30. Two Great Tzadikim And A Little Boy

00:16 Speaker 1 Hello, kinderlach. Here is an amazing story. This is a story that happened many years ago in the city of Mezritch, the great Maggid, the great Maggid of Mezritch, who was the Rebbe of the Alter Rebbe and many other great tzadikim. One of them was Reb Aaron of Karlin. Reb Aaron of Karlin was a friend of the Alter Rebbe. Reb Aaron of Karlin had a special son, a boy. His name was Asher. Asher was a very smart and very sharp little boy. One day, Reb Aaron of Karlin came to Mezritch to visit his great Rebbe, the Maggid of Mezritch, and he brought along with him his son, Asher. Now, Asher was a little bit of a wild boy. He liked to be a little mischievous. He wasn't afraid to talk to older people, to great talmidim of the Maggid, who were all great tzadikim. Right? The Maggid has talmidim. These talmidim of the Maggid were also older already, and they were great hakhamim, gaonim, tzadikim, like the Alter Rebbe was also a talmid of the Maggid. This little boy, Asher, would go talk to everybody. And once he even got into a argument with two talmidim of the Maggid. These two talmidim of the Maggid were great tzadikim and great talmidi hakhamim, gaonim, and the little Asher was arguing with them. It was a little surprising, a little boy, how, how dare you argue with such great tzadikim and gaonim? But he would argue with them, and he tried to show them that they're wrong. They

02:15 Speaker 1 were arguing about something in the Torah, and he tried to argue against them. The two talmidim of the Maggid, who were great tzadikim, were a little bit offended that a little boy would talk to them like this, and especially that their Rebbe, the Maggid of Mezritch, was sitting on the side and didn't say anything. That was very surprising. They thought the Maggid of Mezritch would tell the little boy not to be chutzpadik, to talk like this to such great talmidim. But the Maggid of Mezritch didn't say a word, just listened to the conversation, didn't say anything, so the two talmidim felt very bad. They thought, "Maybe, maybe we're not such great people. Maybe we're not such big talmidi hakhamim. Maybe we don't have enough yirat shamayim, fear of Hashem, and that's why the Mezritcher Maggid is not saying anything when this boy is talking to the-- to us like this with chutzpah. Maybe we deserve to be ashamed and embarrassed by this little boy, and that's why the Maggid is not saying anything." But as the Maggid saw these two talmidim getting very insulted and even more surprised that their Rebbe, the Maggid, is not defending them, is not coming and yelling at this little Asher to stop disagreeing with them, 'cause they're so much greater than him. So the Maggid called over the two talmidim and said, "I wanna tell you, come to my room. I'm gonna tell you something." And he told them, "Listen, the two of you come from very great tzadikim.

04:00 Speaker 1 You're yichus. You have a yichus." You know what yichus means, kinderlach? Yichus means that your great-great-great-great-grandfather was a great tzadik and a great talmid hakham and a great gaon. So he said to the two talmidim, "You see, you come from a very famous tzadik and gaon and Mekubal. He was a holy person. His name was known as Reb Noson Shapira. He wrote a very famous Sefer called Megaleh Amukos. He lived in the city of Krakow in Poland. And the other talmid, he came from the very famous gaon, rov, who was the rov of the city of Belz way before the Baal Shem Tov. His name was Reb Yoel Sirkish. He wrote a very famous Sefer on the Torah, Shulchan Aruch, and it's called the Bach, Bayis Chadash, Bach. Very famous, great, great gaonim, great tzadikim, holy people. Both of you come from holy people, and I'm gonna tell you how great your great-great-great-grandfathers were." And he started telling the talmid that was descendant of the Megaleh Amukos, "Let me tell you about your grandfather. Many years ago, there lived a very wealthy Jew in a small village. He was very rich, and he made sure that his daughters could marry the best, most learned, the biggest talmidi hakhamim, bachurim from yeshivas that were learned and learned Torah all day. He took the best, biggest talmidi hakhamim. Then when his youngest daughter was going to get married, he was looking for a chassan. He went to the yeshiva that was nearby in one of the big

05:44 Speaker 1 cities, and he asked the Rosh Yeshiva, 'Tell me, who's your best bachur who learns the most Torah in this yeshiva?' And the Rosh Yeshiva says, 'You see this boy over there?' It was this boy, was a yeshiva bachur. He was very skinny, and he was learning, learning all the time. He didn't even raise his head from the Sefer. He looked inside the Sefer the whole time, didn't even look up for a minute."

