56. The Glasses Of The Baal Shem Tov

00:16 Hello, kinderlech. As Pesach is approaching, we have the yahrtzeit of the Tzemach Tzedek on Yud Gimmel Nissan, two days before Pesach. The hishtalutus of the Tzemach Tzedek took place, and the Rebbe Maharash, his son, became the next Rebbe in Lubavitch. So I'll tell two beautiful stories of the Tzemach Tzedek, and both stories are told by the previous Rebbe. The previous Rebbe told a story that he heard from his father, the Rebbe Mah- Rashab, who heard it from his father, the Rebbe Maharash, that once there was a Hasid who came to the Tzemach Tzedek, and the Rebbe Maharash didn't know who he was. The Tzemach Tzedek, for some reason, showed this Hasid a lot of love, and he spoke to him, he invited him. He showed him a very, very loving treatment. He was very nice to him in an unusual way. And the Rebbe Maharash was very surprised because he didn't know who this person was. Usually, the Rebbe Tzemach Tzedek would be close and nice to, uh, show a very special closeness to g- to a special Hasid, a great Hasid, a great Rav. But this guy, he didn't know who he was. Why is the Tzemach Tzedek showing such special, special, special nice treatment, and he's so nice to him? So he went-- The Rebbe Maharash wanted to find out the truth, so he went to the Tzemach Tzedek's secretary, the gabbai. Now, the gabbai, he knew almost everybody. Everybody who came to Lubavitch, he knew them. How did he know them? Because

02:01 he was in charge of allowing people to go into yechidus with the Tzemach Tzedek. If you went to yechidus Tzemach Tzedek, you have to go through the gabbai. You have to register with him, go to him and say, "I wanna go to yechidus." He would tell you when you can go in, what night at what time. He'd give your name and, and he asked you where you're from, and he would, uh, you know, make sure that you can get into yechidus. So the Rebbe Maharash went to the gabbai of the Tzemach Tzedek and asked him, "Do you know who this Hasid is?" And the gabbai said, "No, I don't, because he never went into yechidus. He's just coming to Tzemach Tzedek, but he didn't go into yechidus, so I don't know who he is." So the Rebbe Maharash went to the shul and asked people around, "Hey, do you know this Hasid?" Till people told him, "Yeah." Some people knew him, and they said, "Eh, he's just a regular guy. He's actually a very, very simple average guy, nothing special. I'm not sure why you wanna know who he is. There's nothing special about him. He's just a regular guy, a very simple person." So the Rebbe Maharash heard this, so he was really, really curious now. A simple person, but his father, the Tzemach Tzedek, is showing such great affection for him, so it's, um... There must be something unique about him, special about him. So he went over to this Jew, this Hasid,

03:26 and gave him a shalom aleichem. He says, "Shalom aleichem. How are you?" And this Hasid responded. So he asked, "Where are you from?" He said-- Rebbe Maharash asked this Hasid, "Where are you from?" He says, "I am from the city of Pinsk." Pinsk was the famous Hasid and tzadik, Reb Hillel Pininer. Reb Hillel of Pinsk. And the Hasid said to the Rebbe Maharash, "I'm actually a student of Reb Hillel Pininer. I learned by him." You know, like many other people, used to be his talmidim, used to learn by Hillel Pininer. "I also learned by him." And the Rebbe Maharash spoke a little bit to him, and he didn't see anything unusual about this Hasid. He seems to be like a very simple, average person. Didn't show anything special, that he knows how to learn a lot of Torah and he's a big Hasid. No, just like simple guy, like, you know, nothing special. So now the Rebbe Maharash was really, really curious. So he went to his father, the Tzemach Tzedek, and he asked him, "Tata, why are you so specially, uh, nice to this person? What is it about him that you see that's so special?" And the Tzemach Tzedek said the following thing: "This Hasid has a lot of problems in life, very serious problems. I've never seen a person with so many problems. Health, his family with sickness and parnasah, he has no money. He's-- He suffers from so many things. I've hardly seen a person that suffers so much as he

05:03 does. Nevertheless, he's always happy, and he accepts everything Hashem gives him, even the most difficult things in life, most painful things in life, he accepts with joy. He says, 'This is Hashem. What Hashem wants, I accept it.' He has strong emunah in Hashem that whatever Hashem does for him is for the good, and he's not complaining. He's never complaining. He's always very calm and very happy, very nice to other people, even though he himself is going through a terrible, terrible time." There's a lot of tzoaras, a lot of problems. And the Tzemach Tzedek said, "You should know he's a big talmid chacham, big lamdan. He's also, uh, he understands a lot of Hasidus. He understands Hasidus really well, but he doesn't show it. Nobody sees it." And everybody sort of looks down at him as like this, uh, this sch- schlemiel, you know, this simple guy who's just not very special, not very unique. Nobody pays attention to him. They treat him like, um, the simplest people of the community, but really he's a very special person. And the Tzemach Tzedek said like this, "This Hasid deserves that good things should happen to him. All the problems he has should go away, and then have great things happen to him, good things happen to him. That's what he deserves." This Hasid left Lubavitch after Shabbat, after Yom Tov, and he hadn't been seen for three years. He hadn't come back to Lubavitch for three years. After three years, uh, he comes back to Lubavitch, and

