93. The Holy Taz Prefers His Old Stained Tallis

00:16 Shalom Aleichem, kinderlach. Today is the twenty-sixth of Shevat, Chovov Shevat. It is the yurt site of a great, great godol, a rov, the Taz, the Taz, the Turei Zohar, Reb David HaLevi Segal. He was-- lived about four hundred years ago, wrote the famous commentary on Shulchan Aruch, the Taz, which everybody studies when you learn Shulchan Aruch, and one of the most important commentaries on the Shulchan Aruch. And today is his yurt site. He was the son-in-law of the famous Bach. The Bach is the author-- Bach means Bayis Chodesh. That's his name was Reb Yael Sirkish. He wrote a sefer Bayis Chodesh, and people call him the Bach. Just like people call the Taz because his sefer is called Turei Zohar. So they make it brief, a rosh teyves, Turei Zohar, Taz. Same thing with Bach, Bayis Chodesh, Bach. And Reb Yael Sirkish, the one who wrote the Bach, the Bayis Chodesh on the Tur. Tur is what's before the Shulchan Aruch. It was something similar to the Shulchan Aruch called the Tur. And he wrote a very important commentary and very, very important, very famous. So the Taz was the son-in-law of the Bach. So they tell a story about him that when he got married to the daughter of the Bach, the Taz made a condition with his father-in-law that he will provide him with meat every day. You know, today it's easy to get meat every day. Everybody can get access to meat. But in, in the ancient times, in the olden days,

02:13 it wasn't so obvious because, um, you know, it was, um, meat was, uh, not easy to get. It's expensive. But he's-- since he's learning Torah all day, the Gemara says that if you want to understand Gemara well, you need to, um, eat beef, you need to eat meat. So he wanted meat every day. And the father-in-law promised every day meat till the father-in-law couldn't give him the meat anymore. It was too expensive. And the Bach was not a great, uh, rich guy. He was, uh, actually quite poor. He was a very famous rav, a big tzadik, a great gaon, but, uh, didn't have enough money. And now he had even less money, so he stopped giving him the meat. But his wife found some lung. Meat was not easy to get. She found lung. Lung is the part of a behema which is called the lung, the reya in Hebrew. So when he wanted to eat meat every day, she gave him-- she made lung for him. But he wasn't happy. He didn't feel that the lung was good enough. Lung may not be real meat, he felt, because lung is not as strong as meat. It doesn't give you as much strength. So he did the strangest thing. The Taz went to a bet din and invited his father-in-law to a din Torah. He's going to sue his father-in-law. Can you imagine two great geonim and tzadikim who loved each other very, very much and they respected each other. Suddenly, the son-in-law, the Taz,

04:02 the great Taz, because he didn't get his meat every day the way his father-in-law promised him, he sued him in a bet din. He went to a din Torah. And the bet din looked into it and they said, "Okay, but you're eating lung every day. And lung is also meat. He promised you meat since lung is meat. You're not allowed to cook a lung with milk either, just like any meat. So that means it's meat." So therefore, if he promised meat, anything which is called meat is considered like he fulfilled his promise. And so lung is also good. You can't sue your father-in-law. So people asked the Taz, "How did you even think of suing your father-in-law? You love him so much. He loves you so much." And the Taz answered, "I saw in Shamayim that there was a kitrug, like a crit- a criticism that was against my father-in-law because he didn't keep his promise and because my learning has become weaker and with less geshmak, with less excitement, because I didn't have the meat that gave me the koach, the energy to be able to learn well. So in Shamayim, they love my learning, and they felt that my learning has become a little weaker, less strong, with less excitement because I didn't have meat. And the lung is not as strong. It doesn't give you as much strength as real meat, the real parts of the animal. So I wanted to sue him in bet din, so the bet din will have

