55. The Duck That Davened Nicely

00:16 Speaker 1 Hello, kindeleh. This week was the yahrtzeit of a great tzadik. His name was Rebbe Elimelech of Lizhensk. He wrote a famous sefer called Noam Elimelech. Rebbe Elimelech of Lizhensk was a friend of the Alter Rebbe and a talmid of the Mezritcher Maggid. The Alter Rebbe once wanted to show how humble and what a great honor the Rebbe Elimelech was. So it once happened that the Alter Rebbe came into the house of a misnagid, a rav, a very famous rav, a goon, and he was a big misnagid to Hasidim. He didn't know what Hasidim were like. The Alter Rebbe walked in, he saw that this misnagdi rav had the Sefer Noam Elimelech written by Rebbe Elimelech. It was under his chair on the floor because he didn't like Hasidim, and he thought Hasidim are not good people, so he took the Sefer Noam Elimelech and put it on the floor under his chair. And the Alter Rebbe walked in, he saw this, he's-- he was a little shocked. So the rav saw the Alter Rebbe shocked and said to him, "Do you know who wrote this Sefer?" The Alter Rebbe said yes. So this misnagdi rav said to the Alter Rebbe, "Tell me about him. What, what do you know about him?" And he said, "This rav, this tzadik who wrote this Sefer, if you had taken him himself, not his Sefer, if you were taking the tzadik himself and put him on the floor under your chair, he wouldn't care. It wouldn't bother him because

02:08 Speaker 1 he was so humble, with such an honor that he didn't care if you'd put himself there. That's the kind of person he is." So I'm gonna share with you a few short stories about Rebbe Elimelech. These are some of the stories I heard from a great, great, great grandson of Rebbe Elimelech. When I grew up, I was a little boy in Belgium, in Europe. There was a great-grandson of his who was a very s- a rebbe, he was a tzadik, and he would tell stories that he heard in his family about Rebbe Elimelech. One of the stories he told is that Rebbe Elimelech once sat with his Hasidim and explained to them that everything is Hashgaha Pratit, everything. Even things that seem to be so unimportant, but really it's all Hashgaha Pratit. Everything Hashem plans exactly why it has to be this way and not this way. And he gave an example. You know, in those days, people didn't have cars. People had horses. So there were always horses in the, in the streets. Says, "You see that horse over there? Well, that horse just dropped some, you know, uh, it made... It went to the bathroom in the street, right?" Horses don't go to the toilet. They, they, they make it in the public. So the horse dropped some of that drek on the floor. And he says, "You should know that the horse dropped it exactly in that spot is Hashgaha Pratit. Min Hashamayim, Hashem wanted that this piece of drek should fall

03:52 Speaker 1 exactly on this spot and not anywhere else." Now, you could think, "Well, who cares? Why would Hashem care whether the horse goes to the bathroom here or it goes to the bathroom somewhere else?" But the Hashem-- the, the Rebbe Elimelech says, "This is what the Baal Shem Tov taught us, that everything is precise." There was a Hasid there in the... Or sitting there by Rebbe Elimelech, and when he heard this, he said, "Ah, I can't believe that. That doesn't make sense. Why would Hashem care where the horse goes to the bathroom?" So next day, this Hasid decided to go up on a mountain where he needed to go to a shul, and the shul was on top of a mountain. And it was winter. It was icy and a lot of snow, and it's very dangerous. If you go up a very steep mountain, so if you hold on to something, you have, like, something to hold on to, then it's okay, it's good. But if you start slipping, it can be very dangerous because once you start slipping, it's very hard to stop yourself. You just slip faster and faster, and then chas ve'shalom you can fall very, very, very down, all the way down to the bottom of the hill and break your-- every bone in your body. That's very dangerous. But he thought he can do it, and he walked, oh, higher and higher, high. He was very high up already, and suddenly he started slipping. Oh my God, he started slipping

05:23 Speaker 1 in that city. Well, he felt like he couldn't control it. He couldn't stop himself. He's got a sliding and slipping faster and faster and faster, and he says, oh, he starts saying, "Shema Yisrael Hashem. Shema Yisrael Hashem Elokeinu Hashem echad. I'm going to die." But then something unexpected happened. He stopped in the middle. He was slipping and slipping, but then he stopped. In the middle of the mountain, his body didn't go further. It just stopped in the middle. So he couldn't understand why, why did he stop sliding down? Why'd he start-- stop slipping? Then he realized there was a little patch- In the middle of the mountain which w- the ice had melted. Why the ice melted? Because there was a horse that was walking with a wagon, uh, a few hours earlier, and the horse went to the bathroom right on that spot and dropped some drek there, which was a little warm, and caused the ice to melt. And because of that, his life was saved, that he, that he stopped slipping. So then he remembered what his Rebbe told the day before, that even a horse drops some drek in that particular place, it's all precise min Hashamayim, Hashem wanted it to be exactly there and not somewhere else. So when he saw this, he said, "Wow, my Rebbe was right." He say, "Look, it saved my life. Had the horse gone to the bathroom like a few feet away, I would've been killed now, and now my life was saved." So

