34. The Unexpected Wedding

00:16 Hello, children. Today, we're going to hear a beautiful story by the tzadik of Reb Elimelech of Lizhensk. Reb Elimelech of Lizhensk in his younger years used to go into galus. Galus means he used to go from city to city, dressed like a poor man with torn clothes and torn shoes, and he would go from town to town and stay in a little room w- uh, next to the shul. It was called the hekdesh. The hekdesh was a small room which all these communities, every city used to have near the shul a little room where all the beggars and poor people who traveled through the city didn't have where to stay, didn't have a home, they didn't have where to stay, they couldn't afford to rent a room in a hotel, so they would stay for free in that little hekdesh. It's called a little hekdesh, a little place, a little room next to the shul, and the, the shul would bring them some food, and that's where they would stay until they, uh, you know, travel to the next city, and the next city, and so on. They would stay in these little rooms together, all the beggars together. Reb Elimelech would stay in those little rooms, and he would go from city to city and live off the little food that they gave them, which wasn't a lot of food. And the reason he did this is because he, he didn't want people to give him covet and honor f- because of how great

01:45 he is. And at that time, people didn't know so much about him. He wasn't so famous all over the world, so he could easily hide as a poor person, and nobody treated him like a simple beggar. And this would hopefully refine him. See, these tzadikken would do this because they wanted to refine themselves, make themselves more pure, more halik, more holy, and so they could get closer to Hashem. The story is Reb Elimelech arrived once in a city called Zarnowce. It's a city in Poland, and he decided to do something unusual. He decided to find the house of the leader of the community. The leader was not the rav. There was the rav. The leader was like the president. He had a lot of money, and he was in charge of everything. He took care of everything. He made sure that everybody does the right thing, and the grov, and the shamesh, and the shecheet. He was like a, a very important person. And usually when a rav came to town, you'd go to the president and you'd tell him, "I'm the rav so and so from this and this city, and I'm happy to give a drashah, a speech for the whole community." And the president would say, "Okay, what's your name? Where are you from?" And, and, and he would say, "Okay, we'll pay you so much money if you give a speech for the whole community." And this rav would give a speech, and he would teach a lot of Torah and

03:19 inspire people, make people very excited about being, um, Jewish, about learning, and davening, and doing mitzvahs. And people would pay him money, so they would get everybody excited about davening and learning. Reb Elimelech stands by the door of the president and says, "I, I'm a rav. I, I'd like to give a speech." The president takes a look at this man who's standing in front of him, and he seems like a poor man with tattered clothes. His hat is totally torn and bent out of shape, and his shoes are torn. And he says to him, "No, you, you, you can't give a speech. You're not a rav. Look, look at you. You're just a poor beggar, a simple person." And he was about to close the door, and then the son of this president who was inside the house came jumping. He says, "No, no, no. Don't close the door. Look at him, this poor man. He, he, he probably needs money. Why don't you let him give a speech? Let him give a speech, and then we'll give him... people will give him some money and, and, and this way he'll have money to live." The father says to the son, "No, no, no, no, no. We can't have it. It's gonna be embarrassment. This poor simple beggar is gonna start giving a drashah like a rav? What is this? We're not... can't do this." So the son started begging him, "No, but I feel sorry for him. Look at him. He needs, he needs

04:43 help. Maybe he can say something nice. We never know. He maybe will say something nice and then people will have... feel sorry for him, and they'll give him money, and then he'll, he'll have money to live, money to eat." When the president heard his son begging him like this, he said, "Okay. You know what? Listen, you can give a speech in the shul, and one speech you can give." And they send out an announcement to the whole city that between Mincha and Maariv there is a guest that will give a speech from the bimah. He will be on top of the bimah in the shul, and everybody can come and hear his speech. As Reb Elimelech came between Mincha and Maariv, the entire community, everybody, hundreds of people came to the shul to hear who is this guest rav. They thought some very big important guest with a big hat and a long white beard, and long beard and payos and, and, and, and looks very important and very learned is gonna go up on the bimah and give a speech. But then they see there's this poor beggar with, with, with a beard and payos, with a hat that's totally bent out of shape and dirty, and his clothes are torn, and his shoes are torn, and, and, and he's gonna be the rav, gonna give a speech. But they, everybody kept quiet, and they were respectful, and they waited to hear what he had to say. As he's standing there on the bimah,

