87. The Tzanzer Rav Saves A Jew From Execution

00:16 Shalom Aleichem, kindalech. Here comes a story, an amazing story that was told by a great rav. His name was Rebbe Nachum Mendel Margolius, and, uh, he heard it from someone who heard it from the Tzemach Tzedek. So the story goes like this: as you all know, there's a very famous family, the Rothschild family. The Rothschild family go back hundreds of years. The first Mr. Rothschild became a banker, he bought a bank, and he became very, very rich. They became so famously rich that they owned a lot of the banks all over Europe. They were so rich they even gave loans to different governments of Europe. They gave loans to the kings of Europe. Now, here's the story how it happened that the first Rothschild, his name was Amschel. Amschel Rothschild became rich. Now, there are several stories told about how he became rich and who gave him a bracha and promised him that he'll be rich. So there are in generally two stories. One story says that he was given a bracha by the Chacham Tzvi. The Chacham Tzvi was a great gaon. He was the father of Rabbi Yaakov Emden. He was the rav of Amsterdam and then the rav of Hamburg. The Chacham Tzvi gave him that bracha, and we'll see the story soon. Momentarily, I'll tell you the story what led to the Chacham Tzvi give him that incredible bracha that made him the wealthiest person in Europe, and the wealth and the, and the richness, his riches was passed down for

02:12 many generations. And the other story is that he got the bracha from Reb Zvi Hirsch HaLevi of Chortkiv. I think he was the father of the Baal Hafla, Reb Pinchas Horowitz, who was the chief rabbi of Frankfurt, and the brother of Reb Shmelke of Nikolsburg. Um, they were both talmidi haMagid. So he, the father of the two holy brothers, uh, Pinchas Horowitz, the Baal Hafla, and Reb Nic-- Pinchas, uh, uh, Shmelke of Nikolsburg, their father, Reb Zvi Hirsch, was a rav in Chortkiv, and there's a story associated with the time when Amschel spent time in Chortkiv in the house of Reb Zvi Hirsch, and that's how he got a bracha to become rich. Now, many say that both are true, both stories are true, and that he got a bracha from two tzadikim, two great gaonim and tzadikim. So today, I'll tell you the incredible story that was known and the Tzemach Tzedek wrote this in a letter that his great-grandfather, the Chacham Tzvi, who was the great-grandfather of the Tzemach Tzedek, Reb Chaim of Tzanz, um, he gave the bracha to the first Rothschild, and here's the story. The Chacham Tzvi, as I said, was the rav of the city of Amsterdam. Amsterdam is the main city in Holland. The Chacham Tzvi, uh, in his days, there were Jews who were known as followers of the Shabbtai Tzvi. Shabbtai Tzvi was a Jew who lived in Turkey a little bit before the Chacham Tzvi, and he made a huge, huge, uh, tumul. He became--

04:04 He, he claimed that he's Mashiach and that he'll get the Jews out of Galus and he's gonna take them to Eretz Yisrael. And he managed to trick and fool tens and thousands of Jews that believed in him that he's the Mashiach, until he was caught by the king, uh, by the Sultan of Turkey, and they arrested him, and they put him in prison, and they forced him to become Muslim. And everybody realized that he's a fraud, he's not real. But this didn't stop many people from following him and following his teachings that were filled with terrible mistakes in Torah, about Torah. Shabbtai Tzvi himself did a lot of averot, but he pretended they were mitzvot. And many of his followers had ideas that were totally against the Torah, but they still couldn't stop themselves from following him, even after he ended up being in prison and converting to Islam. So the great gaonim of the time used to fight against any Jew who was caught being following this Shabbtai Tzvi, 'cause people were afraid that they'll bring back the belief in Shabbtai Tzvi that he's the Mashiach and will cause major problems for the Jews. The goyim are going to, uh, you know, turn against the Jews for claiming that they're going to go to Eretz Yisrael and leave their country. It was, it was not a good time. It was a very dangerous time. At any rate, the Chacham Tzvi was approached by a Jew who looked like a talmid chacham. He dressed with

