62. The Galach Who Broke His Arm And Leg

00:16 Hello, kindele. Shalom aleichem. I'd like to tell you an amazing story with the Baal Shem Tov. This story, the Alter Rebbe himself heard. Half of the story he heard from a student of the Baal Shem Tov, his name was Rabbi Moshe Meshel. And the other half of the story he heard from the Maggid, his rebbe, the Mezritcher Maggid. So the story is really made out of two stories. To- today I'm going to tell you one of the two stories. This story the Alter Rebbe heard from the ba- student of the Baal Shem Tov, when he told it to the Tzemach Tzedek. Tzemach Tzedek told it to his son, the Rebbe Maharash. Maharash told it to his son, the Rebbe Rashab, and to the Rebbe Rashab's brother, the other son of the Rebbe Maharash, the Razoh, Reb Zalman Aaron. And this is one of the stories that he told them, and the story goes like this. In the year Tet Kuf Yut Tes. You know how many years that is? How many years ago? It's 263 years ago. The Baal Shem Tov sent one of his younger students, Rabbi Moshe Meshel from the village of Bezenki. Moshe Meshel came from a small village, Bezenki, became one of the younger talmidim of the Baal Shem Tov, and he made him a shliach, a messenger, to bring a letter to his student, the Baal Shem Tov's student, the great Gaon, Reb Chaim HaKohen Rapaport. Reb Chaim HaKohen Rapaport was a great Gaon, a great Talmid Chaham, and he

02:00 was the Rav of Lwow. Lwow is a very big city, and this Reb Chaim was a Hasid of the Baal Shem Tov. The Baal Shem Tov sent a special, a special letter to him with a mis- with a message. He didn't tell to Reb Moshe Meshel what the message was. He just told him, "Here is a letter. I want you to go travel to Lwow and give it to my Hasid and my Talmid, Reb Chaim HaKohen Rapaport." Th- what the letter said, really, we will tell you another time, not today, because this story involves another shlichus. The Baal Shem Tov sent Reb Moshe Meshel to Lwow with a letter to another person, a person that nobody knew who he was. He was a... Looked like a simple person. Nobody paid attention to him. His name was Reb Chaim Yisroel the Potter. A potter means that somebody makes pottery. His business, his job was to make pottery from clay, and he would sell that. And he looked like a simple person who didn't know much how to learn. He hung out with the simple people in the city of Lwow, and nobody thought there was anything special, but really he was one of the hidden tzadikim who were very close to the Baal Shem Tov. So there were two letters. One letter Reb Moshe Meshel was supposed to deliver to the Reb Chaim HaKohen Rapaport, the Rav of the city. In a completely separate letter, the Baal Shem Tov sent Reb Moshe Meshel to tell him

03:39 to, to go... Told him to go to the house of this guy, Chaim Yisroel the Potter, and give him the letter which is for him, for Reb Chaim Yisroel. Baal Shem Tov also told, uh, Reb Moshe Meshel, "When you go to the house of this Chaim Yisroel, nobody's gonna know who he is because he's no- s- he doesn't seem like an important person. But you will find him. When you give him the letter, don't talk to him about anything. Just give him the letter and go away. Don't say a word to him. You're not supposed to have any conversation with him." So Reb Moshe Meshel left and arrived in Lwow on a Thursday afternoon. No... He had two letters to deliver, one to the Rav, Reb Chaim HaKohen Rapaport, and one to Reb Chaim Yisroel the Potter. So first he went to the Rav, of course. So he went to the Rav. The Rav usually during the day was in his bezdin shtiebel. Bezdin shtiebel is the house where the Rav sits during the day with his dayanim, the judges, and they, they, they take care of all kinds of things the community needs. So he went straight to the bezdin shtiebel of Reb Chaim HaKohen Rapaport, and when he arrived there, he saw that the Rav was very busy. He was busy with a very important gathering of people in the community. And the people told him, "You can't go in now to the Rav because he's very busy." He said, "No, but I

