38. The Tzadik Who Saw The Light Of A Yid

00:17 A freilechen Chanukah, Happy Chanukah, children. Let's have a story about Chanukah. Many years ago, there lived a very famous tzadik in a city called Lublin. Can you say Lublin? Lublin. His name was Rebbe Yaakov Yitzchak of Lublin. He had another name. They also called him the Choizeh of Lublin. Why Choizeh? Choizeh in Hebrew means the seer, the guy who sees things. Why did they call him the Choizeh of Lublin, the seer of Lublin? Because he could see things. When he saw a person, he saw his face, he'd know all the averos the person did, all the mitzvahs that he did. He could tell everything that happened to that person from the day he was born until today. He was also able to see the future. He was- had a lot of Ruach Hakodesh. So people called him the Choizeh, the seer. He sees everything. You can't hide from him anything. So once one of his Hasidim wanted to go for Chanukah to spend time by his Rebbe, the Choizeh of Lublin. So he, uh, traveled, but he- before he left, his neighbor, Yankel, the neighbor, Yankel the neighbor came over to him and said, "Yossel, listen. I can't go to the Rebbe for Chanukah. You're going for Chanukah. Can you do me a favor? I know that on Chanukah the Choizeh of Lublin, the holy Rebbe, he- after he lights the Chanukah Menorah, everybody can go over to him and give him a little letter, a note, and he would read it, and he would

02:01 give you a bracha for whatever you need it, whatever you ask for in the note, he would give you a bracha. Since I can't go and I need a bracha for something very urgent, can you please take my letter, and when you go over to the Rebbe, it's your turn to go over th- to him, you'll give him my note as well so he can read it and give a bracha for me." And Yossel said, "Of course, of course, I'll do it." And Yankel gave him the note, and he went off to Lublin. He came to Lublin, to hundreds and hundreds of Hasidim came from all over Europe, all over Poland, and people came to see the great Rebbe light the Menorah. It was such a joyous time. You know, we light the Menorah, it's just the happiest time. You could see the, the Rebbe is preparing for lighting the Menorah. He has a lot of kavannah before doing the mitzvah. And he finally says the bracha, and everybody says amen. And then he says the second bracha, she-asa nisim laavoteinu, and everyone says amen. And then he says she'hecheyanu, the third bracha, everybody says amen. Then he lights the Menorah, and the candle is starting to burn so brightly. And everybody's staring at the candle that the Rebbe just lit. They could see literally Hashem is shining through that candle. Then they sang a few songs, then the Rebbe, the Choizeh of Lublin, sat down and he said, "Okay, anybody who has a request,

03:28 a letter to give me can come over to me now and give me the letter, and I'll read it, and I'll give them a bracha." A long line, line of hundreds and hundreds of people standing in line, each one waiting for their turn to be able to give the letter to the Rebbe. When Yossel came from far away, he had two notes, remember? One from himself, where he had certain questions that the Rebbe should give him a bracha for, and he had the letter also from Yankel, his neighbor. So when it came his turn, he gave the Rebbe first his own letter, Yossel's own letter, and the Rebbe read it and gave him a bracha. Then he said, "Rebbe, my neighbor Yankel couldn't come, but he asked me to give you, uh, to give you his letter. Can you please read his letter also and give him a bracha?" And the Rebbe opened up the note, and as soon as he opened the note, he threw it down. He said, "No, I can't look at it. This person is now in a dark place, in a evil place. I can't look at him. It's, it's tamei. It's, it's not clean. It's not... I, I can't look at it." You know, a tzadik is- has very holy eyes, and he can't look at something which is not clean. "I see in the note that this person who wrote this note is in a very bad place, a place which is evil, Yetzer Hara, not good, and