05:43 payot and a long black coat and a black hat. He looked very religious and very pious. And he says, "Rebbe, I have a sefer that I wrote. I'd like you to see some parts of that sefer." And he gave him different little booklets. He said, "Rebbe, this is- For my sefer, I'd like to see if you can look at-- look it over and then write a letter of approving. It's called endorsement, right? It's a haskamah. You give a haskamah, like in many of the sefarim, you have in the beginning of the sefer a very, very famous Rav, a great Gaon who writes, "I read the sefer and it's a great sefer. The guy is a great Talmud Chacham. You should read his sefer. You should buy his sefer," et cetera, et cetera. You know, people do that all the time. This was done for, for, for many centuries. So this guy came and showed the Chacham Tzvi. Chacham Tzvi didn't know who he was, but he looked at what he s-- gave him. It looked very good. It looked very nice. So he wrote him a very nice letter, said, "You can print this in your sefer, that I said your sefer is a good sefer." But then... So the man left, took the letter of the Cha-the Chacham Tzvi, and he went to the printing press, and he took his sefer and gave it to the printer in Amsterdam. Amsterdam had a big printing press with Hebrew letters and, and he gave it to

07:00 the printer. Chacham Tzvi the next day found out that this man tricked him. He only showed him small portions of his sefer. He only gave him a few booklets of the sefer. He didn't show him the rest of the sefer. He purposefully, on purpose, did not show him the rest of the sefer because in the rest of the sefer, he actually, um, wrote things about, uh, Shabtai Zvi, how he believes in him, and all kinds of, uh, bad things, bad ideas that Shabtai Zvi believed in that we're not allowed to believe in. And, and, and he wrote some very, very terrible things that are against the Torah. But he didn't show that to the Chacham Tzvi. The Chacham Tzvi found out that the man tricked him. He didn't show him the other part of the sefer. And he decided, "Oh, this is terrible, because now he's gonna print the sefer, the entire sefer, including the part that he didn't show me, and he's gonna print my letter in the front, and everyone's gonna think that I said the sefer is a good sefer. And people will read the terrible stuff in the back at the end of the sefer, and they'll, you know, become, uh, Chas VeShalom Apikorsim, right? They'll become, uh... They'll stop believing the right thing in, in the Torah." So Chacham Tzvi didn't know what to do. "This is terrible. What am I gonna do? I don't want people to use my name and, and then, and, and cause other Jews to

08:17 do the wrong thing." So he decided to go in the middle of the night, he himself, and went to the printing, uh, printing, uh, business, the big building where the printing press was. He set the whole building on fire, and the whole building was turned into ashes, including all the copies of the sefer. And his letter was inside the building. Everything got burned away. So now there was no evidence that he wrote a letter and nobody will, Chas VeShalom, uh, be influenced by the sefer. But the Chaza-- the Chacham Tzvi knew that he'll get caught in the end. It'd be a very big embarrassment by the police. The rabbi himself set a building on fire. He was a criminal, but he had no choice, so he ran away. He fled in the middle of the night and fled Amsterdam. He went very far away. He, like, uh, found a wagon, and then he kept-- walked on foot, and for, like, miles and miles and miles away till he got in middle of nowhere, in middle of the countryside, he saw an inn. It was an inn owned by a Jew who, you know, had a very nice hotel, like a little inn, a hotel where people who traveled on the road would stop over when it got late during the day. They had to, you know... They wanted to travel on, but they-- it was getting night, nighttime, so they, they would check into the, to the inn, and he would give them a bed

09:50 and, and meals. He would give them meals, and they would pay him. But this Jew who owned the hotel was a very nice person. Big Bal Machnis Orchim. He did a lot of Chesed. When he saw a Jew who was a Talmud Chacham, he didn't have a lot of money, he would give him food for free, let him stay there for free. He would honor him, give him whatever he needed. So when the Chacham Tzvi came into the inn, nobody knew who he was, 'cause it was far away from Amsterdam. They didn't know that this was the famous Chacham Tzvi. But he saw that-- the, the owner of the inn saw Chacham Tzvi is a very, um, um, big Talmud Chacham. He said the guy, he was always learning, learning. So he said, "I don't know who he is, but he seems like a Talmud Chacham." He gave him a very nice room with a private room where he could learn. And, uh, and, you know, every once in a while, the Chacham Tzvi went outside of his room. Maybe he went to the bathroom, or he went for a walk. So he would-- the owner of the inn would send in his workers to clean the, the room and to make his bed. And the Chacham Tzvi was a very, very, uh, good-natured person. He gave a lot of Tzedakah. He was a very-- He gave a lot of, of, uh... He was very generous in general. But there's one thing that he had.