07:00 Speaker 1 the next day, when he came back to shul and the Rebbe, Rebbe Lemelach, was in the shul, Rebbe Lemelach saw him, he says, "Nu, was I right or not?" So Rebbe Lemelach saw, beruch hakodesh, what this Chassid was going through and what happened to him the day before. That's one story that this great Rebbe told many years ago, which from his in-- his great-grandfather, Rebbe Lemelach. Here's another story. There was once a Chassid of Rebbe Lemelach who wanted to go to his Rebbe for Shavuot, Yom Tov of Shavuot. So he traveled for Shavuot to, uh, to Lizhensk, to Rebbe Lemelach. It was the night of Shavuot. As you know, we stay up all night. We don't go to sleep. We say Tikkun, right? So he stayed up all night, and the shul was packed with people. Everybody was saying Tikkun, and suddenly, 4:00 in the morning, this Chassid felt very hungry. Now, this Chassid, before he left his house to go to Lizhensk for Yom Tov, his wife knew that when he comes to Lizhensk, there'll be a lot of people coming from all over Europe to be with the great tzadik, Rebbe Lemelach of Lizhensk. So she wanted to pack him some food, so he shouldn't be starving when sometimes... So what'd she do? Well, she could give him a piece of meat and, uh, hamburgers, but it would get spoiled. Now, in those days, they didn't have refrigerators like we have today. You can keep things fresh in a fridge. So what do

08:36 Speaker 1 you do when you broil things? If you take a piece of chicken and you broil it in, in the fire, it lasts longer. You don't need to refrigerate so much. So what she do, she took a duck. In Yiddish we say a kachkeleh. She took a kachke. She took a duck, and she broiled it in the fire. Made it really good and broiled it nice, and she packed it up for him and put it in his suitcase, so in case, and sometimes he needs to eat, he would have what to eat. Now he was in shul the night of Shavuot. Remember I told you, he came to Shavuot, was there the night. People are staying up all night, and at 4:00 in the morning, he suddenly felt that he had this incredible hunger inside of him. He was so hungry. He was starving. He was starving. He said, "But where am I gonna get food now? Where am I gonna get food? It's, it's 4:00 in the morning. There, there's no food around here. It's Yom Tov. Can't go to the store." So he didn't know what to do, so he thought, he tried to forget about his hunger, and he kept reading and reading, and then he felt more hungry and more hungry, and it bothered him so much he couldn't concentrate. He couldn't read. So he decided-- He remembered suddenly, "Oh, yeah, my wife had packed me a broiled duck. A broiled duck, and it's in my suitcase. You know what? I'll go

09:55 Speaker 1 back to my room, and I'll have a little piece of the duck." Then he thought to himself, "What, 4:00 in the morning, eating duck? We're gonna daven soon. Shacharit's, like, seven o'clock. We can daven already. So Shavuot's in the morning. Before davening, I'm gonna eat a broiled piece of duck? That's not nice. It's not nice. It's not appropriate. You're not supposed to eat a duck before you daven. You eat sometimes a shtikel mezonot, a little piece of cake before davening, uh, but, but, but a piece of fat, schmaltzy duck before davening? That's, that's really disgusting. How can I do this?" But he felt more and more hungry, and his stomach was bothering him. "I need to eat. I need to eat." He couldn't take it. Finally, he said, "Okay, I gotta go eat something or I, I'm gonna faint." He went to his room, took out the duck, ate a big slice of that duck, and he felt better. He went back to shul, and then he felt so bad. "Why did I eat that duck? Oh, what a, what a terrible thing I did. I ate a schmaltzy piece of duck before davening. Who does that? Even the simplest Jew doesn't do such a thing." Such a terrible thing. He felt so down. He felt so disappointed in himself that he did such a thing, and he felt very down, and he felt very broken. And so came the morning. It's time for Shacharit davening in the morning, Shavuot. And the shul is packed,

11:29 Speaker 1 and they're waiting for the great tzadik, Rebbe Lemelach, to come into the shul to start davening. As Rebbe Lemelach walks into the shul, it's hush quiet. Everybody's quiet. Rebbe Lemelach walks through the shul to go to his place, and he passes by this Chassid who is feeling so bad inside that he has eaten a duck before davening. Rebbe Lemelach turns to him and says, "I would like you to be the chazan today. I would like you to be the baal tefillah. I want you to go for the amud and daven for everybody." This Jew says, "What, me?"

