99. Reb Yonoson Eibeshitz Had Mesiras Nefesh To Save His Friend’s Life

00:16 Shalom Aleichem, kinderlach. Here comes a beautiful story with the great gaon and tzadik, Reb Yonasan Eibeshitz. Reb Yonasan Eibeshitz lived before, a little before the Baal Shem Tov. Was one of the greatest, greatest geonim of his time, and even today he's considered one of the most important, uh, halachic, um, geonim, rabbonim, and poskim, that everybody studies his seforim. Reb Yonasan Eibeshitz married a girl from a very rich family, and her father gave him a naden, right? Naden is like a dowry that the father-in-law gives the chassan so he'd have enough money to live, so he can sit and learn because Reb Yonasan, Reb Yonasan Eibeshitz wanted to sit and learn day and night, so he need money to live. So his rich father-in-law said, "Listen, I'll give you three thousand gold coins." In those days was a lot of money. "And you'll be able to sit and learn for many years with that money." So Reb Yonasan Eibeshitz found a chavrusa, a big talmid chacham, a young man also like him, also just got married, and they both learned together. Learned together all day long and at night, they, they were learning constantly. Now, in the town, there was a galach who hated Jews and decided that he's gonna build his church right across the street from the big bes medrash. This was the bes medrash where Reb Yonasan Eibeshitz and his chavrusa, his partner, used to learn together. And the, the galach made sure that the church would look big and beautiful, and on

01:55 top, on the rooftop of the, of the church, he placed a huge tzelem, a cross like a, an avoda zara. Huge, big, so everybody can see it from far away. And even when you look outside the shul, from the shul, if you're inside the shul across the street and you look through the window, you can see it. And it bothered Reb Yonasan Eibeshitz a lot. And same thing with his chavrusa, it bothered them a lot. Why did this goy, this anti-Semite, this Jew-hater, why did he have to build a church right across the street from the shul and then put this huge tzelem right on top so we can all look at it the whole time? It's disgusting. Now, this young man, the chavrusa, the chaver, the friend of Reb Yonasan Eibeshitz, decided to do something. He couldn't take it anymore. Every time he comes into the bes medrash to learn, he looks through the window and he sees this huge tumah, right, this, this ch- church, and there's this big tzelem on top. He decided one time in the middle of the night he's gonna climb up and take down the tzelem. So that's what he did. 3:00 in the morning, nobody was around, at least he thought so. Climbed up all the way to the roof. This was quite a climb. It wasn't easy to do. It was a little dangerous also. But he went up to the roof and with a, with a knife managed to cut off the tzelem and take

03:17 it down, and came down, but little did he realize that some of the police officers that were in the town, that were up at night, saw him. They saw him on top of the roof and they came running to see who it is. When he came down to the ground from the rooftop all the way down, they caught him and they put him in prison. This was considered a huge crime. All the geonim were mad. They were raging angry. And, um, the galach said, "Yeah, we gotta kill this Jew." And they had a court case and decided to hang him. They're going to kill him by hanging. Two weeks from then they're gonna kill him. Meanwhile, they put him in a prison. Now, the guard of the prison was a goy who loved money. So he went over quietly, secretly one night to Reb Yonasan Eibeshitz. He knocked on his door and told him, "Listen, I gotta talk to you privately, secretly. If I get 3,000 gold coins, I will let him out. I'll let him run away in the middle of the night. He'll run to another city where nobody can find him, but I need you to give me that kind of money." Reb Yonasan Eibeshitz, um, told the other Jews in the city that this is what this guard wants, this is how we can save him. The Jews got together in the whole community, and everybody there, everybody s- everybody decided we're gonna raise money to help this Jew. 3,000 gold

04:53 coin was a huge amount of money. Huge, like millions of dollars. But Reb Yonasan Eibeshitz just got from his father-in-law exactly 3,000 gold coins, so Reb Yonasan Eibeshitz decided on his own, instead of waiting for the whole community to get the money together, he'll take... He went and took his money, the money that he had gotten from his father-in-law, it's the only money he had, and to go to the guard and gave it to him. Gave his own money. He was left penniless, not a penny. He was like a poor man now. And he said, "Let-- Please let my friend go out." And that's what he did. His friend ran away from the city in the middle of the night and, and he went to another city where they couldn't find him. In the meantime, they, um, the community started fundraising. They didn't know that Reb Yonasan Eibeshitz already took care of it. He took his own money and gave it to the guard. They were still fundraising hoping to get 3,000 gold coins to save, uh, the life of this Jew, this talmid chacham. And, um, so at one point, the people couldn't raise enough money. They raised only five hundred gold coins. And the thing, Reb Yonassan ivershan they said to him, "Listen, we only have five hundred gold coins. Maybe, you know, he'll take that. Maybe he'll be happy to take that." So the minister says, "No, no, no, you don't need to do anything. I already took care of it. I

06:27 took my money and I, I paid them already." So the head of the community, the president who raised the money said, "You know what? But please, then take this five hundred gold coins and, and, and let that be like a partnership. We also will have a, a share in the, in the mitzvah. You know, so why should you have the whole mitzvah for yourself? Please give us a little piece of the mitzvah. We have five hundred gold coins, so a little piece of the mitzvah will be ours." Reb Yonassan ivershan said, "No, no, no. This is a mitzvah that I did. I'd like to own the mitzvah myself. You don't have to give me anything. It's just my mitzvah. I don't sell it for anything." So Reb Yonassan ivershan realized that now he has to tell his wife what he did because now he has to tell his wife that all the money her father gave him is lost. He's given it away, and now they have no money, and they have to think about how to live, how to survive. But he can't tell his wife. She's gonna get very scared. What did he do? On the other hand, he must tell her because what? He's not gonna tell her. She's gonna ask, "Where's the money?" Decided he needs to think about it. So he told his wife he has to go away for a few days, and he traveled away out of town for a few days so he can have time to