11:14 He was very, very strict when it came to cleanliness. You know, the Gemara says that the Talmud Chacham must walk around clean. And for him to live in a room where it wasn't totally clean was very hard for him. He just-- was against his nature. And so when he-- when the workers would come to clean his room, if they left a little bit of a mess, he would get upset. He would get upset, and he would, uh, tell the workers, "You didn't do this right," uh, because he couldn't stand when the place was not clean. Eh? A place of Torah where you daven and learn should be spotless, right? Having respect and covert for the Torah that you're learning there. So he was very careful with that, and it bothered him a lot. And sometimes he would get a little bit upset at, at the workers, and the workers would-- they were bothered by it. You know, why is he getting upset at us? You know, why is he telling us like he's being a little bit rude that we're not doing a good job, but he's not even paying. We're not even charging him. We're doing him a favor, and he's expecting for us. So when they would come to the owner of the inn and tell him, "You know, this guest, he's, he's, he's unhappy with us, and he's telling us that we're doing-- not doing a good job." And the owner would say, "Listen, leave him alone. He's, I see he's a

12:32 Talmid Chaham. You know, let's be respectful to him. Let's not say anything." And he wouldn't say a thing. He would just, you know, give him covered and wouldn't say anything. So another day goes by, and again, he's upset that the workers didn't do something right. And they keep telling the owner of the inn, "You know, again, today he was not happy that we didn't do everything perfect." Till one day, the owner of the inn had, had enough. He's, you know, stuck a little bit of a chutzpah. Here's a stranger coming to my hotel, and he's, um, being here already for a few weeks, and I haven't charged him anything. And he's complaining that it's-- the cleaning job is not perfect. Come on. I mean, this is, uh, a bit strange, you know? What chutzpah. You know, we're, we're doing you a favor. You know, why, why are you complaining? So he went over to him and said, "Rebbe, listen. Um, I gave you... I was very nice to you, and, um, I gave you food, gave you a nice room. I took care of you. I gave you meals, everything you needed. But you have to understand that my crew, the people that clean your room, even if they're not perfect, you shouldn't be yelling at them because, you know, they, um, they do their job, and we're not charging you. So if you're not happy here, then maybe you should find another place. But you can't, you know, be upset at my workers. Yeah?

14:08 We're not charging you money. You should be grateful. Instead of complaining, you should be grateful." The Chaham Zvi listened to the owner of the inn, and he responded. He said, "You know what? You're right. And you-- what you just said to me was just on time, 'cause actually today I am leaving. But I'm not co-- I'm not just gonna leave myself. There are people that are coming to pick me up soon, and therefore, um, yes, I will leave, and I wish you well." Came afternoon, a wagon with several horses arrived at the inn, and they came into the inn, and they s- asked the owner of the inn if they can buy a meal and eat some lunch and maybe food for their horses. And they paid him. They paid the owner of the inn, and the owner gave them everything they wanted. In middle of the meal, uh, the guests who just came with the wagon, uh, looked like very important people. They asked, they asked the owner of the inn, um, "How much time is it from here to Amsterdam? We're trying to get to the city of Amsterdam." So the owner, they asked him, "Where are you coming from?" He says, "I come from Lviv." "From Lviv. We're actually going to Amsterdam to, uh, invite the Chaham Zvi, the Rav of Amsterdam, should become Rav by us in Lviv. So we need to know how far it's still to go to Amsterdam." Now, the Chaham Zvi is l-- sitting at the table