06:51 when he arrives in Lubavitch, he's arriving Lubavitch not alone, but with 10 people. 10 people around him all coming together to Lubavitch from Pinsk. Who are these 10 people? These are 10 Hasidim. He paid for them to be able to come to the Tzemach Tzedek to Lubavitch. He paid their trip. He decided he's gonna pay for their trip. That means that this Hasid, who was very poor and suffering a lot, had a lot of problems, he became very rich in the last three years, and, uh, all his problems went away. And the Rebbe Maharash saw that the promise of the Tzemach Tzedek, the berachah, actually was fulfilled. This Hasid became a wealthy man and, and everything turned out the op- opposite, very good for him, and he was able to pay for 10 more Hasidims to come to Lubavitch. So then the Rebbe Maharash asked his father, the Tzemach Tzedek, "I don't understand. Nobody was able to see anything special in this man. He just like, uh, you know, he acted like very normal, like a simple person, and he- he's not trying to hide anything. He just is... He had nothing to show. He was just a Hasid deep inside, and he was a big Talmid Chacham deep inside, but he had no reason to show anything. It's not like he was an Onaf trying to hide. He wasn't trying to hide. He wasn't a Tzadik Nistar. He was just being himself, but didn't have any reason to show what he knows and what

08:20 he's capable. Nobody knew about him. Nobody knew how great he is, how special he is. So he asked the Tzemach Tzedek, "Rebbe, how could you see this in him? Nobody was able to see this." So the Tzemach Tzedek told him, told the Rebbe Maharash, "My grandfather, the Alter Rebbe, gave me the glasses of the Baal Shem Tov." He didn't mean the physical glasses, you know, the eyeglasses the Baal Shem Tov wears on his, on, on his nose. Uh, he- he meant the spiritual glasses. You know, the Baal Shem Tov could see things. He could see things that happened in the other side of the world, right? He was able to see what happens from one end of the world to the other. He could see also into the future. He was able to see what's gonna happen. He was able to see into the past, right? The Baal Shem Tov once wrote a letter to his brother-in-law, Reb Gershon Kitover. Uh, his brother-in-law, Reb Gershon Kitover, lived in Eretz Yisrael already. He moved to Eretz Yisrael. He wrote him a letter, and the letter is printed. We have the letter. He writes to him that, "You, my brother, my dear brother-in-law, Reb Gershon, you were on a, uh, Beth Din. You were part of a Beth Din, and you paskened in a Din Torah." There were two people having a fight about, uh, s- money, and the Beth Din decides who should get the money, right? According to Halakha, according to the Torah, who should

09:50 get the money. And the Baal Shem Tov said that you paskened the wrong way, not the way the, the correct Halakha is. And as a result, between us, Shamaim, it was decided that you will not live more than a year. This year you're going to pass away, and you better do Teshuvah, give back the money to the right person, so maybe that will reverse this decree in Shamaim against you. Now, when the Baal Shem Tov wrote the letter, it took three weeks to get to Eretz Yisrael from, from, from Ukraine, where the Baal Shem Tov lived. At the time when the Baal Shem Tov sent the letter, the Beth Din, the Din Torah did not happen yet. By the time the letter arrived in Eretz Yisrael to Reb Gershon Kitover, it was already after the Beth Din happened. But when the Baal Shem Tov sent it out three weeks earlier, it was before that happened. So how could the Baal Shem Tov send a letter at a time when that whole thing didn't even happen yet? But the Baal Shem Tov was able to see things the way they are much later, and, uh, they are after they already happened. Even though when he is seeing it, it hap- it's before it happened. He was able to see into the future. So the Baal Shem-- the Tzemach Tzedek said to the Rebbe Maharash, "My grandfather, the Alter Rebbe, gave me the glasses." Right? The eyeglasses. That means the spiritual eyeglasses of the Baal Shem Tov,

11:11 "And whenever I wanna see something, I'm able to see it." And that was an answer to the question, how could he see what's inside this Hasid that nobody was able to see the special thing about this Hasid, and the Tzemach Tzedek was able to see it?