79. The Rov That Ate Up The Whole Pot Of Cholent

00:16 Hello, kinderlach. Here is an amazing story, a story about how to be sensitive to others. You ever heard of the great tzadik Reb Chaim of Sanz? The Sanz Hav. He's known as the Sanz Hav. He was a great Hasidish rebbe and a hav of the city of Sanz. He had a brother whose name was Rebbe Vigdor. He's not so known. Rebbe Chaim of Sanz is very known, but Rebbe Vigdor, his brother, is, is less known. He was a hav in the city. He was also a tzadik, very special Jew, but, uh, he wasn't famous. But people heard about him. He was a- considered a, a very important hav, and he would travel sometimes from town to town to raise some money for his yeshiva and for the schul and for the... maybe for some poor families in his community. He would go and raise money, so he traveled from city to city in Poland. One day he came to a city, and he was supposed to stay there for Shabbos, and he was hosted. He was invited to stay with one of the richest people in the to- in the, in the town, and they made a very nice room for him, and he stayed there for Shabbos. Now, it came Shabbos, uh, during the meals, Friday night, everything went well. Then Shabbos day, as you know, we eat cholent. It's a very special minhag, a custom for Jews to eat hot cholent. Now, the minhag in that city was that if, uh, there was

01:48 a very special guest, like a hav, a very important person, a tzadik, a rebbe would come to the town, then they would honor him with giving out the cholent to everybody at the table. That was an honor. Today nobody does that, but in those days that was considered a very special, coveted, an honor for the guest if he's... especially if he's a big hav and a tzadik, a rebbe. They would give him the honor that he would sit next to the pot, and he would take from the pot and put into everybody's plate a little bit of cholent. So they wanted to honor this great hav, Rebbe Vigdor, Rebbe Vigdor Halberstam, that was his last name, and they honored him with giving out the cholent. No, uh, first you take for yourself, and then you give out to everybody else. No, Rebbe Vigdor took, put a little bit in his plate, and then he tasted a little bit, and then he tasted more, and then he ate more, and he ate more, and he finished his plate. And then instead of giving to everybody cholent, he started dishing out with a, with a ladle some more cholent for himself and put another big plate of cholent and started eating and eating and eating and eating. And everybody's waiting and waiting. They're hungry. They wanna have cholent. But they didn't wanna respect... They were very respectful to Rebbe Vigdor, so they, um, let him, he finish his plate. He finished his plate, a- and they thought,

03:16 "Okay, now he's gonna give out cholent to everybody." But boy, were they surprised. Rebbe Vigdor started dishing out another plate of cholent for himself, and he started eating and eating and eating, and he ate it all up. And then when he finished again, and he finished like this, this entire pot of cholent. He asked, "Is there more cholent in the kitchen?" They said, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. We didn't bring out the whole cholent. We brought out, like, a big part of the cholent." He said, "Well, I want more. I want more." So they brought out the, the, the other part of the cholent, the other pot. It had been in a big bowl, and he started again, putting it to his plate, finished off the whole plate, and then put more into his plate and more into his plate. People were wondering, "This is a hav, a tzadik? He's fretting. He's not eating." Fretting. You know what fretting means? Fretting is not a nice thing to do. This is something that people who are not very good, very refined do. They... all they know is eat and eat and eat and eat all day. They don't eat Hashem Shamayim. They don't eat because when you eat, you get strong, so you can serve Hashem, yeah, with great excitement. No, they, they eat because they enjoy the eating, and not only do they enjoy the eating, all they do all day is just fret and fret and fret, right? Even people that are not rabbonim also don't

