45. The Power Of Trusting A Tzaddik

00:15 Good and Reb Shlomo became sort of friends. Reb Shlomo started asking questions, and he found out from Menachem Aryeh that he learns Hasidus. In those days, in many, many communities, they wouldn't study Hasidus. They thought Hasidus is terrible. You shouldn't learn Hasidus. So you had to be secretive when you studied Hasidus. So Reb Menachem Aryeh secretly agreed to teach Reb Shlomo Hasidus. Reb Shlomo was very curious. He wanted to learn what are these, what is Hasidus that the Baal Shem Tov is teaching. Reb Menachem Aryeh, Aryeh would meet with him every day for an hour, and they would learn Hasidus. Reb Shlomo became more and more a Hasid until he became a complete Hasid of the Baal Shem Tov, and he understood what the teachings of Baal Shem Tov were. But of course, he didn't tell his father. His father, Reb Uri Nusanater from Slutsk, he was a big Misnagid. He did not approve of the Baal Shem Tov. He thought Hasidim and Baal Shem Tov and Hasidus, you should stay away from that. In those days, there was a lot of his Misnagid opposition to Hasidus. But Reb Shlomo kept learning with Reb Menachem Aryeh secretly a lot of Hasidus. Now, after many years of being away from home in yeshivas, he came home to Slutsk, and his father met him, and he started talking to him and learning, and he was very impressed. He says, "Wow, my son Shlomo had learned so much Torah. He remembers like the whole Shas, everything. He knows

03:30 everything. He, he can talk to him in any place in Shas, and he knows it so well." Very impressed with Reb Shlomo. Now, his father thought, "Now my son Shlomo is getting a little older. It's time for him to get married." Now they found a, a man by the name of Reb Eliyahu Moshe, who was a very wealthy man. He lived in a little town next to Slutsk, and he was the wealthiest, the richest person in the small town, and he had a daughter, only daughter. He only had one daughter. She was smart and wise and, and wonderful. She was a great, great girl. And Shlomo married her. And the father of, of the girl, the, the father-in-law of Reb Shlomo, was a rich man, and he agreed to support and give money, uh, to Shlomo and his wife and support them so Shlomo can sit and learn. In, in the olden days, a father-in-law, if he had a lot of money, he would make sure his son-in-law can sit and learn. He would give him money to live, so he wouldn't have to work a day in his life. He could just learn Torah all day and all night. And that's what happened. Reb Eliyahu Moshe supported very nicely his daughter and his son-in-law, Reb Shlomo, for six months after the wedding until something terrible happened. One morning, the wife of Reb Shlomo wakes up, and Reb Shlomo saw that there was something very strange going on. She wasn't talking normally. She wasn't acting

05:05 normally, as if she became crazy. She became sick in her mind, in her head. She started talking very strange and, uh, became very clear that she's becoming crazy. It's a terrible situation. Of course, you can't live in the same house with a crazy person. The parents found out about it, and her parents, Reb Eliyahu Moshe and his wife, took her home to their house to see what they can do to, to cure her. Maybe they'll take her to some doctors. But the daughter became totally crazy, even more crazy after she went to her parents' house, and she just sat down. One of the crazy things she did is she sat down in the dining room. They had a big wood stove. In the olden days, they didn't heat the houses like today. You know, we, we have like a boiler downstairs and- In the basement and it, it generates heat from gas and oil. In those days, you had simply a, like a stove in the middle of the room, and you had put wood inside, and you would put the wood on fire, and it would give heat to the house. So this woman, she wa- she sat down between a wood stove and a wall. There was a wall that was very close to the wood stove. It was a narrow space between the wood stove and the wall. She sat down right there and she wouldn't move, wouldn't move, and she stopped talking. She didn't say a word. And when they had

06:40 to give her food, they had to come and bring the food and, and push her to eat so she wouldn't die from starvation, 'cause she wouldn't eat on her own. She would, would just sit there and do nothing, just stare in the air all the time, not say a word. You kept talking to her, she wouldn't say a word. She just kept staring in the same place. Very strange. She didn't speak for six years. Six years in a row she didn't speak. She sat there. They had to pull her to the bathroom because otherwise she wouldn't go anywhere. So they'd take her to the bathroom and they had to give her food, and she would just sit there the entire time. Six years passed. Reb Shlomo, who obviously couldn't live with his wife, he went back to his father's house, to Reb Uri Nus- Nusenner's house, and he's thinking to him, to him, but he was very sad. He was very sad. He loved his wife and, and now she's crazy. He can't live with her. So he stayed in his father's house. His father thought maybe he should get married to another woman, but he, but he says, "I'm married to her. I can't get married to another woman. We're not allowed to get married to two wives." Eh, so he was stuck. He couldn't get married to anyone else, and he couldn't divorce his wife while she's crazy because according to Halakha, if you give a divorce, a get, to a wife, when

