46. A Fire In The Rich Man's Home

00:16 Hello, kinderlach. Here comes a story from a great tzadik. His name was, uh, b- Reb Moshe Chaim Ephraim from Sadilkov. This, he wrote a very famous sefer called Degel Machne Ephraim. He was a grandson of the Baal Shem Tov. His mommy was the daughter of the Baal Shem Tov, and he was very close to the Baal Shem Tov. He knew the Baal Shem Tov. He was raised in the house of the Baal Shem Tov, so this is a story about him. The, the, the, the, the, the tzadik that wrote the Sefer Degel Machne Ephraim. His name was Reb Ephraim. He was a rav in a city called Sadilkov. The Reb Ephraim was once traveling through a city. He came to a town in a village. He was traveling through a village, and he heard that in that village there's a very wealthy Jew who is a big baal tzedakah. He gives a lot of tzedakah, and he also does the mitzvah of hachnasat orchim. He likes to invite guests. He has a special place in his house where all the guests that travel through the town can come and stay in his house for free, and he puts them up in a nice ro- puts them up in a nice room and gives them food, and he gives them... If they need money, he gives them money, extra money to travel. Very, very, very special person. So Reb Ephraim, the grandson of the Baal Shem Tov, stayed in his house, and the rich man, the

01:57 host, took good care of him. And, um, the Reb Ephraim, the tzadik, ate supper in the house of this rich man, and then the rich man showed him a beautiful room that he cleaned specially for the tzadik, so he should be able to rest during the night. Before the Reb Ephraim went to his bedroom, the rich man said to the tzadik, "Can I ask you a question?" He says, "Sure, you can ask." And he said to him, "Listen, I have a problem. Baruch Hashem, Hashem gave me a lot of money. Hashem gave me a lot of wonderful children, and everybody's healthy, and I have everything I need. There's one problem which I don't understand why this happens all the time. Every once in a while, a fire breaks out in my house. One time my house burned down. The other time, my field. I have a field full of grain and wheat, and it all got burned down. Another time, a few months later, I have a house where I make a lot of, of mashke, vodka and mashke." You know, he has, he has a big business where he makes special drinks for l'chaim, for farbrengens. It's a big business, and it burned down. He says, "Every few months, there's a fire somewhere on my-- one of my houses or one of my fields, and it burns it down, and I don't know why this is happening to me. This is so strange." The Rav Reb Ephraim did not say much, just listened, and

03:47 he was quiet. Didn't say a thing. He went to sleep. Before he went to sleep, he told his shamash, "I want you to make sure to get up very early in the morning because we're going to go tomorrow morning to another village. I wanna make sure that I get to that village early enough so I can make it to the minyan and daven Shacharis in that shul of that village." The shamash says, "Sure, Rebbe. I'm gonna wake you up in the morning very early so we can make it to that other village on time for Shacharis, so you can go to the shul." A- and so they did. In the morning, the, the, the tzadik, Reb Ephraim, got up very early, traveled from the village. He said goodbye to the rich man who was so nice to him and gave him a nice meal and gave him a nice room, and he said thank you, and he said goodbye to him. And but the wagon driver, the balagola, right? Balagola is the wagon driver, who drove the Rebbe, the tzadik, and, and his, uh, shamash, made a mistake. Instead of arriving on time for Shacharis to the village where the shul was, he ended up taking him to a different village. Another village where there were all Goyim. There were nothing. Nobody there. There's no shul there, nothing, and there was only one place he could go. In that village, there was like a krachmach. A krachmach is like a bar, an inn where people

05:21 drink. People go in and drink a lot of vodka and get drunk. So he couldn't go anywhere because all the houses were full of Goyim. They were all Goyim. There was no Jews there, so he had to go to the inn where they sell mashke, and anybody who wants to come in from outside can come in and drink. So the Reb Ephraim, the great tzadik, wanted to daven Shacharis. He realized it was getting late, and he ended up in the wrong village, so he went into this inn. When he went into the inn, he saw there were people drunk everywhere, Goyim, who were laughing so loud and crazy, and they were dancing and jumping. It was not possible to daven in that place. Not possible to say anything, uh, k- of kedusha, nothing. It was really a terrible place. No, when the Rav, Rabbi Ephraim, saw this, he realized that they had made a big mistake. The balagola, the, the driver of the wagon, of the Rav's wagon, made a mistake. He went to the wrong village. So he said to his, uh, helper, to his shamash, um, "Please go quickly back to the village where we stayed last night with the rich man who hosted us, and go tell this rich man I wanna see him right away. He should come to me right now. I wanna talk to him." And so the, the, the, the helper, the shamash, went back to the village where they stayed the night before and went straight to

