98. The Chosson and Kallah That Were Swallowed in the Ground During the Chuppah

00:17 I'm gonna share with you an awesome, awesome story. A story that was told by the previous Rebbe in his Sefer Hazichronos, in his memoirs, and the story takes place about 650 years ago. Actually, exactly 650 years ago. Now it's 5728, and this was in Kuf-Kuf Chaf Gimel. That's exactly 650 years ago. I'm sorry, 600... 660 years ago. So this, this is in the city of Kraków in Poland. The Jews called it Kraker or Kraków. In Kraków, in Poland, it was a big city, a lot of Jews. I met a Jew here where I live in Ithaca, New York, who was from Kraków, lived in Kraków, survived the Holocaust. And he remembered that in the middle of the city, there was a place which the city had fenced off. It's like a wall. There was a wall around it, and no one was allowed, allowed to go in there. It was totally sealed off. Nobody was able to go in there. He says little children, they used to go and look through the cracks of the boards to see if- what was going on there. But it was just a plain piece of, of ground. And the story was, he heard it, this is just, um, 70 years ago. He heard it from people in the city that there was a tradition that once, a long, long time ago, a man and a woman were swallowed in the ground alive in that place. And since then they fenced it off. This is what he knew. But

02:00 I'm gonna tell you the story behind it as the Friediger Rebbe tells it. This is in the year Kuf Chaf Gimel. Uh, Kraków was a big city, a lot of Jews. There was a very famous Rav, a Gaon, HaGaon Reb Yitzchak. Reb Yitzchak was one of those Jews that were expelled from Germany in the... About 670 years ago, Germany expelled the Jews from, from Germany, and many of them went to Poland. This Reb Yitzchak was one of those Jews that were refugees from Germany and settled in Poland. He was a great Gaon, and he became the Rav of Kraków. Kraków belonged, was under the rule of one of the Polish princes, like a Poretz, but this was more than a Poretz, it was a prince. He owned not only Kraków, but a lot of the area around Kraków. This Polish prince had a Jew, a manager, a German Jew. He was a Kohen. His name was Shlomo Seligman. He was, um, not a good person. Did a lot of Averus and, um, you know, didn't care so much about mitzvahs. And he was rich because he was the manager of the-- He was the top manager, the most important manager of the, of the Polish prince, so he made a lot of money. And the Polish prince trusted him, and he was very friends with him, so he was doing a lot of Averus. He changed, he even changed his name from the name Shlomo to sound more like the Goyim. He... Zigmund. Zigmund. He

03:35 became Zigmund Seligman, so he would sound more like a Goyim. So much so, he ended up being Mechallel Shabbes and eating treif and did everything, you know, was over on the whole Torah. This guy, Shlomo Seligman, decided one day he wants to marry a Jewish woman who is divorced. A divorced woman, she was Jewish, divorced, probably not a big Tzadekes. She wanted to marry him. But you know a Kohen cannot marry a Gerusha. A Gerusha in Hebrew is a divorcee. So, but he wanted. They, they wanted to get married to each other. They liked each other, and they wanted to be husband and wife. No, he also wanted it to be done according to Halakha, under Chuppah and with, with Kidushin and everything. So he came to the Rav, Reb Yitzchak, the Rav of Kraker, of Kraków, or Kraker, and said to him, "Please, can you, uh, do my wedding? You know, make sure that the Chuppah Kidushin is done everything right." And of course, the Rav told him, "You can't do this. You're a Kohen. Kohen is forbidden in the Torah to marry a Gerusha." Tried to explain it to him and to convince him to stop and to separate from her and find another wife. But Seligman ended, answered with chutzpah, and he wasn't nice to the Rav when he says, "Rebbe, you know what? I'm prepared to give up my Kohanim just so I can marry this woman. I won't be a Kohen. I'll give up." As if this is something you