08:13 a husband and wife want to get divorced, she has to be totally normal. She can't be sick and crazy. Otherwise, it's not a get. So Sh- Reb Shlomo was stuck. He just sat in his father's house. Six years passed. Reb Shlomo and his wife could not live together for six years, and the wife didn't speak, not a single word in six years, and sat in the same place between the wood stove and the wall for six years. Finally, one day, the Baalshem Tov came to Slutsk, came to visit Slutsk, and at that time, the Baalshem Tov was already very famous. So all the big Gaonim of Slutsk, Slutsk was a very famous city with a lot of great Talmidi Chachamim and great Gaonim, and they all came to greet the Baalshem Tov and give him respect. Baalshem Tov was then famous for making a lot of miracles, Nissim. He was able to, through his berachos and through his davening to Hashem, make great miracles for people. So a lot of people went to see and stood in line to go and talk to the Baalshem Tov, and so did Reb Uri Nusenner and his son, Reb Shlomo. They went to the Baalshem Tov and told him the whole story what happened to the daughter, uh, the wife of Reb Shlomo, and how she became crazy, and they need help. Somebody should cure the wife. She should get healthy again. And same thing, Reb Eliyahu Moshe, the father of the girl, also came to the Baalshem

09:45 Tov and said, "Please help her. We don't know what to do. It's terrible. It's already six years and she's not moving, she's not talking. And, and, and Reb Shlomo, her husband, is sitting there all alone and lonely and sad. Please, Baalshem Tov, can you help?" And so the Baalshem Tov looked at them and said, "Listen, are you getting along with each other? Reb Eliyahu Moshe, the father of the Kallah, and Reb Uri Nusenner, the father of Reb Shlomo, are you guys like each other?" And he said, "Of course." Reb Eliyahu Moshe was a wealthy businessman, said to the Baalshem Tov, "Oh, my, my mechutan, you know, the father of my son-in-law, he's such a special person. He's a Gaon. He knows the whole Torah by heart. I'm so honored that my daughter was marrying his son. And his son, Reb Shlomo, he's such a special guy. He's learning Torah every day, day and night. He's-- And he, he, he's, he moved to the, to the town where I live, the small town, and he's become friends with everybody in the town, and he changed everything. He made everybody be so happy and nobody fights with each other. Before he came, there were a lot of fights between the people in the, in the small town. You know, people were fighting, uh, about you took my job away, you took my, my business away. You know, people were fighting about petty, stupid things. Since Reb Shlomo came to the town, because Reb Shlomo was already a

11:14 student of the Baalshem Tov secretly, so the Baalshem Tov teaches you have to have ahavat yisroel. Even simple people, you should be very close with them because they're very special to Hashem. Even the simple people that don't know how to learn. So he would spend time teaching simple Jews in the, in the vi- in the small town Torah, and he would teach them Torah, and he would teach them everything. And, and he would treat them so nicely, even though he, Reb Shlomo was a very big Talmid Chacham, but he didn't mind s- wasting time and teaching these simple Jews Torah." And this is all Reb Eliyahu Moshe telling the Baalshem Tov how his son-in-law made such a change in the whole town. Everybody now is so friendly to each other because of him. Everybody in the town loves him. "And we pray, please, please, Rebbe," he said to the Baalshem Tov, "Please, Rebbe, help us, that his wife-- that my daughter gets cured and then Reb Shlomo can move back into the house together with my daughter and have a beautiful house and then have children." Uh, please, please do something. Baal Shem Tov looked at both Reb Yonoson the father of Reb Shlomo and at Reb Yisroel Moshe, the father of the, of the, of the woman who got crazy, and he said to them, "Listen, I can cure your daughter and make her healthy again, but on one condition. After she gets well, she'll come here with her husband, Reb Shlomo, and will...

12:43 And Reb Shlomo will give her a get. They'll get divorced." Wow. Reb Yisroel Moshe, Reb Yonoson, they're listening to Baal Shem Tov and they're, like, shocked. Why would Baal Shem Tov make them do that? Reb Shlomo and his wife love each other. They're, they're, they're such good friends. They're, they're, they're married and they love each other and they don't wanna get divorced. Why is Baal Shem Tov... You know, Hashem doesn't like it when people get divorced, you know. It says in the Gemara that when a couple who is married gets divorced, Hashem cries, 'cause Hashem is upset, because Hashem wants people to love each other, to get along. So, uh, why is the Baal Shem Tov saying that Reb Shlomo and his wife, they get divorced, and only then if they agree to it, that's when he's gonna cure, make a miracle, and cure Reb Yisroel Moshe's daughter from the illness, from the craziness? Well, they had no choice. The Baal Shem Tov says, "Listen, this is the deal. You gotta, uh, agree to this deal. If you agree, and your son, Reb Shlomo, agrees that after his wife gets well, they'll come here. I'll have a Sofer write the get, and two witnesses, and a Rav, and we'll... Right here in my room, we'll make sure the get happens, and Shlomo is gonna give a get to his wife, and they're gonna be divorced, and they're gonna separate and go about their own lives, each one in a separate place. And maybe he's gonna

