100. Reb Shmelke of Niklesburg is מחי׳ מתים

00:16 Here's the, here's the unbelievable story. Reb Shmelke of Nikolsburg was the Rebbe in Nikolsburg. There was there a, a rich man who had lost all his money. He became so poor that he didn't even have what to eat. Was a big rachmanus, uh, pity on him. So he went to Reb Shmelke and said, "Rebbe, you know, people respect you. People know who you are. All over the world everybody knows the-- your greatness. If you gave me a letter where you wrote that people who meet me should g- help me with money, then I'll be able to gain-- get a lot of money and be able to get myself out of poverty and, and get back on my feet and do business and become back to what I was. So please, can you give me a letter?" At first, Reb Shmelke didn't wanna give it to him. Uh, he, um, told him, "No, I don't give letters and, and Hashem should help you in another way." But he, the rich man, very, very much wanted it and he begged him and begged him, and finally he gave in. But he told him, "As soon as you're done with that letter, you need to bring it back. You have to give it back. I don't want you to use it after. There's only... You only use it once for all the fundraising you do. You go travel, get all your money from different people, but then when you're finished with this trip, you're coming home, you have

03:01 to give me back the letter." But this man, uh, traveled and took, uh, the letter and was very happy and thanked Reb Shmelke. And he traveled through all of Poland and Russia. He started making money, and now people gave him a lot of money because they saw the letter of Reb Shmelke that said, "Chaim Yankel from the city of Nikolsburg needs help. He, uh, he was a rich man and now he's poor. Please give him some money so we can help him." And Reb Shmelke wrote in the letter his name and which city he's from. Now, when he finished collecting all his money and he was going back home, on his way home, he hears somebody spread some stupid news that wasn't true, that Reb Shmelke passed away. And he, uh, thought, "Oh, Reb Shmelke passed away." Which wasn't true. Reb Shmelke was still alive and well. But somebody had this strange idea that Reb Shmelke pa- was nistar and there's a levaya and blah, blah, blah. So this, uh, rich man, who used to be a rich man, on his way home thought, "Hmm, okay, so Shmelke is no longer alive. So okay, I don't have to rush home and give him back the letter. He's, he's not there anyways." Meanwhile, he met another person, a poor man also, who was also traveling around from city to city to make money because he needs money to live. And when he hears from this Jew, from this, uh, formerly rich man, that he has a

04:44 letter from Reb Shmelke, he said to him, "Listen, why don't you sell me that letter? I'll give you money for that letter. This way it'll save me time. I'll be able to raise money much faster because I'll tell everybody I'm Chaim Yankel from Nikolsburg. I'll tell them I'm you. The letter will say Chaim Yankel is me, and people will give me money." The Jew thinks to himself, "Oh, Reb Shmelke is no longer alive, so I don't have to give it back to him, so I'll sell it and I'll make a little extra money." So he sold it to this man. Meanwhile, this man who got the letter now is traveling from city to city. And finally he comes to a city to raise money and he dies. He dies. Suddenly he dies in some strange place, in some city, some community where there are Jews. They see a stranger that's a beggar who comes and begs for money, died. So they decided we need to find out, let his family know that he died. So they looked in his pockets to find out who he is. Maybe there's a note, a piece of paper that says his name. And they find the letter of Reb Shmelke in his pocket. And it says his name is Chaim Yankel from Zlikis-- from, from Nikolsburg. Also said his last name. So they looked up and they started asking, uh, the address of the family, Chaim Yankel's address in Nikolsburg. And they found out his address, and they send

06:02 the letter- With this note of, with this letter from Reb Shmelke saying, "Listen," uh, and they sent some belongings, some of his belongings, and papers, and the money that he had, they sent it to the family, to his wife, saying, um, uh, "Your husband died." But really, whose wife was it? It was the wife of the rich man who is still alive, but they didn't know that because they found a letter in the pocket of this poor man that just died that Chaim Yankel from Plibisk, Reb Shmelke tells people to give him money. So they thought he's Chaim Yankel from Plibisk. So they sent to his wife a letter, "Your husband died." So she thinks her husband died. Meanwhile, her husband is still alive, but he's not rushing to go home. He's still traveling a little bit, and she goes to the Rav, not to Reb Shmelke, to some other Rabbin in the city. There were more, more than one Rav, and they sit a bedside and sits down. He says, "Listen, you know, if there's proof that your husband died, then you can get married." And so she decides to get married. So she, uh, somebody suggested a shidduch for her, and she got married to another person. It's terrible. She's an eishes ish. She's a married woman, but everybody thought her husband is dead. Meanwhile, her husband was alive. He-- somebody stole all his money. The money that he had, the husband gathered over the, over his whole trip was stolen, so he

07:31 had no choice. He had to go back, travel some more, and raise money, and he didn't have the letter now, so it was much harder to raise money because he didn't have the support from the letter. So he had to raise pennies and pennies and pennies for a long time. So he s-stayed away from his house for a long time, and finally decided to go home. He had enough money. At least he had some money to be able to go home. He wants to go back to his family, to his wife. And on his way, he comes to the town, um, he hears that there's a Bris, and it's a Bris of a family. That means his wife actually got married to another man, had now a baby boy, and there's a Bris. Today is the Bris. He arrived just on time for the Bris of his wife's new son from the new husband. So he also went to the Bris, and he sat amongst the poor people. People didn't recognize him because he looked very different now, and his clothes were very torn, and so it was hard to recognize him. But when he, um, sat between all the poor people by the Bris, he was crying. People saw he was crying. He didn't eat anything. So the father of the son of the Bris asked when he sees the poor man crying, he says, "Why are you crying?" So he said, "I want to see the mother of the boy, of the baby

09:02 boy whose Bris is today." And he says, "I won't eat until I see her." Now, the father of the boy, the, the husband said, "Good. No, no problem. Come, come. Uh, you'll meet my wife." And he took her in, uh, into a room where the, the mother of the baby was sitting there, and he put him, you know, he said, "Here." He opened the door. He says, "Here, this is the, this is your, my, my wife, the mother of the child." When the mother of the child saw the man in the entrance, she recognized that this is her husband, and from great shock, her neshamah flew away, and she died. From great shock, she realized her husband is not dead, and she married another man, and chas v'shalom, the child is a mamzer. It's terrible thing. Terrible thing. She, like, couldn't take it, and she died on the spot. A huge commotion started till it was told to Reb Shmelke. Shmelke was told about what happened, and he found out what happened, that this is the man who he gave a letter to, and he understood that he had sold the letter to another person, and that other person who bought the letter died, and the people from that city where he died thought that he was somebody else. He was the, the other man, right, who sold him the letter, and they sent his wife a message that her husband died, and that's why she married another man. But really, he didn't die, and

10:44 it was all because he didn't listen to Reb Shmelke. Shmelke told him not to use the letter after he finished his fundraising, and he needs to come back and give him back the letter. Instead, he went and sold it. Shmelke became very excited, very excited. What a terrible thing happened because of the letter that he wrote, and he said with great excitement, "This woman is not guilty of anything. She didn't do anything wrong. She was misled. Her husband, uh, was not honest. He sold the letter when he wasn't supposed to, and as a result of that, he caused a terrible thing for his wife. And therefore, I decree that it should be the opposite. This man shall die because of what he did, and she should live." Now, the Rebbe concluded the story that this is exactly what happened. This man died on the spot right there and then, and the woman that died woke up, and she lived. That's the end of the story.