12:03 Speaker 2 He thinks to himself, "I just ate a piece of duck before davening. I should be the chazan. To be a chazan, you have to be a tzadik, a, a good person, a special person, and me, I'm such a terrible person. Look what I just did, I eat duck before davening." But Reb Elimelech says, "You have no choice, you gotta go." So he goes, and inside he feels so bad. "I'm such a, such a t-... Oy, look what I just did. I'm such a grober yong, you know? I'm such a grober person. I ate duck before davening. But the rebbe says I have to daven for the amud, I have to be the chazan, so I'm gonna be the chazan." And he's, inside he's so broken, and he feels so humbled by, in front of Hashem. "Who am I? I'm not worthy. I'm not deserving to be in front of Hashem now." But he davens anyways, and he's crying. Inside his heart, he's crying, that he, "How can I stand before Hashem?" After he finished davening, Reb Elimelech comes over to him and whisper in his, in his ears and says, "That duck that you ate davened really well today." And the chassid realized that Reb Elimelech knows everything that happened to him. And what did Reb Elimelech say to him? "The duck davened well." You see, because he ate his duck in the morning, he felt so terrible. That means he felt so humbled. He felt like he was not important, "Look what I just

13:26 Speaker 2 did." But that exactly what made him so special. His davening was more special now. That's what Reb Elimelech meant, the duck davened well, meaning that duck made you feel so humble. And that means when you davened, you davened with all your heart. You felt like you're nothing, and that davening is very special. So it's the duck that davened so nicely. The duck that made you feel so disappointed and so down and so humbled, it's that duck that made you daven so well. And one last story I'm gonna tell you. This is an awesome, incredible story. This story was written in a book called Sipurei Chasidim by Rav Zevin, and in the end of his book, he says he heard this from a eyewitness, somebody who was there. When the Germans, the Nazis... You guys know who the Nazis are, right? Yamach shemam. These terrible monsters who killed six million Jews, and especially in Poland. About 3 million out of the 6 million were Jews from Poland. They killed 3 million Jews from Poland, and they went from one city to the other c- to the next city, and they killed the Jews. And when they came to the city of Leżajsk, and the rebbe, Reb Elimelech, who lived 200, over 200 years ago, he's buried right there in the cemetery of Leżajsk. So when the Nazis came into the city of Leżajsk, they, um, some Jews ran away into the cemetery, and they were hiding in the ohel of Reb Elimelech. You know, just by

15:22 Speaker 2 the rebbe we have an ohel around the rebbe, and the Friediker Rebbe's, uh, kever. They ha- they have, by Reb Elimelech, they also have, like, a ohel, like a big building around the kever of Reb Elimelech. So they ran into that building, into that ohel, to hide from the, the Germans, the German soldiers. But the German soldiers were looking for Jews everywhere, and they went to that cemetery, and they went into that ohel, and they found the Jews. When they saw the Jews there, they said, "What are you doing here? What is this place? Is this a special place? Why are you hiding here?" And they, one of the Jews said, "Because there's a very holy tzadik that was buried here 200 years ago, and so we're here, we're praying, we're davening by his kever." The Nazis got very angry, said, "What? You have some holy tzadik, some great tzadik? Forget it. Why don't you dig up his body? I want you to start digging this kever." Can you imagine the terrible thing they wanted to do? They wanted to dig the grave of Reb Elimelech, and they were going to desecrate, they were going to, you know, like, take the body, and whatever they find there they will, you know, like, make it to, you know, denigrate it. They will, they will poke it and, and, and make the Jews do terrible things to it. The Jews were shocked and horrified. They couldn't do it, and then the taxis, the Nazis took their guns

16:45 Speaker 2 and said, "If you don't do it right now, we're gonna shoot you. We're gonna kill you. Start digging right now." So they had no choice. They started digging. Took off more sand and more sand and more sand till they saw there was something there. So they removed the sand, and the Nazis looked down the whole time to see what they're gonna find. And then they make fun of the Jews. "See? You, you, there's nothing there. There's just, just some dirt." You know, after 200 years, a body couldn't still be around. Normally, the body disintegrates. After a few months, after a year, it's gone. But the Jews believed that tzadikim, their bodies stay forever, so they kept digging. Finally, they uncovered, and the Nazis looked down, and they were shocked. They were terrified. They saw the face of the heilige tzadik, Reb Elimelech, with his eyes open, looking at them. When they saw the face of Reb Elimelech looking at them, staring at them, they were so terrified that they dropped their guns and ran and ran and ran and ran like they went crazy. And then the Jews saw this. They immediately covered the kever back together, and they were able to run away, and their lives were saved. This story was told by somebody who was there and survived this and then told that story. Nu, gezunterheit un gleyl nokh.