05:10 can give up, huh? But of course, you can't do that. A Kohen is born a Kohen and will always be a Kohen, no matter what you do. So um, you can't, you can't give up your Kohanim. You're stuck with it. So the Rav says, "I can't, and I'm sorry. I'm not gonna do it. And I'm trying, and I would wish you understand that you should shy away from this. You should get away from this and not marry this woman because you're a Kohen." Then the, the, the Sh-Sh-Shlomo Seligman saw that he couldn't convince the Rav, so he's tell the Rav, "Well, if you don't give me Chuppah, you don't give me Kidushin, you don't let me get married, I will go to another city and marry her there. I won't tell them I'm a Kohen." The Rav invited the woman who he wanted to marry and then her and her family members. They were important people in the community, very wealthy people, rich people. They're big businesses. She was a member of that family. So the Rav said, "Listen, you guys must stop talking to this man. He wants to marry her, but he's not allowed to marry her." And he tried-- He said, "Listen, if you don't stop it, you're going to go ahead with this wedding, I will have to excommunicate." That means you have to tell nobody should talk to you guys anymore, 'cause you're doing an aveira in public and marrying a grusha. A kohein marrying a grusha is not allowed.

06:37 Now, the relatives of the divorcee, of the grusha, of the woman, they had business-- They did a lot of business with Zeligmann, Shloime Zeligmann, so they were friends of his, too. He wanted to marry their daughter, but he also had business connections with them. They did business, they bought, they sold it for-- to each other. So they wanted to have that wedding. They were very interested that their daughter should marry Zeligmann, and, uh, because this way there, there'll be more business. And they tried to convince the Rav, "Maybe you can find a heter. Maybe you can find a reason why we can be lenient here, that we can maybe make it work, a pi halacha." The Rav, the Rav says, "Absolutely not. There's no such a thing." And, uh, not only that, the Rav went to schul that next Shabbos, made a big announcement that everybody should know that there's a kohein who wants to marry a grusha, and this is forbidden, absolutely forbidden. Nobody should help them. This is absolutely forbidden by the Torah. And he warned the couple, "Don't you dare get married." When Zeligmann heard that the Rav actually made an announcement and publicly said that you can't do this, he got very angry. And since he had a lot of connections with the, the prince, the Polish prince that was like a king, he could do whatever he wanted. He controlled-- He was in charge of, of c- of, of, of Kraków. So he went to his boss, to, to the,

08:03 the Polish prince, and told him that, "You know, this Rav, he doesn't wanna let me get married. I really re- I really like this woman. I wanna marry her, and he said because some religious reason, which is some stupid thing, you know. And I'm willing to give up my Kohain anyway, so why can't he do it?" Anyways, he told this to the prince, and the prince says, "I'll see what I can do." Now, there was a big machlikess in the community now because everybody was talking about this. Shloime wants to marry this divorced woman and of course those who were yirat shamayim and f- were, were afraid of Hashem and they followed the Torah, they were on the side of the Rav and so the, the Rav is right and how can they dare do such a thing? It's terrible. Well, the relatives of the woman and, uh, they had some friends also who were not such big yirat shamayim and they were willing to sort of, you know, break halacha. So they of course said, "You know, Shloime is right." They also wanted to be nice to Shloime Zeligmann because they knew he can give them business, because he's in charge of all the properties and all the businesses of the, of the, of the prince. So if they're nice to, to Shloime Zeligmann, he'll be nice to them and give them some business. So there was a big machlikess in... between the- those who are more frum or more yirat Hashem, have yirat

09:26 shamayim, and those that were not so yirat shamayim. So Zeligmann, as I said, went to the prince, and the prince called over the Rav. He-- and he told the Rav that, uh, "Why is it that you don't wanna let them get married? What's the reason? Why don't you do the wedding? You should be the Rav, the mesader kiddushin. Do the, do the kiddushin and help them get married." And the Ra- the b- the, the, the prince also invited the bishop, the galach. The, the galach from, from the town, his galach also should come there that, that maybe the galach will say whether it says that in the Torah or not, because they thought the galachim know a lot of Torah. So he in- invited the galach as well. And the Rav explained to the prince, "I'm sorry, we can't do this. This is against the Torah for a kohein to marry a grusha. A grusha is a divorcee." So the prince turned to the galach and said to him, "Is it true what the Rav is saying? The Rav is saying that a, a kohein can't marry a divorcee, a grusha?" And the bishop said, "The grusha..." The, the, the galach was a big anti-Semite. He hated Jews. So he said, "You know what? It's true. It says that in the Torah of Moshe that, that a kohein can't marry a divorcee. But the Hakhamim always find a way, a heter, you know, how they can permit things. You know, Hakhamim always have a way.