06:09 Speaker 2 And the Rosh Yeshiva said to this real rich man, "See, he's the best bakar." Well, he looked a little bit skinny and he didn't eat much, so he didn't like the way he looked so much. But listen, if the Rosh Yeshiva says he's the best of the best bakar in Yeshiva. So he decided he's gonna go over to him, talk to him, and ask him if he wants to marry his daughter. Maybe he wants to meet his daughter. Okay. They met and decided to get married. And this little bakar got married. Well, before he got married, the other son-in-laws of the rich man who are going to be brother-in-laws of this new husband, they wanted to see why the, the Rosh Yeshiva says he's so great. Let's talk to him. We'll talk to him about Gemara, about Torah, see if he knows a lot. But when they tried to talk to him, he wouldn't say a word. Not a word. He pretended he's totally ignorant. He doesn't know anything. He made like with his shoulders like this. "Hmm, don't know. I don't know what you're talking about." So the, the, the brother-in-laws, right? The-- who married the other daughters of the rich man, uh, started thinking, "Ah, maybe it's a lie. He's really an ignorant man. He doesn't know anything. He's an ama aretz. Oy, my-- our father-in-law was, was gypped, he was lied to. He was deceived. His youngest daughter's gonna marry somebody who doesn't know anything, he doesn't know-- he doesn't-- can't even

07:35 Speaker 2 read Gemara, can't even read Mishna, can't even read the Chumash. He's so stupid, he doesn't know anything." And so they went over to their father-in-law and said, "Listen, we think somebody tricked you because he is not a talmid chacham. He's matter of fact, he is a total, total ama aretz. He knows nothing." The father-in-law was shocked. "Really? I can't believe it. No, but let's wait, let's wait. That can't be. Can't be. Maybe we'll find out later that he knows how to learn." Came to the wedding, and there was a custom that by the wedding, the chassan would give a deep, long pilpul. You know what a pilpul is? Like a speech full of Torah, and he would cite from the Gemara here and the Gemara there. You could see how great well the talmid chacham the chassan was. So the, the brother-in-laws went over to this new chassan and said to him, "Nu, are you gonna say a speech?" He says, "No, I don't know anything." So they got really, really upset, and they went again to the father-in-law and said, "You know, this is terrible. They tricked you. Your daughter is marrying a total ignoramus, an ama aretz. Somebody who knows nothing. He's totally silly. He doesn't know anything." So the father-in-law said, "Let's wait a little bit." They waited a few months and still nothing, nothing. The brother-in-laws got very upset and they went to their father-in-law and said, "You gotta tell your daughter to get divorced. She shouldn't be married anymore to

09:08 Speaker 2 this stupid ama aretz. He knows nothing. They tricked you." And the father-in-law said, "Oy, maybe I'll go talk to them." But the daughter-- when he spoke to the daughter, she said, "No, I wanna stay married to him. I like him. He's my husband. I'm very happy with him." And he also said, "I-- I'm very happy with my wife. I'm not gonna get divorced. We're gonna stay married." So the father got very angry, and he had bought them a beautiful house, 'cause he's very rich, right? So he-- when they got married, he bought them a beautiful big house where they can live and have a lot of guests and a lot of seforim, beautiful furniture. But now he said, "I'm gonna kick you out of that house. You can go live in a poor shack. I'm not giving you any money anymore. You're not listening to me, then forget it. I'm not giving you any money, I'm not giving you any houses. You can just find yourself a little old shack." And they were very poor. Without their father-in-law, they couldn't-- didn't have any money. So they had to live in the end of the village in a very poor area in a old shack, and that's where they moved to. The father-in-law was so upset that his daughter wants to stay married to this stupid guy. One night, it was late at night, the father-in-law decided to take a walk. He's walking, walking through the village until he gets to the end of the village,