06:12 he doesn't say a word. He just stands there and just looks around, looks to the right and looks to the left, and looks to the front, and doesn't say a word. After he, he finished looking around the whole shul, um, he started going with his nose like this, like he's smelling something. Like, "Mm," makes like a face like he's smelling something bad, and he's still not saying a thing. He's just, like, making a face like something... He, he smells something very bad, and he, he is looking around where it's coming from. Now the people started getting very impatient. People started saying, "You know what? He's making fun of us. What is he? He's a, he's a rav. He's giving a speech. Look at him. He's this poor, simple man, and he's with tattered clothes. Then why is he standing there and doesn't say a word? We all came to hear some words of Torah, and he's not saying anything." And people started going over to the bimah to take him down and say, "Hey, get o- get off the bimah and go away, you." But as they were approaching him, he started saying, he says, "My dear Jewish people, I wanna tell you something. I smell a terrible, awful smell from treif food. The whole city is filled with a smell of treif food." That's all he said, because as soon as he said that, some people from the community went up to the bimah, and they were ready to pick him up and beat

07:53 him up, say: "Why are you embarrassing us, saying that this city is, smells of treif food?" But he, they saw when people were coming close to him to grab him, he fled, ran off the bimah, and ran quickly to the entrance of the shul and fled outside and started running and running. But the people that were inside started running after him, and they started chasing. And Reb Elimelech is running and running as fast as he can. And everybody , the men, the children, everybody was running after Reb Elimelech, trying to catch him. How dare he say such a terrible thing about the city, that it smells from treif animals and treif food? Many, many people were running after him, and Reb Elimelech jumped over fences and over this and over walls, and he kept jumping and going from one place to the other till he came to a courtyard, and there was a fence. He jumped over the fence and went into the backyard of one of the butchers in the city. His name was Yankel. And he ran to the backyard, and everybody followed him. People jumped over the fence to catch up with Reb Elimelech, to catch this guy who embarrassed the whole community. And Reb Elimelech, he stops in the backyard, and everybody there catches up to him, but then they all freeze. They can't move. They see suddenly a terrible sight. What do they see? They see Yankel himself in the backyard, hiding in a bush with a big, gigantic ax

09:45 and dozens of chickens, and he's chopping off their heads. And of course, he's not telling anybody that he chopped off their heads. And then he takes those chickens, those dead chickens, and he sells them in his butcher store as kosher meat. But you know, kinderlekh, that in order to make a chicken kosher, you need a shochet needs to shechted the proper way, the way the Torah tells us to do it. Can't just chop off the head of a chicken. Those chickens are treif, should give it away to a goy. A Jew is not supposed to eat it. That's treif. But Yankel apparently used to do this for a long time, and nobody knew. He would chop off their heads in the backyard and then take the chickens to the store, and he would sell, say, "Yeah, this is kosher chicken. It was shechted by the shochet." But nobody knew that he actually just did it himself and didn't shechted properly. People were shocked, and now everybody understood that there was actually treif food in the city, and that for a number of maybe months or years, people kept eating non-kosher chickens, and they didn't even know. So people suddenly realized that Reb Elimelech, this poor man they thought was just a simple person who was very strange, he stands there and doesn't say a word and smells in the shul, and he says that, "Mm, I smell treif," that he's actually a... must be a tzadik, 'cause how did he know? He had Ruach Hakodesh.

11:29 So, um, of course, people first grabbed the, the, the, the butcher, and they took him to the bes din, and of course, they gave him a punishment for doing this terrible thing that so many Jews ate treif food, treif chicken because of him. In the meantime, Reb Elimelech didn't want people to catch him and say, "Oh, you're a tzadik," and they're gonna give him honor. So he ran away. He started running and running and running, and he ran outside the city. Suddenly, as he runs outside the city, he hears the voice of a young boy who cries behind him and says, "Stop, s- Jew, stop, stop." Nobody's running after you. People stopped running after you. They stopped chasing after you. Stay, stand still and rest up for a minute. I wanna talk to you." This boy was the son of the president who convinced his father, but his father refused to let Rabbi Elimelech speak, remember? This boy said to his father, "No, please let him speak and he will make some money. People will give him some money. We'll help him a little bit." This was his boy. He, um... He was very-- felt very sorry for Rabbi Elimelech 'cause he saw that he ran away, people were chasing after him, and they didn't pay him. So he run-- ran after Rabbi Elimelech and said to him, "Please stop." And Rabbi Elimelech stopped, and Rabbi Elimelech was very impressed with this boy, that this boy was so sensitive to him. He tried to help