04:35 do that, especially a hav. But he looks like a fretter. He kept eating and eating and eating so much. This is very surprising. Maybe he's a fake. Maybe he's not really a hav. Maybe he's not really a tzadik. Who... Which tzadik, which rebbe, which hav eats so much? A hav eats a little bit, only what he needs to be strong, and here he is eating and eating. He's fretting away. People were very surprised, but he finished the second pot, the entire cholent, everything, and that's it. There was no more cholent. People looked at the hav, and they couldn't understand what was going on. But the hav didn't say a word, and they wouldn't dare ask him. They were, you know, very respectful, so they wouldn't ask him questions. If the hav does this, probably he has a reason, uh, unless he's a fretter and is a fake. So... But nobody dared to say a word. Shabbos was over, and, uh, the day, uh, Sunday came, and the hav, Rebbe Vigdor, and a few of his helpers, his gabboim, right, his secretaries, they were with him, and they left town. You know, they, they finished what they had to do, and they left town. On the way out of town, uh, Rebbe Vigdor's helpers were a little bit puzzled by the whole thing. "What just happened here?" They never saw their rebbe eat so much. It, it didn't make sense, right? He... The rebbe always eats very little, very little. Tiny bit. Here suddenly he's fressing

06:05 away the entire pot and another pot. They couldn't understand what happened. So one of the talmidim, one of the people that were, were traveling with him said, "Rebbe, um, can you please explain what happened yesterday on Shabbos when you took that pot and you fressed away the... I mean, it was so embarrassing. Everybody was looking at you. Are you really a rav? Are you really a tzadik? Are you really a rebbe? Who eats like that? Only grabe yunger, only like, you know, people that are not very good people, not very refined, they fress and fress and fress. But you, you looked like that, and they, they, they... people were very surprised. Can you explain? We're sure there was some deeper meaning that you had." And Reb Efraim says, "You I can tell the story. I didn't wanna tell them, but I'll tell it to you. Now that we're leaving town anyways, I'll tell you what happened. When I took the first bite of cholent, I immediately smelled and tasted gasoline. Like, uh, you know, like, uh, what you burn things. Apparently, there was a maid, a Jewish maid. She was an orphan. She didn't have any parents, and she was very poor, and they, the family, they hired her and gave her a place to sleep, and they gave her a home, and they gave her some food every day, so she had a place to live. But she, by mistake, instead of putting vinegar in the cholent, which sometime people put a little bit

07:34 of vinegar, she accidentally got the wrong bottle and put kerosene. It wasn't benzene, it wasn't gasoline, it was kerosene. You know, people used to light candles with kerosene in the olden days, right? You put a little... It's, it's like gasoline, but it's a little different, and it burns, it makes, it makes fire. So she took the wrong bottle, and she put kerosene into the cholent. It was awful. But I didn't wanna make any faces. I pretended it's very geshmak, very tasty. I knew if the family finds out that this maid had made this terrible mistake, and she put kerosene into the cholent, they would have been very angry at her, and she was very sensitive. She was get very-- She would get very hurt, and, you know, to hurt an orphan, a yesomah, a woman who doesn't have any parents, and she's very poor, and she's very sensitive, and then maybe they would have fired her, told her she has to leave because she messed up the cholent. So I decided I'm gonna do something to protect her. I decided to eat the cholent myself, pretend that it's so geshmak. I enjoy it so much that I want more and more and more, and I forgot to give everybody else. I forgot to give everybody else. And I know that people thought that I was a fake, and I was just this, this, this fresser, this, this rav was fressing away. Let them think I'm a fresser, let them think I'm a fake, let them

09:08 think I'm a lowlife, let them think anything about me. But I wanted to protect the feelings of this poor girl who made this mistake." The talmidim, when they heard this, when the talmidim heard this, they were amazed. They were amazed how this tzadik was so sensitive to the feelings of a simple, poor, simple, poor, ignorant maid, but she had feelings. Kinderlach, you gotta learn from this. You see a boy in class, a girl in class, and they're, like, not so, feeling so well, and they're feeling a little bit down. Be nice to them. Don't hurt their feelings. For sure don't hurt their feelings. You know, show sympathy. Show that you care for them to help them with whatever they need.