05:13 have a shlichus for him, a special mission that I need to deliver to him." They said, "Listen, are you crazy? Do you know what's going on? Y- you didn't hear what's going on? We have a terrible story here. We have a terrible thing happening. The archbishop..." The archbishop is like the main galach. The most, uh, important galach in the whole area. His name is Mi- Archbishop Mikulski. He made a decree, a rule, a gezere against the Jews. He's- he didn't like the fact that the Jewish people say the prayer of Aleinu l'Shabeiach. You guys know what Aleinu l'Shabeiach says? In Aleinu l'Shabeiach we thank Hashem for being gi- for Hashem giving us the zechus to be able to serve Him and to believe in one God, in Hashem. And then we say, and we're so lucky that he didn't let us be like the Goyim who wor- worship stupid idols, right? Some people even spit when we say, right, the Hevel v'lo rik, they bow down. All these idol worshipers, they bow down to Avodah Zarah, and we spit, right? And, and then we say, "But we, we serve Hashem. We bow to Hashem only." So we're so lucky, and we're happy. We thank Hashem for giving us this special zechus. So Mikulski, this galach, he knew that the Jews are saying this tefillah. He found out. He says, "Ah, they're mocking us. These Jews, they're saying a prayer that we're stupid, and, and they're so lucky they're not like us. We need to tear

06:55 out that page from the Siddur. No Jew should ever be able to say such a tefillah, such a prayer in their shul." And so he made a decree that for one week, during that week, all the Siddurim have to be brought to the church, to the galach, and they're gonna tear out the page of Aleinu l'Shabeiach. From now on, no one is allowed to say that tefillah. Now, do you know who wrote Aleinu l'Shabeiach? Who is the one who wrote Aleinu l'Shabeiach? Well, Aleinu l'Shabeiach was written by Yehoshua Bin Nun. Yehoshua Bin Nun was the leader after Moshe Rabbeinu, and he made a war in Eretz Yisrael. He conquered Eretz Yisrael and brought the Jewish people into the land. When did he say Aleinu l'Shabeiach? You know when? You know, if you read in Tanakh, in the Sefer Yehoshua, Yehoshua conquered many cities in Eretz Yisrael. One of the cities that he conquered is called the city of Yericho. Yericho was a very difficult city to conquer because they had seven walls. You know, people used to make walls around the city to protect the city from an army that wants to conquer it. So Yericho, they had seven walls, one around each other. So it was very hard to get into the city because you had to break seven walls. It's not easy. But what did Yehoshua do? You think he went and started breaking the walls with hammers and, and chopped down the walls? Of course, it would be impossible. So what did

08:32 Yehoshua do? He and his army, they went around the city. They walked around. They made seven hakafas like we do on Simchat Torah. We do hakafa, seven hakafas. He did seven hakafas around the walls, and they blew the shofar while they went around the walls, just walking around. Didn't do anything physical. They just walked around the walls and sang Aleinu l'Shabeiach, praising Hashem that He made us different than the Goyim, that we, we, we can-- we know the truth, we know the emis, that Hashem is the only God that created the heaven and the Earth, and all these stupid idols are meaningless, and we're so lucky that we don't believe what they believe. And he kept singing that seven times, and each time he went around the, the city, one of the walls by itself, by a nes, just collapsed. In fact, the Gemara says it didn't just collapse. Like, you know, when a building collapses, all the rubble falls all over the floor. It actually did not collapse in that way. It just sank as it is, a whole full wall. The wall didn't break down. The wall stayed the way it is. It remained a wall. It just started going down into the ground. And this he did seven times, singing Aleinu l'Shabeiach, and every time another wall just slowly started going down, slowly into the ground, and is buried deep into the ground. And in fact, I was in Eretz Yisrael, and they were digging right around Yericho, and they found a

10:13 wall right in the ground that was not broken. It was completely whole. It just sunk in the ground. So this is the story of Aleinu l'Shabeiach. But the, this, uh, galach, Mikulski, he didn't like it. He didn't like the Jews. They're mocking the Goyim. They're laughing at them. They're saying, "Oh, they're better than the Goyim." He said, "We gotta break it down." So that's why the Rav, Rabbi Chaim Rapaport, was so busy with a big meeting. What should we do? What should we do? We, we can't, you know, uh, tear out from the Siddur Aleinu l'Shabeiach. This is a special tefillah. So Rabbi Moshe Meshel saw that he can't see the Rav and can't give him the letter of the Baal Shem Tov, so he decided to go to his other mission. What was his other shlichus? His other shlichus was to go to this Chaim Yisroel, the potter, which nobody really knew who he was. He seemed like a very simple person, and go bring him another letter, a letter which the Baal Shem Tov wrote for him. He went to the house and knocked on the door. This guy, Chaim Yisroel, opened the door. He knew what the Baal Shem Tov told Rabbi Moshe Meshel, not to say a word to him, not to talk to him at all about anything. Just deliver the letter and walk away, and that's exactly what he did. He walked-- Rabbi Moshe Meshel walked away, delivered the letter, walked away, went back to the Beth Din shtiebel