04:49 I can't look at it." Yossel was very shocked and surprised. Why is the Rebbe saying such a thing about his neighbor? His neighbor is such a good Jew. He davens every day. He does mitzvahs. The Rebbe says that he's actually, uh, he sees him i- in a bad place, in the darkness. Very unholy, very unclean. Very surprised. He walked away. He felt very bad for Yankel. What is- what could be happening with Yankel now? So he waited a few days. It was the fourth night of Chanukah, and decided, "You know what? Let me try again. I'll go over to the Rebbe again." And he hands over a note, the note of Yankel again. Again, he gives it again at the fourth night, and the Rebbe opens the note and says, "Wow, what an amazing note. This is beautiful. I can see with my eyes that this person who wrote this note, Yankel, is shining with a special holy light. There's light coming from him. Ah, so beautiful." Now, Yossel was really surprised. Four nights before, he gave the Rebbe the exact same note, and he says, "This man is like such a dark person, living in the darkness and evil and bad stuff." And now he thinks he's such a holy person with so much light. So he was very surprised. He didn't know what to make of it. So he left. When he went back to town, he met Yankel. Yankel said, "No, did you give my note to the Rebbe? Did the Rebbe

06:24 give a bracha?" He says, "Yes, he gave a bracha on the fourth night. But something happened on the first night that I can't figure out. When I gave him the note on the first night, he looked at your note and he says, 'Oh, I can't look at it.' He threw it away right away. He doesn't want to look at it. He says, 'This person who wrote this note is... You know, finds himself in very bad places. He's in the darkness. He's in deep darkness.' What did you do on the first night?" So Yankel asked, "What time did the Rebbe say that?" "Oh, it was the first night of Hanukkah at 8:00." "Oh, 8:00. We just finished lighting the menorah, and I sat down to play cards for money." Gambling. You know what gambling means? It's when people play cards where they gamble money. So if you win, then you can take my money, and in the Torah it's forbidden. It's asur to gamble. You're not supposed to play games where you try to win money from other people. It's not honest. Torah considers it not honest. It's a very bad thing to do. So when he was playing cards for money, which is called gambling, which is an aveira, the Rebbe in Lublin saw that this man is actually in a very dark and evil place. But then on the fourth night, what happened? On the fourth night, what time was it? 8:00. The Rebbe said, "Wow, such a special person. There's so much light

07:54 coming from him. Holy light. Aibish's light. Hashem's light is shining through him. What did you do at that time?" "Oh, at 8:00 on the fourth night, we were lighting the menorah saying the brachos with such joy and happiness." And ah, now he understand. The Rebbe, he sees so much light. What do we see from this story? You are what you do. If you do a mitzvah, a mitzvah is light. What does it say Ner Hashem? It says Ner Mitzvot. Every mitzvah is like a candle. Every mitzvah is like a candle. It's light. It's not a physical light that you can turn on in a dark room, a physical dark room. You're talking about light from Hashem. It's a very different kind of light. It's a very much stronger light. It's a deeper light. It's a light from Hashem. A mitzvah brings light from Hashem into the world. So when a person does a mitzvah, that light shines from him too because you become one with the mitzvah, so you begin to be like a source of light from Hashem that comes from you. So the Rebbe on the fourth night saw he was lighting the menorah. The light came from the person. He saw so much light from Hashem shining through the person, so he wanted to read the note, and he was so excited. But on the first night, the same Jew did an aveira. He was playing with money, gambling with money, which he's not allowed to. And then when a Jew does

09:21 an aveira, an aveira is not light. It's darkness. It's evil. It's bad. There's no light of Hashem there. On the opposite, it's darkness of evil. Spiritual darkness. So when you do an aveira, that darkness comes inside of you. So when the Rebbe looked at his note, he saw darkness. So he couldn't look at the note because the Rebbe has holy eyes. He can't look at darkness which is connected to evil. Evil darkness, he c- he can't look at it because his eyes are too heilige to be able to look at this, so he had to throw away the note. So this is the lesson. When you do a mitzvah, you become one with the mitzvah, and the light of the mitzvah, which is the light of Hashem, shines in you. And when you do chas v'shalom a bad thing, so you say a lie, or you do something else that's not right, you know it's not right, you steal something, or you're mean to somebody, at that moment, the aveira that you're doing connects with you, and there is darkness coming inside of you, and a tzadik can see it. Good Yom Tov.