13:06 him. And the boy said to Rabbi Elimelech, "I wanna pay you f- the fee that we need to give you for your speech." And Rabbi Elimelech says to him, "But you're just a young boy, how can you pay?" So he said, "Well, I think we should pay you because what's-- it's not your fault that the people didn't listen to you and that you couldn't give your speech. And look, you saved the whole city from treif food." And the boy took out money from his pocket and gave him the money for the speech. He says, "This is the amount of money that we give to every rav that comes and gives a speech, and this is for you." And Rabbi Elimelech said, "No, I can't take the money. This is-- You need-- This is your father's money. You can't just take your father's money and give it away." The boy says, "No, no, no. My father gives me every week a certain allowance, and I c-- I saved that money, and this money is for me. It's for me. It's my money, so I'm paying you with my money." Rabbi Elimelech saw this, he was very impressed. He said to the boy, "What can I give you a bracha? I wanna give you a bracha for something." "Whatever you want." So Rabbi Elimelech-- the boy says, "What-- Rebbe, uh, whatever you wanna bless me, give me a bracha on anything." Rabbi Elimelech puts his hands on the head of the boy and says, "May Hashem help

14:33 that one day our children or grandchildren will marry each other, will become mechutanim." And then that's how he left. Many years passed by, decades, decades, tens and tens of years passed by, and there was a big wedding in the city of Zarnovica. It was a wedding between a very wealthy Jew and a very respected Jew, and a grandson of Rabbi Elimelech of Lizhensk. And there were many tzadikim rebbes that came from all over Poland to participate in this very special wedding. It seems like Rabbi Elimelech was not alive anymore. He was already passed on. He was nistalek. But these tzadikim that came were talking amongst each other, "How come that a grandson of Rabbi Elimelech would marry the daughter of just a, you know, a businessman?" Normally, the son of a great rebbe, tzadik, a rav marries the daughter of another rav and another rebbe and tzadik. Everybody was wondering, how did that happen? That this just businessman, he's no-- He's a nice man and he's a, a talmid chacham, but he's not a rebbe or a tzadik or a rav. How come that he merit, that he had the zechus that his daughter would mar-- his daughter would marry none other than the grandson of Rabbi Elimelech himself? So one of the tzadikim was the Apter Rav, and he called over this, this, this, the father of the kallah and he said to him, "Tell me Rabbi Avner..." His name was Avner. "Tell us what you did so special to deserve such a zechus

16:27 that your daughter would marry such a holy, holy, uh, tzadik. The, the son of such a holy tzadik." And he said, "Well..." "Well," he said, "I give tzedakah and I helped a lot of people." And they said, "No, no, no, no. That's not enough. There must, must be something else." And he started thinking and thinking and finally said, "Well, when I was a little boy, there's a poor man who came to the city, and my father was the president of the city, and he was a very strange person. He was very poor. He wanted to give a drashah, and he gave a drashah in the shul, but he said strange things that the whole city is full of a smell of treif food, and nobody understood what he was saying. And then he started running away because people wanted to catch him and, and punish him for saying such terrible things. And then he ran all the way to the butcher's backyard, and we all saw what happened, that the butcher was actually killing the chickens, not shechting them, and he caused so many people to eat treif. And he ran away again, this poor man, and I caught him on the way and I asked him, 'Stop, stop,' and I paid him. I don't know his name. I don't know who he is 'cause he never told me his name, but I can say that he gave me a bracha that we should be mechutanim. That means our children or grandchildren will get married

17:54 to each other." So when the Apter Rav heard this, he says, "Ah, that poor man was Rabbi Elimelech of Lizhensk, and his bracha was now fulfilled."