10:32 Speaker 2 and he wasn't thinking where he was going. He was just walking and thinking, and didn't realize that he went all the way to the edge of the village, very close to the house. That old-- not a house, it was a shack. It was like a old broken down, little, little tiny little building, and that's where his daughter and son-in-law lived. And when he looks up to the house, he's shocked, he's horrified. He sees his daughter in the middle of the night sitting in front of the door on a rock, and he's thinking to himself, "Ah, he's not just an ama aretz who knows nothing, he's also a mean guy. He kicked out his wife from the house, and now she's sitting outside in the middle of the night." The father-in-law went over quickly, said to his daughter, "What are you doing outside here? What? Your husband kicked you out of the house, this mean monster that he is?" She said, "No, no, no, no. You don't understand. My husband is having a chavrusa. He's learning Torah together with Eliyahu Hanavi now, and we-- I don't wanna disturb them, so I stay outside." The father, the father said to her, "Are you silly? Maybe you went crazy. Something happened to you. How can you-- Well, you, you think this stupid husband of yours who knows nothing can't even read Chumash, he's learning with Eliyahu Hanavi? What is he, some kind of a tzadik?" And she said, "Yeah, but don't, don't... No, I'm serious. D-don't, don't go

11:58 Speaker 2 inside. You can't disturb them." And the father said, "Oh, she went-- she must have gone crazy. He's probably made her so miserable that she became crazy from being so miserable." He ran quickly to the houses of his other daughters where his son-in-laws were, and he called them. He said, "Come with me. We're going to get this, uh, husband of my daughter, and we're going to make him divorce her, and we're gonna take him out and throw him away." And the son-in-laws came, and as they approached the house, suddenly the husband of the youngest daughter, who was learning with Eliyahu Hanavi, appeared at the door of the house, and he said to them, "Don't approach the house. I'm telling you it's dangerous. If you come into the house, terrible things will happen. Don't come to the house." One of the son-in-laws who was very mad at this, this choson and this new son-in-law, and he went over. He said, "Well, don't worry about him. Let's go inside the house and pull him out. We're gonna, gonna threaten him, make him give a g- a divorce, a get to his, to his wife, and that's it. We're gonna throw him out of town." As he walked through the door, he collapsed and died. He died. They checked his pulse, saw he was not alive anymore. So everybody was scared. Oh, no. He's not a simple person, this young choson, son-in-law of his youngest daughter. Oh, he's maybe a tzadik in nistar, a hidden tzadik. They didn't expect

13:39 Speaker 2 that to happen. And the father-in-law said to his other son-in-laws, "Let's walk away. This is too dangerous. Let's go home." And the father-in-law went home and he said to himself, "Oh no, my youngest son-in-law was actually a big tzadik. He just didn't wanna show anybody that he knows anything. He was hiding it all. And now we insulted him and we made him-- made his life miserable. I threw him out of his nice house. Oy, I feel so bad." So he decided to go back to the house of his daughter and wanted to ask mechilah, forgiveness of his youngest son-in-law, who's a big tzadik. He didn't know. He walked back to the house and he said to his daughter, "Oi, where's your husband? I wanna ask him forgiveness. I'm so sorry what I did." And she said, "Oh, Tati, it's too late. He left. He left to do galus." Galus, you know what galus is? Many great tzadikim at the time of the Baal Shem Tov or before the Baal Shem Tov, when they felt that they had maybe some averos they have done, even though their averos were very, very small and nothing. For us it would be almost like a mitzvah. But what they did-- what they thought was an avera because they were so close to Hashem, and they were so afraid of Hashem that every little thing was for them a big deal, a big avera. The greater the tzadik is, the more he's afraid to do averos. So they used to

15:07 Speaker 2 go in galus. That means just to leave the house and go from city to city and beg for food and go through the hardship, the hard times of being away from home and, and hanging out with old beggars and, and, and, and am ha'aretz people, unlearned people, and they would do this for a few years. And all the pain and the suffering they had, they were hoping this will take away the avera. Hashem will forgive them for the avera. That's what they used to do. So she said, "My husband felt terrible because because of him, his brother-in-law died. So he decided he has to get a special forgiveness from Hashem for this, that he was the cause, even though he didn't do anything wrong. He just warned them, 'Don't come to the house. Eliyahu Hanavi was there. And if you come to the house, you might... Something terrible might happen.' But he came, and it was because it was his house. So he decided that he has to go in galus. He wandered away from the house, and nobody knows who he is. He just wandered from one city to other city, like begging for food, sleeping in a shul floor wherever he came, going through hot, cold, cold, miserable weather, snow and everything." She said, "My husband went away. He might come back maybe in a few years." The father-in-law felt terrible. "Oi vey, look what happened. My son-in-law left, and I can't even ask forgiveness. I wanted him to forgive me." So he

