, go to the door, knock on the door, and when somebody opens the door, you tell him, 'There's a Rebbe, a tzadik from Berditchev that's passing by here, and he wants to daven Mincha in your house. Please give us permission.'" But before the wagon driver was able to get off the wagon, the door opened up, and who came out of the door? This tall, very big, broad guy with long hair, nothing on his head, of course, no hat, nothing. And he had a

07:50 belt. On the right side of his belt was a big gun, and on this other side of his belt, there was a knife which you kill people with. And his face was so mad. He was raging mad. He looked like... And his eyes were very red. Now, you know, when somebody's eyes are sparkly red, you know what that means? Oh, please, don't ever, ever, ever, you know, meet such a person, okay? It means that person drank too much mashke. They drank so much mashke that their eyes turn, become red. He obviously drank a lot of, a lot of mashke, and he's standing there, and he's mad, angry, and, um, and he starts yelling and screaming, and as he's yelling and screaming, there's a huge black dog, the schwarze clipper, running out of the house and jumping onto the wagon, ready to attack and to bite anybody who comes out of the wagon. Now, the, the, the, the, the big guy, the, the guy who came out of the door, he sees the, the people. He sees that they're Jews. He thought, "Ah, there's Jews. Ah, Jews, I don't like Jews. I hate Jews." And he takes his gun, and he's trying to aim, but the Baaal Shem Tov looks out of the window of the wagon to see, to look at this manager, and the manager takes the gun and aims it at the wagon where the Baaal Shem Tov is sticking out his head. But for some re- He pulls the trigger, and there's

09:47 nothing coming out. He pulls the trigger again, nothing is coming out. He checks to make sure it's all fine. Pulls several times. Finally, he takes the revolver, and he's so mad. He wants to shoot and kill these Jews, so he shoots, but by mistake, he turned the, the, the gun a little bit lower than the wagon, so it shot a bullet into the dog, and the dog was killed on the spot. Now, this dog was so beloved by this m- manager. He loved this dog so much. He would say, "This dog, since I got this dog, my life is so good. Everything is going well with me." Wherever he went, if he went to a party or he went to visit family, always took the dog with him. His dog slept in the same room as him. He, he gave his dog the best foods. He, his bo- bo- dog was his best friend. Once somebody, a very rich man, wanted to give him a lot of money for the dog. He says, "No, I'm not selling the dog for any money. He's the most special thing I have." Now, he himself shot and killed his own dog. When he saw that, he suddenly got very confused. He was like... Couldn't move. He was like... He dropped the gun and stood there, like, without moving. He was, like, totally, totally confused. Couldn't think. The shock was so great, he didn't know what to do. Here his most beloved, his most special, special friend, the dog,

11:45 he himself killed him. "Oh my God, what did I just do?" And at that moment, the Baaal Shem Tov sends his talmid to go over to him, tell him that a Rebbe is here, the Rebbe from Berditchev, Reb Levi Yitzchok is here, and he wants to daven Mincha in your house. Now, on the top floor- All the windows, there were people sticking out their heads. They're all with red eyes because all drinking. You see, the manager was having a party on the second floor, and they had been busy drinking and drinking the whole time. But these were Goyim. But as the Talmud walked over to him, to the manager who's standing near the door without moving because he was so shocked, he couldn't talk. He said to him, "Listen, the Rebbe of Baditchov is here, and he wants to come in, daven Mincha with his talmidim." When he heard the name of the Baditchov HaRav, the Rebbe of Baditchov was very famous. Even the Goyim in the whole area knew about Rebbe Yitzchak Baditchov, and they loved him because they knew he was a great tzaddik. They were afraid of him. So when he heard, "Oh," he says, "Sure. Please come in. Please come in." He invited them in. He completely changed. The Baditchov came out of the wagon and all the talmidim, and they went inside the mansion, and the Baditchov said, uh, "Let's start davening Mincha." They davened Mincha. And meanwhile, while they daven Mincha, the other Goyim who were drinking with him

13:25 said to him, "How do you let these Jews daven here? Don't you realize these are Jews? You should kill them. You should punish them for, for davening, for, for coming in here and davening." And, and he said, "No. You don't understand. When I saw his face, I remembered something amazing. When I was younger, before I came here to be the manager of the farm, I was a soldier in the Russian army-- in the German army. I was a very successful soldier. I was very smart, strong, and I became first, uh, uh, an officer, then I became a general, and then I became much more powerful. In the end, I, I became... Because I was so smart and so strong and I was such a good soldier, they made me the guard of the king himself, the King of Germany. Those days, the King of Germany was very powerful. And when I was his guard, I remember how fearful even the most respected and the most important ministers would, would-- how, how fearful they would be when they had to go inside the room of the king and talk to the king. People was shaking. There was such a fear." He said, "When I saw the Baditchov HaRav, I suddenly felt the fear I had when I saw the king." And he started explaining, "You don't understand what fear-- what that fear is. I can give you an explanation, but listen, when a regular soldier goes into his officers, the guy who's in charge of him,