14:18 marry someone else, and she's gonna marry someone else, but they can't be husband and wife again." What a strange condition the Baal Shem Tov made. So Reb Yisroel Moshe and Reb Yonoson, being very surprised, went back home and said, "Okay, we need to think about this. This is a very strange request." After a few days, they realized there's no choice. They came back to the Baal Shem Tov and said, "Rebbe, we agree to the condition. Whatever you say we have to do, we'll do. Please cure our daughter." And the Baal Shem Tov said, "Okay." Said to Reb Yisroel Moshe, the father of the girl, he says, "Go home. Tell your daughter that, uh, uh, the Baal Shem Tov, who is a famous, uh, miracle maker, he makes miracles, he makes Nissim, that he came to Slutsk, and the Baal Shem Tov says that she must come to his room now because the Baal Shem Tov needs to talk to her. He has something to discuss with her. He want..." Baal Shem Tov said to Reb Yisroel Moshe, "I want you to go home and speak to your daughter as if she's a normal person. Just tell her the message that I give you. Tell her that I said that I want her to come to his office, to the office of the Baal Shem Tov, and the Baal Shem Tov needs to talk to her." Reb Yisroel Moshe was shocked. Th- th- He said to the Baal Shem Tov, "Do you realize my daughter hasn't

15:44 said a word, a single word, in six years? She's been sitting in the same spot on the floor between the stove and the wall for six years straight. We have to drag her to the bathroom, otherwise she wouldn't go to the bathroom. We have to feed her against her will, otherwise she wouldn't eat anything. She's not normal. How I'm gonna tell her that? Th- think, think she's gonna listen?" Shem Tov says, "Listen. I told you what to do. You either do it or you don't do it, but this is what I tell you. Go to her and tell her what I said." Now Reb Shlomo, who already really was a big Hasid of the Baal Shem Tov and believed the Baal Shem Tov, he told his father-in-law, Reb Yisroel Moshe, and said to him, "Listen, we agreed to the Baal Shem Tov's condition. Everything he said, let's try it. He said we should speak to her. Why don't you go home and s- and speak to her and say? We'll see what happens." Reb Yisroel Moshe goes home, and first thing he goes over to his wife, who's in the kitchen, and he tells her, "You know, there's this great tzadik who performs a lot of miracles who came to Slutsk." And he started telling her some of the great miracles he does before he was gonna tell her what the Baal Shem Tov said about their daughter. But first he wanted to tell her how great the Baal Shem Tov was so she understands

17:02 that he's a big tzadik, and he can do miracles, and he started telling him of other miracles that he did, that he heard about. As he's saying this to his wife, suddenly the daughter in the other room starts speaking, and she calls out to her father, "Who? Did you mention a tzadik that performs Nissim, miracles? Who is he?" And she gets up from her seat on the floor between the stove and the wall. She gets up from that spot for the first time in six years, and she walks over to her father and mother and says, "Tell me about this man. Who is this tzadik that does miracles?" Reb Yisroel Moshe and his wife, they couldn't believe their eyes. What is going on? This is their daughter. They didn't even recognize her voice anymore. They haven't heard her voice in six years. They n- they didn't even remember what her voice sounded like, but this is their daughter. She sounds normal. She speaks normal. Suddenly, how did this happen? They realized the Baal Shem Tov was already performing a miracle here. Well, that night, the daughter of Reb Yisroel Moshe went to sleep in a normal bed, her normal bed, but she was very weak, very weak. In the morning, they again, Reb Yerushalis' wife talked to their daughter. Wow, she's perfectly normal. She talks normally, she's very smart, she speaks, she does everything like a normal person. But she was still very weak. The next day again, now she became sick. Not sick in