16:39 Speaker 2 went home and wrote a letter. And not one letter, he wrote the same letter hundreds of times. He sent each one of those letters to different rabbonim all over Europe, Poland and Russia. Every city there was a rav, he sent that letter. What did it say in the letter? The letter said that, "If you see a man, a poor man with torn clothes that has this and this color beard, and this and this color hat, and these and these type of jacket and shoes, you should know that this is my son-in-law who has left the house. Nobody knows where he is. And please tell him if you see him that his father-in-law is begging him to come back. He wants to ask forgiveness." And so he sent all these letters to all the rabbonim. What happened to the son-in-law? Where did he really go? He left. He went to a far city. He went to a city, one city and another city and another city. One day he came to a city, and there were always rich people that used to invite all the poor people that were guests from out of town that used to come to the city. So they had to eat somewhere, so they would invite everybody. Well, you know, the rich people would take-- everybody would take a few of the poor people and, and give them food. So he was also invited with all the poor beggars and was given food in a rich man's house. Now, there were

18:08 Speaker 2 other beggars in the house as well. Something very expensive- Was lost from the house. It seemed like one of the guests stole a silver spoon. The rich man, the host, was very upset. Who stole? And he thought it must be this young man, this hidden tzadik, right? Who left the house because his brother-in-law died at his doorstep. That guy, he must be the ganav. For some reason, he thought, "Ha, he must have been." And he went to the president of the shul and he said, "This man stole things from my house." And you know, in those days, if you did something bad, like you stole something from someone, they would punish you. And they decided they were gonna punish him. How are they gonna punish him? The whole city is gonna come, all the people, they're gonna line up, and they're gonna make this man, who's the ganav, walk between two lines of people, two rows of people, and everybody will spit at him and insult him and call him ganav. "You ganav, you Russian, you mean person. You stole something." And that will make him feel bad, and that will be the punishment. Of course, everybody came and they're going to take him. They took this hidden great tzadik who didn't steal it, but they thought he st- he stole it, and they made him walk between all the people, and everybody was screaming at him and spitting at him. The Rav of the city, of that city, was sitting inside his, his office,

19:41 Speaker 2 and he hears the noise, everybody's noise, screaming. He went outside, wanted to see what's going on. He sees this tzadik Nister and he recognizes him because he also got a letter from his father, from the father-in-law of this tzadik Nister, and, and, and in the letter it describes exactly what he looked like. He says, "He looks exactly what it says in the letter." He says, "Oh, guys, guys, stop spitting at him. Stop yelling at him. Enough, enough, enough. I need to talk to him." He took this young tzadik Nister, he took him into his office and closed the door and said to him, "Listen, I know who you are. You should know, I know you went to Galus because something terrible happened with your brother-in-law because of you. Well, I want you to know that now that e- everybody insulted you and they spit on you, you're already finished. You've, you're forgiven for your avera. This avera which you're really not so guilty of because it's not really-- You didn't do anything. You warned him not to come to the house. Eliyahu Hanavi was there and, and they shouldn't come. But he came. But still, I understand that you feel bad about it, so I want you to know you don't have to go to Galus anymore. That's it. This terrible thing they did to you, they spit on you and they yelled at you, that's already took away the whole avera. You can go home." And the young tzadik Nister listened. He went back

