24. The Alter Rebbe Stops A Fire

00:15 Hello, kinderlach. Here is a great story with the Alter Rebbe. The Alter Rebbe had many Hasidim all over Russia and all over the Ukraine and all over Europe. And everybody heard of the Alter Rebbe and everybody wanted to see the Alter Rebbe, hear the, the, the words of Torah the Alter Rebbe was teaching. Everybody wanted to get a bracha from the Alter Rebbe, so when the Alter Rebbe came to visit a small town named Hamel. Hamel was a small town, and in that town there lived many Hasidim of the Alter Rebbe, and they were overly excited when they heard that the Alter Rebbe is coming to visit them for a Shabbos. So the Alter Rebbe came there for Shabbos, and of course everybody in the town heard about it, and everybody wanted to come and see the Alter Rebbe. But not only the people of the town of Hamel came to see the Alter Rebbe, but also the towns around Hamel, they all heard of the Alter Rebbe and all wanted to come to see the great tzadik that came to town to Hamel. Hamel also had a rav. The rav of the city of Hamel was a famous Hasid of the Alter Rebbe, Rebbe Isaac of Hamel. He was the rav of Hamel. So everybody's all excited and happy in the whole town. Everybody's getting ready for a great Shabbos with the Alter Rebbe. Unfortunately, a couple of hours before Shabbos started, Friday late afternoon, somebody was cooking some, it was chicken soup for

01:44 Shabbos, and in those days you could-- people would cook with firewood, right? And if the fire get too big, chas v'shalom it could catch the walls, 'cause the walls were made out of wood. In those days, all the houses people built were made out of wood. And you know what happens if a fire catches wood? Then the wood catches on fire, and it burns. And chas v'shalom it can cause the whole house to burn down, and everybody that's inside the house better run out to save their lives. And if their house burns down, and there's a house next to it, then the fire can catch the next house, and then the next house, because all the houses were made out of wood. And chas v'shalom it could cause that all the houses in the entire city would be burned down, and there'd be nothing left, only ashes. That'd be terrible. No one would have a place to live. No one would have a home. People would have to live outside in the field. And this is exactly what happened in Hamel. A fire started in one house, 'cause they were cooking for Shabbos and they didn't watch the fire. The fire caught the walls, and the walls caught the roof, and then it spread from the roof to the other walls, and the entire house became full of flames of fire. And everybody ran out of the house. But then they tried to put out the fire. But the fire caught another house, the house

03:20 next to it. So they screamed, "Everybody go get some water from the well." And everybody went with buckets quickly and got water from the well, and they tried to throw the water on the fire, but the fire was too big. No matter how much water they poured on the fire, the fire kept spreading further and further, and it kept burning more and more houses. And everyone was crying and screaming, "Oh, we're gonna lose all the houses, and it's almost Shabbos. What are we gonna do? We can't travel on Shabbos. Where are we gonna stay for Shabbos? We're gonna be without any houses." Suddenly, people look around and they see in the streets the Alter Rebbe is there. He came out of his house and of his room where he was staying in Hamel, and he's going out to the streets. He heard the noise that there's a fire. So he came out and he looked and stared at the fire with his eyes. And s- he watched for about two minutes, and suddenly the fire stopped. The fire stopped. The fire did not spread anymore. Maybe one or two houses would get burned, but the rest were saved. This was a miracle. Nobody believed what they saw. This was amazing. The Alter Rebbe just looked at the fire, and he almost forced with his eyesight, with his gaze, he forced the fire to stop. Everybody heard about the amazingness and miracle the Alter Rebbe made. Even the Goyim heard about it, and they were all

04:57 very impressed. "Wow, the Alter Rebbe is such a big tzadik. He can make a fire stop just by looking at it, 'cause he's so heilik, he's so holy. And when Hashem-- when he, when he looks at the fire, he can, like, almost tell the fire, "You stop right here and don't spread anymore." And that's exactly what happened to the fire. There was a mayor of the city of Hamel, who was not-- he was a Goy. He was a rich man. He owned the whole town. And he also heard about the miracle, the nes the Alter Rebbe made, that with his eyes, with the gaze of his eyes, he was just able to stop the fire, and he saved the whole city, including the mansion of the mayor himself. The mansion of the mayor himself would also have been burned down if the Alter Rebbe didn't stop it. So everybody was amazed, and the mayor said to his servants, "I want you to go to the rabbi and ask him if he can come to my house. I'd like to speak to him." So when the servants came to the Alter Rebbe and they told him that the mayor wants to see him, he said, "I, I don't have time. I'm very busy. It's before Shabbos. I gotta daven. I gotta learn Torah. It's no time for me to visit the mayor. If the mayor wants to see me, let him come here. Let him come to me. But I don't have time to go to