07:47 think for himself without any interruptions. He traveled away for a c- few days and to think, to think how he's going to tell his wife about the whole thing, what he did, and how they're going to plan to make money, to, to earn money so they can live. While Reb Yonassan ivershan is out of town, the guard of the prison noticed that the police... The police realized that their prisoner, this Talmid Chaham ran away. It became quite very clearly, a clear evident that he's no longer there. So everybody said, "Wonder, where is he? Where is he? He ran away." They couldn't find him in the whole city, so they didn't know what to do. So then they started thinking, "How did he escape? How did this Jew escape from the prison?" And they started getting suspicious that the guard helped him escape. And the guard noticed that people are suspecting him, that he's the one who did it. And he was very scared because if they catch him and they find out that it's actually true, they'll kill him. So he realized he has to run away from the city too. So one night, in the middle of the night, he's about to run away from the city. He knocks on the door of Reb Yonassan ivershan's house. And who opens the door? His wife. And he said, "Is the, is, is Reb Yonassan in here?" And she said, "No, he's out of town for a few days." So he says, "Listen, I gotta talk

09:22 to you." And he tells her, "Listen, you know what your husband did, right? He used all his money, every penny that he had to save his friend from prison, and he gave it to me. That's a great thing. Your husband's such a great person. He does such an important thing. He saved the life of another person by giving away every, every penny he had." She said, "Oh, I never heard this. I ne- I never heard this. He never told me." Said, "Well," he says, "Now they're suspecting me, and they wanna catch me and, and put me in prison. So I need to run away, but I don't want my money to be lost. I can't take my money with me. So I trust your husband because he's such a tzadik, such a good man. He gave away all his money to save his friend's life. So he's the only person I can trust. So I would like to ask you if I can leave all my money here, including the three thousand gold coins that he gave me. I wanna s- keep it safe here. And I have more money that I wanna keep. All my money, I wanna keep here, and I'll run away. And when I come back one day, I'll get my money back. If I d- I never come back, then you can keep the money." This guy-- She said, "Okay." This guy left all the money in a certain c- uh, cupboard and left on a horse. And because it

10:46 was late at night, he couldn't see well, he went with the horse straight into the river. There was a river right outside the city, and he plunged right into the water and drowned, middle of the night. The next morning, they found his body swimming up on the side of the river. So everybody found out that the guard died. And the wife of Reb Yonassan ivershan also heard that, so she knew that they have now many... much, much money because of, uh, what the guy left for them. A few days later, Reb Yonassan ivershan comes back home, and he's ready to tell his wife what he had done and how they need to now start living a different life. They have to start working hard to make money. And she says, "No, no, no, no. Shalom Aleichem, my husband. You did an amazing mitzvah. Look how Hashem is repaying you." He said, "What, what happened?" She said, "Well..." He told her that the, the-- She told him that the, the guard came and, and left money and said that, uh, if he doesn't come back, they can keep the money, and now he died. He went straight into the river and fell down and, and, and drowned. So they didn't... not only didn't they lose anything, they got all the money back. They got more because he left all his money with them. Reb Yonassan, when he heard that, he started crying. She said, "Why are you crying? It's so wonderful. Look, Hashem is giving us

12:04 back all the money and more." And he said, "Oi, no, but that's a sign min hashamayim. They don't like my mitzvah. I thought I was gonna do a mitzvah to give Hashem such taanug, such joy, because I gave away every penny," which is very hard to do. It's a big mesirat nefesh. "Now Hashem is giving me all the money back as if, like, throwing back the mitzvah to me. He doesn't want my mitzvah." He started crying, "What did I do wrong that Hashem would not accept my mitzvah?" He decided to do a sheilas chacham. What do you mean a sheilas chacham? It's called a, a taanis chalom. Not a taanis chalom. A question in a dream. He's gonna ask that they should reveal to him. He's gonna fast and daven, and they'll tell him min hashamayim. Tzadikim can do this. They, they ask, they daven, and they fast for a day, and that night, a malach comes in a chalom, in a dream, and tells him the answer that he wants to know. The answer now for the question that he has. So Reb Yisroel Aibishitz made a sheilas min hashamayim, a question in the heavens. "What is this? Why? What did I do wrong that I don't deserve to have the mitzvah?" That night he was given an answer in his dream, that the reason was he's punished like this because when the community wanted to have a share in this mitzvah, he didn't let them have a share. He was being selfish. He

13:36 wanted the whole mitzvah for himself. He should have let them also g- have a share in it. And that's why he was punished that his whole money came back to him. You see, a great tzadik that other-- some- somebody else would have said, "Ah, Hashem is being nice to me because I had mesirat nefesh. He gave me back more money." But Reb Yisroel Aibishitz was a great tzadik, so to him it was a sign of the opposite. "If Hashem gives me back the money, it's a sign Hashem doesn't want my mitzvah." And he learned, and indeed min hashamayim they told him, "For someone like you, you sh- who's such a great person, such a tzadik, such a gaon, you should have agreed to share the mitzvah with somebody else and not have everything for yourself."