06:50 the rich man who, uh, provided his house and hosted them. And he said to him, "You know, the Rav, that tzaddik, Rabbi Ephraim, wants to see you right away. Please come with me. We're gonna travel to that village where we ended up by mistake. And, and, and please come. He wants to talk to you." So when the rich man arrived in that village, uh, the Rabbi Ephraim said to him, "Listen, my friend, Rabbi Yid, I, I heard that you do the mitzvah of achmas asarchem in a very special way. So tell me what, what do you do with your guests when the guests come there? Ex-e-explain to me how you do the mitzvah of achmas asarchem." And he says, "What do you mean? I, I-- When I come-- when, when, when a p-- when a guest comes to my house, I'm very nice to him. I give him a little l'chaim to drink, so he gets warm because outside it's cold. And then I give him to eat, then I even give him some money, tzedakah, if he needs. If he's poor, I give him extra money. Depending on what the person needs, I give him whatever he needs." Says the Rav, Rabbi Ephraim: "And what else do you do?" So he says, "I don't know what else I should do. I mean, that's all. I'm doing my best. I give him a room to sleep." He says, "And what else do you do?" He says, "I don't know. That's all I'm doing. I give

08:19 him food, and I give him a bed to sleep. What else should I do?" So the Rav, Rabbi Ephraim, said to him, "Did you know that the Torah tells us that in-- not only if you wanna take in a guest to your house, you not only give him food and drinks and place to sleep, you also have to make sure that when he leaves, you should accompany him. You should walk him to the door and make sure he knows where he needs to go. Sometimes people come from far away, they don't know the neighborhood, they don't know where to go, they get lost." He says, "See, I was a guest in your house last night. This morning we were supposed to go to a certain village where there's a minyan, there's a shawl where we can daven Shacharis. And my balagola, my driver, made a mistake, and we ended up, look, in this village full of Goyim. And we ended up in this inn where these Goyim are drinking and getting drunk and screaming and cursing and, and doing all kind of crazy things. I can't even daven here. See, if you had fulfilled the mitzvah of walking with your guests when they leave to the door and outside the door to show them, make sure they know where to go, I wouldn't have ended up here. I would've been in the other village where I was supposed to go, and I would daven Shacharis with a minyan." So the rich man apologized and he

09:44 said, "Oh, no. I, I didn't even know that this is part of the mitzvah. I knew there's a mitzvah of achmas asarchem. You have to get them food and drink and, and, and sleeping, but I didn't know that there's also a mitzvah that when the guests leave, you should walk them a little bit outside so you can make sure they know which direction to go." And this is actually called in the Gemara Levia. There's achila, means eating. Shetia means drinking. Levia means to accompany them, to walk them a little bit when they leave, make sure they're going into a safe direction. "I didn't know that, you know, this last part of achmas asarchem, that when the guest leaves you have to walk them out and make sure they know where to go. I didn't know this is part of the mitzvah." And he says, "From now on, I'll make sure." And Rabbi Ephraim said to him, "Now I will answer your question that you asked me last night. Why do you suffer from so many fires everywhere in your house, in your fields, wherever, you know, in all your businesses there's always a fire burning down everything. Why is that happening to you? Well, I'll tell you why. Who was the first Jew that did this mitzvah achmas asarchem? Very famous person in the Torah. It was Avraham Avinu. Avraham Avinu would-- invited a lot of guests to his tent. He gave them food, he gave them to drink, right? All for free. Now, it

11:19 says in the Torah, "Vayita eshel b'beer sheva," that Avraham Avinu, uh, put up a big tent. It's called eshel. And where? In the city of Beer Sheva, he built a huge tent, and in the tent he gave all the people, anybody who came through that tent and through that place, he would give them food and drink, and he would also accompany them. When they left, he would walk them out and show them, make sure they know where to go, where they need to go for the next place, and how to get there. He made sure that they get there safely. Now, in the passage it says, "eshel." He built an eshel, which eshel means like a special place, like a tent where guests can come and eat and drink. And, and have a good time. Now the word eshel is spelled how? Alef, shin, lamed. Alef, shin, lamed is eshel. And what does the Gemara say? The Midrash says, the Ga-- the Midrash says, our Chachamim say eshel, alef, shin, lamed stands for three words. Alef is achila, eating. The shin is shtiya, drinking. And the lamed of eshel stands for levia, to accompany them and walk them out and walk them, make sure that they go where-- they know where they're going. So says Rabbi Ephraim to this rich man, "You did the mitzvah of hachnasat orchim very nicely when it came to achila, giving them food, and shtiya, giving them drink. But the last part of the mitzvah, which is levia, to make

13:05 sure that they-- you walk them out and make sure they know where they're going, make sure they get there safely, levia, you left out. So when you have three letters, alef, shin, lamed, eshel, which is this tent that Avraham built for his guests, and you take off the levia, the lamed of eshel, what do you have left? Alef, shin. What is alef, shin? Esh, fire. That's why you had all these fires. From now on, you should make sure to walk your guests to the door and walk your guests outside, and you'll see that from now on you won't have these terrible fires come to you." That story was told by a great Rav who heard it, uh, when he visited the Aptner Rav, the great tzaddik, Rabbi Avraham Yeshayahu Heshel, from Apt. He was a student of the Aptner Rav. And this Rav told the story to how he heard it when he visited the Aptner Rav.