06:24 him." So the servants went back and told the mayor what the Alter Rebbe said. Alter Rebbe said that if you wanna see him, you better go to him. He doesn't have time to come to you. And so the mayor went to visit Alter Rebbe. And when he saw the Alter Rebbe, he said to the Alter Rebbe, "Tell me... First of all, thank you for saving the city. And s- thank you for saving my house. But I have a question for you. Are you a grandson of the Baal Shem Tov?" And Alter Rebbe said, "I am a grandson, but not physical grandson. That means I'm not the son of his son, but I'm the student of his student. I'm his spiritual grandson. That means I studied from the Mezritcher Maggid, and the Mezritcher Maggid studied from the Baal Shem Tov. I'm a student of the Mezritcher Maggid, and Mezritcher Maggid is a student of the Baal Shem Tov, and a student is like a son. Maybe not physically, but if you learn Torah from someone, from a great teacher, it's as if that teacher is your father. So therefore, I am his grandson, but not in a physical way, but in a spiritual way." When the mayor walked out, he thanked the Alter Rebbe for seeing him. When he walked out, people, the Hasidim of the Alter Rebbe wanted to know why he asked this strange question. The mayor is a goy. What does he know about the Baal Shem Tov? And why was he so

08:04 curious to know if the Alter Rebbe is related to the Baal Shem Tov? He's his grandson. Why did he ask this question? So the mayor said, "Sit down. I'm gonna tell you a story. A story that happened to my father." He says, "My father was a big general in the army of the Russian tsar, the king. He was a very important general. He was the head of a very large group of soldiers. It's called a battalion. A huge amount of soldiers were under him. He was the leader. He was the, the general on top of them. And one day, my father's group of soldiers, uh, were traveling through Russia, and they ended up in Medzhybizh." Medzhybizh is the city where the Baal Shem Tov lived, and the Baal Shem Tov is also buried there. His kever is there. People still go today to visit the kever of the Baal Shem Tov and to daven there. "So this was when the Baal Shem Tov was still alive. My father, the general," tells the mayor, "he went-- he and his army base all went and set up a camp right outside Medzhybizh. Uh, for a couple of weeks, they had to stay there. They were instructed to go to the town of Medzhybizh and stay there for a little while. It was right before Pesach, the Jewish holiday of Pesach. My father had been away from home for a long time. He hadn't seen my mother, his wife, for a long time, and he got a little

09:42 worried and anxious. What's happening? Is everything okay in my house? Is my wife doing well? Is everybody doing well? He was far away from his family, you know, working in the army and traveling far away. He was very stressed and very anxious and very worried and very afraid that maybe something is wrong with his family, 'cause he hadn't got letters from his wife in a long time. So he was very worried. So somebody, one of his soldiers, saw that his-- my father, the general, is very worried. He asked him, "Why are you so worried? Why are you so stressed?" He told him why, "Because I'm worried about my wife and my family." So he told him, "You know, there's a very holy rabbi that lives in this town of Medzhybizh. He's called as the Baal Shem Tov. And everybody says he does nisim and miracles. Maybe you go to him and ask him. Maybe he knows what goes on with your family. Maybe he has Ruach Hakodesh, and he can see what happens with your family. Or ask him for a bracha that he should help you, that everything should be okay with your family." So the general-- my father, the general, said, "Okay, I'm going to see the Baal Shem Tov." And he sent a messenger to the Baal Shem Tov and said, "I wanna come and see you. Would you please welcome me to your, to your shul or to your office where I can talk to you? I have a very important

11:13 thing to discuss with you." When the messenger came to the Baal Shem Tov, Baal Shem Tov said, "Tell your general that I don't have time. I'm a very busy. It's before Pesach. Got a lot of Torah to learn, a lot of davening to do, that we should have a great Pesach, so I don't have time. I don't have time to talk to him." So when the-- my father, the general, heard this... This is all a story that's told by the mayor of Hameln. When my father, the general, heard what the Baal Shem Tov said, he got very upset. What do you mean the Baal Shem Tov doesn't wanna see him? I'm such an important general. He better see me. And when he saw the Baal Shem Tov doesn't wanna see him, he sent a special message. Said to the Baal Shem Tov, "If you don't see me, if you don't welcome me to your office so I can talk to you- Then I will make sure that every Jewish family in Mezhibush will be forced to host, to have in their house, sleeping in their house, eating in their house. Every Jewish family is gonna have to have at least 12 soldiers live in their house. Can you imagine 12 people coming into the house and sleeping there and eating there? And more than anything, it's m- what's even worse, Pesach is coming, and all these soldiers are gonna come in and out the Jewish houses with their bread, with chametz. They're not allowed to