11:43 of the Rav Rabbi Chaim HaCohen Rapaport, and I heard when I went back to the Beth Din shtiebel that he went home. The Rav just went home. So I went to his house, and I gave him the letter which I was told by the Baal Shem Tov to give to the Rav. When the Rav saw that there's a letter from the Baal Shem Tov to him, he stood up with such excitement, and his face was beaming. He was so excited. He got a holy letter from the Baal Shem Tov? He read it and then he sighed, "Yeah, the Jewish people of Lwow need a lot of, lot of nisim. Hashem has have, have rachmanus on the Jews here because of the terrible gezeirah of tearing out from every sinner the Aleinu l'shabeiach." Now, the, the Reb Chaim HaKohen Rapaport, whenever he got a letter from the Baal Shem Tov, he would make a big seudah, a big meal, a feast, and he would invite the whole community. He would dress like Shabbos clothes and make a big farbrengen. He got a letter from his Rebbe. What a special yontif. It was like a yontif, and he didn't say tachnun when they davened because it was like a yontif that he got a letter from the Baal Shem Tov. So the same thing he did today. So although everybody was very worried about the terrible decree of the bishop, they still made a big, beautiful seudah, a meal, and a feast, and they didn't say tachnun

13:10 because the Rebbe, Reb Chaim HaKohen Rapaport, got a letter from the Baal Shem Tov. In middle of the meal, the-- all the Jews, the entire city got together by the meal. Everybody came to the meal. It was decided during the meal that everybody will continue to say Aleinu l'shabeiach and not listen to the bishop. And even if he decides to tear out the, the, the Aleinu l'shabeiach, we're not gonna listen to him. This all was Thursday and Thursday night. On Friday morning, Reb Chaim Yisroel immediately did what the Baal Shem Tov told him. What did the Baal Shem tell him in the letter? This Chaim Yisroel, the potter. What was in the letter? What did the Baal Shem Tov write to him? The Baal Shem Tov writes him in a letter, "Chaim Yisroel, I need you to go right away, as soon as possible, to the house, to the big mansion of this Archbishop Mikulski, and you're supposed to tell him that if he dares to tear out the Aleinu l'shabeiach from all the siddurim of the city of Lwow, he will be punished by Hashem in a very serious manner." When Mikulski heard Reb Chaim Yisroel telling him that, he yelled at him, and he immediately told his guards, "Kick out this Jew. This stupid Jew is talking nonsense." That is, Chaim Yisroel left. No-- That was Friday. After Shabbos, on Sunday morning, you know that the Christians, they get together on Sunday morning to pray in their churches. So when he, Mikulski came

14:50 down from the stage where he gave his speech in the church, he fell down. He tripped and fell down and broke his leg and his arm, and it was so painful that he fainted from great pain. And then when he came, they, they revived him, the pain was still so terribly, terribly strong. And then as he was like, "Ugh," screaming and crying from pain, he remembered what Chaim Yisroel had told him two days before on Friday. Chaim Yisroel gave him over the message of the Baal Shem Tov. The Baal Shem Tov said that if he doesn't stop with the gezeirah of tearing out Aleinu l'shabeiach, he'll be punished from Hashem. And he remembered something else too. He remembered that this Chaim Yisroel was actually familiar to him. He met him somewhere else a long time ago. When did he meet this Chaim Yisroel? Years before. When Mikulski was still a young man, he was not the archbishop yet. He was an assistant to the archbishop of that time, who was a guy by the name Dambuski. Dambuski was another big anti-Semite who hated Jews. Dambuski decided that he doesn't like the Gemara, the Talmud. The Gemara is that Jews study, Jews study Gemara all the time. He says the Gemara has a lot of bad things, offensive things against the Goyim, and therefore we should burn all the Gemaras from the entire city of Lwow. This was many years before this story here. So Dam- uh, Dambuski told all the galachim that they must go

16:47 from house to house to every Jewish home and get all the Gemaras from all the Jews, uh, everywhere in Lwow, and they're gonna bring it together by Tuesday morning. They should bring all the Gemaras to the center of the city, and the center of the city will make a huge bonfire, huge, and all the Gemaras will be thrown into the fire. The Gemaras will be brought from every home on wagons. They'll bring, uh, dozens and tens of wagons full of Gemaras from all over the shuls, all the shuls and all the houses, and then we're gonna burn them in public in front of everyone. And he told the galachim, "I want you to invite all the galachim to come and join and watch the beautiful scene where we see all the terrible books of the Jews are going to be burned. I want you also to invite all the peasants and all the Goyim and the men and the women and the children. I want all the Goyim to come and watch and celebrate with me how we're going to destroy all the books of these terrible Jews that we don't like." This was what Dambuski had done many years before, and Mikulski at that time was his assistant, right? He wasn't the chief. He was, he was, uh, you know, um, just an, uh... You know, he was working for, for Dambuski. And Mikulski had watched what Dambuski was saying, and he was helping of course because he was working for Dambuski. So he