18:36 the head, she became sick with a fever. She had to lie down in bed, and she had a very high fever. You know when you have a very high fever, you're like... Your, your mind is a little confused because of the heat of the fever that you have. She had a very high fever, and she kept talking and talking while she had this fever about the Baal Shem Tov and his miracles. And then she started crying while she had the fever. In her bed, she was saying, "Please take me to the Baal Shem Tov." And suddenly Reb Yerushalis remembered, "Oh my God, I forgot. The Baal Shem Tov told me to tell her that he wants to see her, and I... We were like so overwhelmed and excited that our daughter became healthy again. This happened so suddenly, so in a- in such a miraculous, in such an amazing, miraculous way. So we forgot to tell her the, what the Baal Shem Tov said to tell her." To, to immediately Reb Yerushalis said to his daughter, "Listen, listen, my daughter. I wanna tell you, this Tzadik, this Baal Shem Tov, this miracle worker, he asked me to tell you that he wants to see you." She said, "Really? I'm getting right out of bed now." And she got up like with great excitement. She says, "He's going to the Baal Shem Tov." In the meantime, Reb Yerushalis sent a messenger to Reb Yissachar and to Reb Shlomo, the husband of, of this, of, of the,

19:57 of his daughter, and, and to tell them that something miraculous happened. Suddenly, as soon as he got home, his daughter got out of, uh, got up from, from her floor, pl- uh, the s- space on the floor where she sat for six years, and she's a normal person now. Something te- to changed, something's changed. Something very strange is happening. So she went to the, to the Baal Shem Tov, and her father got... came with her, and Reb Yissachar also came there, and Reb Shlomo went to Baal Shem Tov. And Baal Shem Tov said to her, "Listen, um, now that you feel good, you, you, you, you became healthy again and you're normal, you're not crazy anymore, uh, I'd like you and your husband, Reb Shlomo, to get divorced. You can no longer be husband and wife." And he says to Reb Schlome-- Baal Shem Tov said to Reb Shlomo and the wife, um, "I know you love each other and you wanna be..." And she said, "Yeah, please, Rebbe, I, I love my husband so much, I respect him so much because he's such a Talmid Chaham. But if the Rebbe says that I need to get divorced, I will of course do so, 'cause I trust the Baal Shem Tov, I trust the Rebbe." And she started crying, crying, crying. And Reb Shlomo said the same thing to Baal Shem, "Baal Shem Tov, Rebbe, I, I trust you even though I love my wife very much. I don't wanna get divorced, but you say

21:23 that I have to, so I will do what you say." Again, Reb Shlomo also started crying, crying very, very hard. Both of them, Reb Shlomo and his wife, were standing there in front of the Baal Shem Tov, crying, crying so hard. But they ex- they said to Baal Shem Tov, "Please, we will do what you say. We will do what you say even though it's so hard for us." Baal Shem Tov said to Reb Shlomo and his wife, "I want you to go home and think about it, and in three days come back here. I will have a sofer who writes the get." Get is written on a parchment. You need a sofer to write it with special, special writing. "And we'll have a even though for them it doesn't make sense. But if a Rebbe says, you should trust him, he knows better than you. And Ba'al Shem Tov said, "You trusted me. You're ready to do the hardest thing in your life, very difficult." Probably the most difficult thing in their entire lives, to get divorced because they loved each other, didn't want to get divorced. But because Ba'al Shem Tov said, they agreed to do it. That takes a lot of, a lot of, a lot of strength. And the Ba'al Shem Tov said, "In that zechus because you had trust in tzadikim, trust in your Rebbe, you were willing to do the hardest thing for you to do in your life. In that zechus that the decree of Shamayim was taken

26:01 away, and now you can go home and stay married. You'll have children, you'll have a beautiful family." And so it's exactly what happened. Reb Shlomo and his wife stayed in Slutsk for another three years, then they moved to a city called Minsk, and there they became one of the great Hasidim, and, uh, he became a big Rosh Yeshiva. He taught a lot of Torah. He had many, many talmidim, this Reb Shlomo, and a big chassid of the Ba'al Shem Tov. Then he went to another city called Baye. The Ba'al Shem Tov told him to move to a city called Baye, and there they had children, sons and daughters. And, um, then at the end of their lives, uh, Reb, Reb Shlomo settled in Lyozno where the Alter Rebbe became Rebbe in Lyozno. For a long time he lived in Lyozno next to the Alter Rebbe. He became a chassid of the Alter Rebbe, and then at the end of his life, for the last 15 years, he and his wife moved to Eretz Yisrael, and they lived there for 15 years until he passed away. Well, we learn from this story the amazing, amazing power of trusting a Rebbe, trusting a tzadik. Sometimes it doesn't make sense to us, but a tzadik says we have to believe, even if it doesn't make sense. The Rebbe told us so many things, so many people questioned what the Rebbe said, but we, we know the great power of trusting, believing in a tzadik. «וַיַּאֲמִינוּ בַּה' וּבְמֹשֶׁה», after

27:37 the Jewish people when they crossed the Yam Suf, the Yam Suf split, it said that the Jews believed in Hashem and in Moshe. You have to trust the tzadikim because the tzadikim, they know a lot of things that we don't know. So bedvar HaKodesh and look forward for the next story.