15:55 too, and he says to them-- he, he interrupts and says to the guests, "Oh, it seems to me that you're not gonna have to travel all the way to Amsterdam to get whomever you wanna get." They ask him, "What do you mean?" He says, "Well, because you already found him." Finally, they look at the Chaham Zvi and they say... Oh. And they recognize him. One of the people once saw him. He says, "Ah, his face looks familiar. You are the Chaham Zvi." And, um, the famous Chaham Zvi, who was famous all over the world, was the greatest gaon of the time. So they were very excited. "We don't have to go to Amsterdam. He's here. We're gonna take him to Lviv." And of course, they took him from there, and the, the Chaham Zvi became Rav in Lviv. But before he left the inn, he went to say goodbye to the owner of the hotel. After all, the owner of the hotel was very generous with him. He left him-- He kept him there free of charge for weeks and weeks. So he went over to him and says, "Listen, I observed and I saw that your tzedakah and achnasat orchim is incredible. I've rarely seen a person that gives so much tzedakah and such generous achnasat orchim the way you, that you perform. And you didn't know who I was, and yet you treated me with incredible generosity. You were very generous with me. You should know that Hashem has a big reward for

17:21 you in Gan Eden. And I know that you suffered a lot for me because I always complained, because I'm very sensitive to dirt and to this and, and... But I just wanna give you a bracha. Because of what you did to me, I'm very appreciative and wanna give you a bracha that you should be blessed with wealth, with ashiras, wealth for you, your children, grandchildren, forever after." And with that, he left, and he became Rav in Lviv. This is the story that the Tzanz Rav told, and then there is a little continuation to the story. Years later, about three generations later, a Jew in Austria was accused by the government of Austria of a crime which he did not do. A crime he never committed, he was falsely accused, and he was sentenced to death. They sentenced him to hanging. It was a terrible thing. The Jews all over Europe worried about this Jew that was falsely accused, and this was the time when the Tzemach Tzvi wrote a, a very, very strong letter, a letter to the great-grandson of the first Rothschild. This man who owned the inn was Mr. Rothschild, the first Mr. Rothschild, who went on to become a banker and very, very rich after he got, he got the brachah of the Chacham Tzvi. He became extremely, extremely rich, one of the richest J- people, not just Jews, one of the richest people in all of Europe. He became friendly with a lot of kings. He became friendly with a lot

19:08 of very important people in, in government. Everybody respected him because of his money. Now we are three generations or four generations later, and there's a Jew accused in Austria of a false crime, a crime he did not commit, and sentenced to death. The Tzemach Tzvi, who was a great-grandson of the Chacham Tzvi, writes a letter to a Jew by the name Yaakov Rothschild, who lived in Vienna, in Austria. Vienna is a city in Austria. And he writes them a letter, and he says to him like this, "I want you to know, I want you to remember that all the wealth and all the importance that your family has..." Rothschilds are very famous, and they have a lot of power, and they have a lot of connections with all the kings and queens, and so you should know that all of that came to you because of a brachah that my great-grandfather, the Chacham Tzvi, had blessed your great-grandfather. So I'm h- the grandson, the great-grandson of the Chacham Tzvi, and you're the great-grandson of the first Rothschild, who fr- who owned the inn and later became a very rich, rich banker. He says, "I never asked you any favors," says the Tzemach Tzvi in the letter. "《 foreign language 》 I never asked from you any favors. I don't need any money from you, but here we're talking about saving the life of a Jew, a Jew who never committed any crimes but is being accused. And as you know what the Gemara says, that

20:47 if you save one Jew, it's like you saved the whole world. So I'm asking you to go st- to the king, since you have connections with the king's palace, the King of Austria, and to you go and plead on behalf of this Jew, asking the king to release this Jew and set him free." And he finishes the letter and says, "《 foreign language 》 This mitzvah that you will do to save the life of this Jew will be considered a great righteousness, a great tzedakah till the end of generations." That was for your kids and grandkids, brachas forever after. And he did. This Yaakov Rothschild, uh, got the letter, and he went to the king's palace. He did whatever he did and managed to get the Jew free and, uh, safe.