18:17 remembered that at one point This Chaim Yisroel, which he just met on Friday, actually is the same Chaim Yisroel that came to Dombowski many years before when he, Mikulski, was very young. He also came to Dombowski and said in the name of the Baal Shem Tov that the Baal Shem Tov sent him to tell this Dombowski that if he does not stop with his gezeira, with his terrible decree, and he doesn't stop it, then he will be severely punished. In fact, the Baal Shem Tov told him exactly what's gonna happen. He will die. He will die a sudden death. Now, Dombowski not only made a decree that he's going to burn all the Gemaras of the Jewish people, he also made the Jews pay a very heavy ta- tax. He said the Jews must pay a lot of money to him and to his church, and if they don't pay it by Tuesday, the entire money, he will tell all the goyim and all the peasants they can take their axes and their sticks and go to every Jewish home and rob them of all their money. They must bring that money. The money was a lot of money. The Jews didn't have so much money. They couldn't afford so much money. But he said, "You have to bring the money. I don't care how you get the money, you have to bring that money." So there were two gezeras. One is to burn all the Gemaras, another one that the Jews have to pay

19:48 a large amount of money as a punishment to the church. And that's when Chaim Yisroel came and said to Dombowski in front of his assistant, Mikulski, he said, "The Baal Shem Tov sent me to tell you that you will die right away if you don't stop it." When Dombowski heard this, he said, "Go tell the Baal Shem Tov who sent you there, whoever this guy is, go tell him that I don't care about him and his, his threats. I don't care. He's, he's-- I, I, I'm not afraid of him." And Dombowski told the, the, the galachim that the, the priests, they must quickly, quickly gather all the Gemaras. This, for two days in a row, the Jews waited for the terrible decree to happen. The Jews were living in fear and trepidation. They were afraid of this terrible day when all the sefarim of the Yidden was gonna be burnt. In the meantime, all the goyim and peasants, men, women, children, all came from the villages, all gathered in Lviv in the middle of the city. And, um, and Tuesday arrived, and Dombowski told them to create a big fire in the middle of the city. I must correct myself, it wasn't the city of Lviv. The story with Dombowski was in a different city. It's called Kamieniec Podolski. That was the name of the city. Everybody got together and when there were thousands of people in the center of the market, and all the wagons with Gemaras were brought into the marketplace to the

21:47 center of the town, and thousands and thousands of sefarim and Gemaras were all lined up there ready to be thrown into the fire. That's when Dombowski, the main galach, the archbishop, was marching out of the church, followed by hundreds of people and galachim that walked behind him, and he walked very proudly to the center of the town with thousands of people waiting for him there. They're all gonna watch how they burn the sefarim. And as he's walking, suddenly he gets a heart attack, falls on the ground, and dies right in front of everyone. Everybody was horrified. What a terrible thing, what happened? And all the goyim started talking quietly, "Oi, maybe it's the God of the Jewish people that is punishing him because he wants to burn their books." Now, this is-- Dombowski died, but Mikulski, the younger galach, who was his assistant and now became the archbishop, now that Chaim Yisroel came the second time, he was already now the archbishop. He was watching this, he saw this, and he remembered that. So now when that-- when, when, when, um, Mikulski was lying in pain because he broke his arm and his leg when he fell down, and he remembered that Chaim Yisroel came to him on Friday and told him what the Baal Shem Tov said, that he's gonna be punished, he remembered suddenly that story that happened maybe twenty years before in another city, in the city of Kamieniec Podolski, and how his teacher, his main bishop, Dombowski, had dropped dead exactly

23:29 the way Baal Shem Tov told him. So Mikulski sent a messent- a messenger to the Rav, Rav Chaim HaCohen. He said, "I'm sorry. I take back the decree. The Jews do not have to tear out the Aleinu l'Shabeach. From now on, you can say whatever you want, and I hope that the Baal Shem Tov will daven for me and that I should get recovered and my, my, my broken arm, my broken leg will be fixed and be healed." That's the first story of-- that the Alter Rebbe heard from the Talmud of Baal Shem Tov, Rabbi Moshe Meshel himself, who was the messenger of the Baal Shem Tov. He himself told it to the Alter Rebbe. And next time, maybe I will tell you the other shlichas. What was the purpose of sending the letter to Rav Chaim HaCohen Rapaport? What did the Baal Shem Tov say in that letter? And what was the story behind this message?