10:54 They have the power to change the halachas of the Torah and make something which the Torah says is asur, they can say it's mutar now. From now on it will be mutar. So he can do it if he wants to." He was a big anti-Semite and he wanted to, you know, um, make... get the Rav into trouble. So the Reb Yitzchak responded to the galach and said, "That's not true. We Jews can never change what Hashem gave to Moshe Rabbeinu. Hashem gave Moshe Rabbeinu a Torah which is written on parchment, the five, the five Chumashim, and then he gave us a Torah Shebe Al Peh, which Hashem also gave to Moshe at Har Sinai. And in Torah Shebe Al Peh, he explains the Torah Shebichtav, that, you know, he explains everything that's written in the Chumash is explained in the Gemara in Torah Shebe Al Peh. And, you know, for hundreds of years, we have kept exactly what the Torah is saying. We cannot change that." Now, the galach saw, um, how the Rav explained disagrees with him, so he started posing other questions. "Hey, doesn't it say in the Talmud this, in Talmud that?" He started, like, attacking Yiddishkeit and, uh, in front of the, uh, the prince. And in the end, um, the Rav gave him all the explanations that all the questions he had are nonsense and they don't make sense, and then the galach got very angry. And he said-- he started cursing the Jews, he started cursing the Jewish people.

12:21 But the Rav was very calm. He didn't answer back, even though he was very hurt inside that the galach would curse like this and so harshly to the Jewish people in front of the prince. And then he said to the galach, "You know, you, you're galach, you should be respectful to the Jews. You know why? Because you g-ga- you galachim and the Christians, you guys got your religion from where? From the Torah. So you should be nice to us because we gave you your religion. You got it from us." And here the galach got really mad and he started screaming, "What? What are you talking about? We c- we, we don't come from you. We have a..." He started screaming and screaming and screaming. At a... Any rate, um, they, they, the, um, galach and the Rav were arguing back and forth, and then the prince felt-- He's, he's, he's a goy, he's a Christian, so he wanted to defend the galach and he said, "I think the galach is right," even though he saw the Rav was right, but he didn't wanna tell him that. He said, "I think the galach is right and I think there's no reason why you can't do the wedding for Shlomo Zaligman with that woman, that divorcee. And I'm telling you now, you must, as a Rav, you must do the chuppah and kiddushin for this couple and so they can live peacefully and happily." Now, here's what happened. The Rav left the palace of the prince. And

13:57 before he left, he said, "I'm sorry. I will do for you anything, because you are a leader, you are a prince, you are a governor, you know, a king. But there's one thing I cannot do: go against Hashem and against the Torah. And therefore, this thing I cannot do for you." And the prince got very angry and he said to him, "We'll see. You're gonna have to do it. I'm gonna make you do it." And the Rav went home. A few days went by, and the Rav still doesn't wanna do the wedding. One day, soldiers showed up, soldiers with, with, with swords, all armed, showed up to the house of the Rav, and in their hands they had a letter from the prince that said that he must come right now. They're gonna take him by force to the marketplace in the middle of the big plaza, and there, in the center of town, he needs to do chuppah kiddushin for Zigmund Zaligman and his Kalla. And so they dragged the Rav to the plain, to the plaza, and the chuppah was outside. They waited for the Rav. Her family, all the members of her family and other people that were friends with the family also stood there, and a lot of Goyim because they knew Shlomo Zaligman because he was an important man who was the manager of the prince's, uh, businesses. So a lot of Goyim friends came to also to the chuppah. And everybody was waiting to see what's gonna happen. Is