20:59 Speaker 2 home. His father-in-law, and he forgave his father-in-law. Father-in-law took him and his daughter and he gave them a beautiful house again, and he continued to learn Torah day and night. He became the famous, famous Rabbi Nathan Shapira, the Megaleh Amukos, who is famous all over the world as one of the greatest holiest tzadikim and geonim of the time. That was the story about the Megaleh Amukos that the Mezritcher Maggid told. Then he turned to the other Talmud and says, "See, your zeide, your great-great-great-grandfather, was the Bach. You know the Bach, how great he was? I'll tell you. When he wrote his Sefer Bach, Bach stands for Beis Ches, Beis Chodesh. That's the name of the Sefer, so we call him Bach, right? Short, Bach. This Bach is Beis Ches, Beis Chodesh. The real name of the Sefer is Beis Chodesh. His famous Sefer was written. He wanted the Megaleh Amukos to look at his Sefer and write a letter of praise saying that he thinks the Sefer is a good Sefer. People used to do that a lot. When a great tzadik, a chacham, a gaon would write a Sefer, he would go to other great rabbonim and ask them to write a letter that he would print in front of the Sefer, and people would say, "Wow, if this Rav said that it's a good Sefer, it must be a good Sefer." And so he sent a shliach, a messenger, to the Megaleh Amukos to please look at the Sefer and write a letter

22:27 Speaker 2 of approval that this is a good Sefer. It was Erev Pesach when the messenger arrived with the Sefer by the Megaleh Amukos. The Megaleh Amukos was in the middle of baking matzahs on Erev Pesach in the afternoon. As you know, it's a minhag to, special minhag to go and bake matzahs on Erev Pesach in the afternoon. So the Megaleh Amukos said to the shliach, to the messenger, "Leave the Sefer here on the side on the table. I'm busy now baking matzahs." When the shliach went back to the city of Belz to the Bach... The Bach's name was Reb Yisrael Sirkes, that was his name. Bach is the name of the Sefer, Beis Chodesh. When he came back to Belz to the Beis Chodesh, he said to him-- So the Bach said to him, "What did the, the Megaleh Amukos say?" He said, "He told me I should put the Sefer aside and, and he doesn't have time for it now." So the Bach felt terrible. "It means that he doesn't have time to look at my Sefer. That means my Sefer is not a good Sefer. And maybe he sees that I didn't learn Torah lishmah." You guys know what Torah lishmah means? When you learn Torah lishmah, it's learning Torah because you wanna be close to Hashem. A lot of people learn Torah because it's fun. You learn Torah, you like the, the... You know, have to figure out ideas and understand things. It's fun. You'd also like to show off to other people

23:48 Speaker 2 that you can learn better than somebody else. When you learn Torah lishmah, you don't care about anything, about what anybody thinks, what anybody says. You only care about one thing, that you're gonna get close to Hashem by learning Torah. When you learn Torah, you're very, very close to Hashem. Maybe I didn't really learn Torah properly, and that's why he doesn't wanna look at my Sefer, and he felt so bad. And in Shamayim, they looked down at the Bach and they said, "Wow, such a great tzadik is feeling bad. Who caused him to feel bad? The Megaleh Amukos." And they punished the Megaleh Amukos. They decided, they made a decree that the Megaleh Amukos will have to die in another month because he caused so much pain and upset the Bach. The Megaleh Amukos was a great tzadik and had Ruach Hakodesh, and he found out that in Shamayim they were upset with him, that he made the Bach so upset. So he decided to go to Belz and ask forgiveness of the Bach. And when he asked forgiveness, they removed the decree in Shamayim and he didn't die. Now the Maggid of Mezritch says, "You see?" Both talmidim. He says to one Talmud, "See? Your great-grandfather was the Megaleh Amukos. What a holy tzadik he was." You can tell from that story, right? And he turned to the other Talmud and said, "And your great-great-grandfather was the Bach. What a great tzadik he was. Now let me tell you something. Both your gr- your great-grandfather

25:14 Speaker 2 and your who are in Gan Eden, they wish they can get a peek at this little boy, Asher, 'cause his neshama is so holy, so great. He's such a holy... He has in him a neshama of such a great tzaddik, that these two great-grandfathers of yours wish they can just look at him 'cause they feel the kedusha of his neshama." And he says, "That's why I didn't say anything, be- because this is a very holy child." And indeed, when Asher became a, an adult, he grew up. First of all, his father, Rabbi Aaron, the great tzaddik Rabbi Aaron, died very young, in his 30s, and the Alter Rebbe took Asher into his house and raised him for a while. Later, Asher became big. He grew up. He became a great tzaddik, a great rebbe with many thousands and thousands of Hasidim. And that's the end of the story.