12:38 have chametz in the house on Pesach, so it's gonna be very, very rough, very difficult for the Jewish people. So he said to the Baal Shem Tov, "If you don't, uh, allow me to come to you and speak to you, I will make sure that every Jewish home in Mezhibush will have to take into their house for at least a few weeks, uh, many soldiers, and will be over Pesach, and these soldiers will eat bread, and they'll bring the bread into the house, and it's not gonna be good." And the Baal Shem Tov said, "Okay, you know what? Let him come. Let him come." So the-- my father, the general, went to the house of the Baal Shem Tov. And when he went into the door, through the door, he walked through a hallway to go to the room of the Baal Shem Tov. Before he reached the room of the Baal Shem Tov, he saw on the wall on the right side there's a mirror, a big mirror. So before he goes into the room of the Baal Shem Tov, the-- my father, the general, thought he should straighten out his jacket and his hat to look good. You're going to see a great tzadik, a great man, a great rabbi, so he wants to look good. So he looked in the mirror to see himself, just make sure that he looks good. But instead of seeing himself, he saw something else. What did he see? He saw in the mirror the town where

14:08 he lives and where his wife, his family lives. Then he sees in the mirror his house. And then the door opens up of his house, and in the mirror he's able to see the inside of the house. And inside the house he sees his wife sitting down at a desk with a piece of paper or parchment on the table, and she picks up a quill with ink, and she starts writing a letter. So the-- my father, the general, was fascinated. "Wow, this is unbelievable. I'm looking at a mirror, and I see what my wife is doing far, far away." But then he was curious, what is she writing about? And she's writing, "My dear husband, the General, I wanted to let you know that I just had a baby boy a few days ago. Mazel tov." She didn't use that word because they were Russians. They were goyim. They were not Jewish. They didn't know the word mazel tov, but she wrote something similar in, in, in Russian. "I have an-- we have a new baby boy." When the f-- my father saw this all in the mirror, he couldn't believe his eyes, and he said, "Okay, I don't have to go to the Baal Shem Tov anymore. I think the Baal Shem Tov gave me the answer through the mirror, 'cause in the mirror I saw that my wife is happy, and she had a baby boy." And guess who was this baby boy? This baby boy was none other than the mayor, the

15:42 mayor of Homel. He said, "This was me. I was born, which my father-- what my father saw in the mirror of the Baal Shem Tov was all about me. I was born then." The general said, "Okay, I see the Baal Shem Tov got his way. I wasn't able to disturb him because I got the answer from the mirror." And he went back to the army base, and two days later he gets a letter from his wife, exactly what he saw in the mirror. "My dear husband, we h- I just gave birth to a baby boy two days ago." Says the mayor to the Hasidim of the Alter Rebbe, "See, this is the story I wanted to tell you about my father, and I was born that time. And the Baal Shem Tov could do such an amazing thing to show somebody something that happens far away in the mirror. So I thought if the Alter Rebbe did also a miracle, he-- with his gaze of his eyes, with the look of his eyes, he was able to stop a fire. He must be related to the Baal Shem Tov. Maybe he's his grandson, and he inherited the powers of the Baal Shem Tov to make miracles." The Baal Shem Tov told him, "Yes, I'm his grandson, but not physically. I wasn't born from the Baal Shem Tov's son. My father wasn't the son of the Baal Shem Tov. But I'm a student of the Baal Shem Tov's student, because a real relationship with a, with

17:18 another person is not through physical things. It's when you have a relationship through Torah, right? So the Torah makes the Baal Shem Tov, makes your rebbe like your father." So kinderlach, the same is true with all of us. When we learn the Rebbe's sichas, we learn the Rebbe's Torah, you try very hard to learn what the Rebbe taught us for so many years, and all the seforim of the Rebbe that are there on the bookshelf. There's so much to learn, so much we can learn. The more we learn, the more we come close to the Rebbe, we become like his children. 'Cause the true children are those that learn Torah from the great teachers and the great tzadikim.