15:27 he's in charge of a thousand soldiers, he has to go in front of him alone and speak to him. Do you know how fearful that is? Amazingly fearful. Imagine that officer who's in charge of a thousand soldiers has to go to a corporal, which is even a higher officer, and he's in charge of ten thousand soldiers, and he goes to speak to him. Do you know how afraid he is? Even afraid even a thousand times more. And can you imagine when the corporal who's in charge of ten thousand soldiers has to go speak to some marshal who is in charge of a hundred thousand soldiers? Uh, he is even, like, so afraid that you can't even imagine. And imagine that the marshal has to go in front of the general of the entire army. He's, like, shaking in his boots. Imagine that the general of the whole army goes to speak to the king. His fear is, like, more than anything. Now just imagine if a regular soldiers has to go not to his officer, not to the marshal, not to the general, but the regular soldier is asked to go and speak to the king himself. Can you imagine what fear the soldier would have to stand in front of the king? It would be unbelievable. And that's the fear I felt when I saw the face of the holy tzaddik, Rebbe Yitzchak." And when he said that, "Can you imagine what it's like for a soldier to see the king himself?" He fainted

17:05 because he literally felt the fear. He was imagining standing in front of the king and the fear that he would feel, and he fainted from such a strong fear. Then they woke him up. Rebbe Yitzchak Baditchov finished davening Mincha. He was preparing for Maariv. Rebbe Yitzchak Baditchov was fasting. He was fasting a whole day. And before he fasted-- before he came to the farm, they stopped in a forest. The Rebbe Yitzchak Baditchov stopped there for two hours and said Tehillim for two hours and cried. Everybody understood that Rebbe Yitzchak Baditchov came and fasted and davened because he wanted to save a neshamah, because this manager was actually Jewish. He was born to a very important Jewish family in Germany. But when he was young, he started hanging out with the wrong friends, and he left the Torah and the mitzvahs, and he slowly, slowly became more and more, um- You know, like the Goyim, he even forgot that he was Jewish. And then he even began to hate Jewish people. Even though he was Jewish, but he completely forgot that he was Jewish. He began to hate Jewish people, and that's why when he became a manager, he drove them all away. Reb Levi Yitzchok started davening Ma'ariv. He started singing a special song. And this manager of the farm is sitting there, and he's like totally, totally amazed. Reb Levi Yitzchok was singing a song which is like this very special melody which-- it's a melody that one feels how the neshamah comes from

19:04 Gan Eden all the way down into this world when you're born, right? Your neshamah comes from Gan Eden, and then you come into the mommy's, uh, tummy and, and, and, and then eventually you're born. But when the neshamah, before it comes down, it lives in a very holy place, very close to Hashem. And when the neshamah is told, "You have to go down into this world," it's a very, very scary trip to make because it doesn't know what this world is like. And then when it does find out what the world is like, it realizes this world is full of lies and averus and evil things. Ah. The neshamah is so afraid to go to such a world, because a neshamah is so heilig. A neshamah is so pure, so holy, so close to Hashem. It, it doesn't wanna be in such a place like this world. So the nigun the Baal-- that Reb Levi Yitzchok of Berditchev was singing, it, you know, was like the feeling. It's like expressing the feeling of fear of the neshamah, where the neshamah doesn't wanna come to such a place. But then when it comes to this place and it forgets who it really is and starts eating and drinking and feasting and puffing and, and then starts doing averus, and the neshamah's l- and the neshamah's light is forgotten. That's what happened to this manager. He still had a neshamah because he's a Jew, but his neshamah that came from a Gan Eden all the way very

20:33 high up to close to Hashem is now being dragged into such a f- terrible, filthy place where he eats and drinks treif and, and, and, and hates Jews and has a dog that bites all the Jewish people. So when Reb Levi Yitzchok started singing this melody, it was like this longing nigun. ♪ Oh, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo. ♪ And, and, and, and, and he suddenly f- fell down on the floor and started crying and crying and sobbing. He felt like his neshamah begin to come to life. His neshamah began to wake up, and he began to feel the pain of his neshamah, the pain that he caused his own neshamah because of the way he lived, because of the terrible things he did. And he began to do teshuvah and crying and crying and crying till the Baal-- the Reb Levi Yitzchok finished the nigun. But at the end of the nigun, it was a happy tune. It was like a very lively tune which showed there's hope, you can do teshuvah. Anyways, the Baal-- Reb Levi Yitzchok finished Ma'ariv. By the time he finished Ma'ariv, it was already almost midnight. And then he went to a special room and then with the manager, and they stayed there behind closed doors for a long time. Somebody peeked through a crack to see what's going on in the room. He saw the manager was on the floor with his face down, crying and sobbing and begging Reb Levi Yitzchok to help him do teshuvah.

22:14 People couldn't believe that this mean, evil guy has become such a Baal Teshuvah. In the end of the story, Reb Levi Yitzchok of Berditchev left the farm and they spoke a little more, the Berditchev and this manager. And on the way back to, to Berditchev, Berditchev said to his talmidim, "Don't tell anybody about what went on, what you saw." And after a few days, this manager sold everything he had for a lot of money and secretly left the farm and moved away. Nobody knew where he moved. But he changed his clothes, and he grew a little beard and a little payos, so people didn't know him, didn't recognize him. He moved actually to Berditchev. And only the close talmidim of the Berditchev who came with him on the trip, they knew who he was, but they didn't tell anybody. It was supposed to remain a secret. And he became a big Hasid of Reb Levi Yitzchok and became a big Baal Teshuvah. He got married, had a beautiful family.