05:52 to pasken a halacha that lung is also meat, because if you mix lung with milk, it's the same aveira. It's like milk and meat. So that means according to the Torah, it's considered meat." And my father-in-law is right. This way that will take away the criticism against my father-in-law. I was afraid my father-in-law's gonna have to die, something will happen to him because of this complaint in Shamaim that he's causing his son-in-law not to learn with the same level of excitement. And that's why I did it. And I really understood that sometime great people do things that seem so strange, so strange, so bizarre, but really there's deeper there. They see things that we don't see. And also what you learn from the story is that the Taz wanted meat not because he loved steak, not because he loved a good hamburger. It was just tasty. He wanted it only for one reason, to serve Hashem. And here's a second story. There was a, a s- a, a man, a rich man in the town where the Taz was the Rav, and he had a daughter who became very ill. She became mentally ill, right? She became like a little strange, crazy, and the doctors couldn't help her. They tried every doctor in the world, and it didn't work. So the father of the girl came to the Taz, the Rav of the city, and said to him, "Rebbe, please come to my house. You'll see my daughter, and then maybe you'll daven for her,

07:35 and Hashem will have rachmanus and cure her." The Rav said, "Well, whatever, I, I, I'm not a tzadik. What do you mean I'm gonna go daven? I, I don't know. Why should Hashem listen to my tefillas?" But the father didn't let go. He begged him and begged him till he agreed to come to the house. When he came into the house, he saw, he saw the girl sitting there, and when she saw the Taz, she, um, turned away the other direction. So the Taz started speaking to her and said, "Why are you turning away from me?" And a voice came out of her. It wasn't her voice. It was the voice of a dybbuk. Uh, I'm sure you heard of a dybbuk. A dybbuk is sometimes a poor neshamah, the person that already died, and, um, has unfortunately been a rosha, has done a lot of averas, and can't go to Gan Eden, and is wandering around because he needs to have a... S- some tzadik should, should fix him and take away his averas from him so he can go to Gan Eden. So sometimes, today it doesn't happen, but it used to happen in the ancient, in the olden days, that sometimes such a neshamah that is so lost and has so many averas that he goes into the body of another person who's alive, and it drives them crazy, and that's why they become like crazy. Now, till then, people didn't know that she had a dybbuk because she just acted strange.

09:16 But when, when the dybbuk saw the Taz and saw his holy face, he right away turned away. And when the Taz asked, "Why did you turn away?" The dybbuk spoke, not the girl. The dybbuk spoke out of her mouth and said, "I'm a rosha. I did a lot of averas in my lifetime, and it's very hard for a neshamah that has done so many averas to look at the face of a tzadik. I can't look at your face. Your face is too bright." See, a neshamah can see spiritual brightness. We can't see it because we're physical. We have a body. But a neshamah could see the spiritual light on the face of a tzadik and so he was, um, startled. You know, he was like a little bit stunned when he saw the Taz. He said, "I can't look at your face. It's too strong. The light is too strong." So the Taz says, "In that case, I'm saying to you in the zechus of my Torah that I learned today, I'm giving it away to this girl so that you should leave her." And the dybbuk left her, and she became healthy again. The father of the girl was so grateful that he wanted to give the Taz a present, and he was very rich, so he could buy a very nice present. So he bought him, bought a beautiful present, and the Taz said, "I refuse to take any presents." And now what does it say? Great people don't like gifts, just gifts.

10:51 They don't need physical gifts. They're looking for more spiritual gifts, which only Hashem can give you. All right? Somebody bought for the Rebbe a new car, and the Rebbe said, "The one who hates gifts will live a long life." The Rebbe didn't wanna take gifts. He doesn't need presents. The best present the Rebbe likes is that you learn a Perek Tanya by heart, or you learn a Mishnah by heart. So the Taz said to this father, "I, I don't want a gift." So the father went out and bought a beautiful tallis. He thought a tallis is a holy thing that you daven with. Maybe the Taz will accept that. He bought a beautiful, beautiful, gorgeous tallis and brought it to the Taz. And the Taz said to the father, "I can't take the tallis either. I like my old, worn-out tallis." Because he said, the Taz said... He was already old at that time. He said, "One day I'm gonna have to go up to Shamaim after 120 years, and I need something that will testify for me or, you know, will bear testimony, will say to Hashem, 'I can say I know I'm a witness that the Taz has never had a during davening. That during davening he never allowed f- a, a, a thought which was not connected to the davening to go into his head. He drove away every other thought and only concentrate on the davening. Never ever, ever has it happened that a, a strange thought came into his head

12:24 in the middle of davening.'" He says, "My tallis knows it because I davened with that tallis for many years, so this new tallis is not gonna know. That's why I like to daven with my old tallis." May his zechus bring blessings and brachos to all of you and us. L'chaim.