15:32 the Rav gonna have to do it? When the Rav came to the place, he was carried and led by the soldiers. He turned to Zaligman and his wife-- his wife and his, and his Kalla, the gerusah, and he said to... and to all the relatives, and he said to them, "Listen, I will not go against the Torah even if they kill me. And I beg you, stop what you're doing now and go home, 'cause this is forbidden and it's not a good thing for you to do. And if you go home and you agree not to get married, then the, the prince will be ag- will be okay. I'm warning you because it might not be good if you keep up." Zaligman and his Kalla continued to tell the Rav, "We want to get married and you must marry us." When the Rav saw that he couldn't convince them, he called out loud, "Ribono shel olam, they wanna force me to go against your mitzvahs. Please, Hashem, sanctify your name in the world. Show who you are. Let the Jews that keep mitzvahs see that you are protecting them. Look down from the heavens and, and help us, be kind to us, and show your power against these people that are going against you with such chutzpah." And then he finished saying his tefillah. He turned again to Shlomo, Shlomo Zigal-- Zaligman and the Kalla and their relatives, trying to do, "Please do teshuvah. Forget about it. It's not..." But they again, with chutzpah, respond,

17:18 "No, no, no, we wanna get married." At that moment, the Rav burst out crying hysterically, and he started saying a tefillah. He says, "Please, Hashem, aneni Hashem, aneni, please answer me, Hashem. Do it for your holy name, asei lema'an shimcha hakodesh hagadol vehane'ar. Do this for the sake of your holy name, your great name, your awesome name, and do something now to stop this." And as the Rav finished davening, suddenly a huge, terrifying commotion was heard in the air, like something very, very scary, like a very loud, loud noise. And moments after that, people saw how the ground opened up, just like by Korach. Suddenly it opened up and within a second, the choson, the Kalla, and the chuppah- Fell deep inside the ground, and after a moment when they fell in the ground, the ground closed up again. And it looked like the regular ground, like nothing happened. Everybody there was, like, screaming. They went, "What's going on here?" And they were, like, shocked. They were all afraid. Even the soldiers that were there, they tried to dig in the ground to see what's going on. Maybe we can get Shlomo Ziglman and Zeligman and his Kallah out of there. They tried to dig with their swords, but nothing happened. So they all left, and, um, this scared the whole city. The whole city was scared. Everybody from all over started coming to this place, to the plaza, to the middle of Krakow to see what exactly happened. Everybody heard this incredible story. They

19:14 saw what a great tzadik and a holy person the Reb, the old Rav was, Reb Yitzchak. He was willing to go Mesirus Nefesh. Even if they kill him, he wouldn't go against the Torah, and look what miracle, what nes happened because of him. The prince, when he heard what happened, he sent quickly messengers to the Galach. The Galach wasn't there by the Chuppah. He was at home to see if maybe something happened to the Galach, too. He, he heard that the, the Rav was such a tzadik, he could punish the Chassan and the Kallah like this. Maybe there was also punishment from Hashem for the Galach, so he sent messengers to see what's happening. And guess what? The messengers came back, and they said when they came to the Galach, they noticed that he was crazy. He became nuts. He became crazy, insane. When he heard, when the Galach heard what happened to the Chassan and Kallah, how the earth opened up, he became nuts, became crazy. So the s- the prince realized that he'd made a big mistake to force the Rav. He traveled right away to the Rav and went to his house. The Rav was now in his house, and he asked him forgiveness because that he was so hurtful to him and that he was not respectful to the Torah of the Jewish people and to Moshe Rabbeinu. And the prince told the Rav, "I'm prepared to do anything that you will tell me so Hashem would forgive me for what

20:44 I did." And the Rav answered him, "No, you don't have to ask forgiveness because you didn't do it intentionally. You didn't know. What did you know? You grew up as a Christian. How would you know how important the Torah is? So you don't have to f- ask forgiveness, but one thing I'm asking you, make a fence around the place where this happened, and make it like a fence with stones, like a large fence, so the Kohanim, any Kohen..." You know Kohanim's not supposed to go in a cemetery, can't go over a Kever, and now right there in the middle of the plaza is the body of Shlomo Z- Zeligman and his precious Kallah, so it's, a Kohen is not allowed to walk there. So I want you to make a fence around so the Kohanim would know where not to walk. The prince agreed, and they made a fence. This story was told by the previous Rebbe, and now you can understand what my friend who passed away five years ago, when he was in Krakow before the war, he remembers a place that was fenced off, and people said that this is the place where a long time ago, a Chassan and a Kallah fell right into the ground. This is the story.