107. A Poritz Who Saved A Jew And Then Buys A Big Dog

00:18 One time the Kozhnitzer Maggid... The Kozhnitzer Maggid was a Talmud of the Mizitch Maggid, Reb Shmuel of Nikolsburg, was a holy tzadik. And Kozhnitzer Maggid once came on the night of Yom Kippur to shul to say Kol Nidre, and he was the chazan. So that night, Yom Kippur, he went to the amud where the chazan stands, and instead of starting Kol Nidre, he just stood there and just cried and cried and cried and didn't start Kol Nidre. And he did this for an entire two hours long, just kept crying. Everybody was, like, shocked. They were waiting for him to start Kol Nidre already. It's getting late. He hasn't doing Kol, Kol Nidre. He hasn't been doing anything. He's just crying. Standing there and crying. After two hours, suddenly the Kozhnitzer Maggid turns around and he asks people, "Is there anybody here from the city of Pilav?" Pilav is a city in Poland. So they looked around the shul and they couldn't find anybody. Finally, they found a Jew from a village not far from Pilav, and this Jew said, "I'm not from... not far from Pilav." So the Kozhnitzer Maggid called him over and said to him, "Do you know the city of Pilav well?" He said, "Yes. I go there every week, twice a week to sell my merchandise. I have a farm in the village with cows, and I make milk and cheese, and I have eggs from my chickens on the farm. And I take this stuff to the city of Pilav,

02:06 which is a bigger city, and I sell my merchandise there in the marketplace. So I know the city. I've been doing this for many years." So the Kozhnitzer Maggid asked this Jew, "Do you know the pritz, the very important pritz from Pilav? Everybody knows him. His name is Kshanzy Shatrinsky." That was the name of the pritz. And the Maggid, the K- the Kozhnitzer Maggid asks this Jew, "Do you know this pritz, Kshanzy Shatrinsky?" And the Jew said, "Of course I know who he is. He's very well-known. Everybody knows him. He's very rich and very important. I even know his dog." So the Mizitch-- Kozhnitzer Maggid said, "Tell me about his dog and tell me where he got his dog. How did he get this dog?" So the Jew started telling about the dog. The dog is huge. He's as big as a big cow. So big was the dog. And he's always hanging around in the city. He's always roaming the streets in the city of Pilav, but he doesn't bark ever, and he doesn't hurt anybody. Just walks around like a nice tame dog, but he's huge. So the Maggid asked him, "Where did he find this dog, this pritz? Where did he find such a dog? Such an unusual dog." So the man said that the pritz once traveled far away just, uh, for vacation and play games and have fun with, with other pritsim. So when he came back, he showed us the dog. He said, "I just bought the dog for

03:53 a lot of money in this foreign place." He paid eighteen hundred gold coins for this dog. And then when he took him home, he built for that dog a little house, a special dog house. A beautiful big dog house which cost him another two hundred gold coins. So he spent two thousand gold coins for this dog, and every day he would give the dog ten pounds of meat, and that dog would feast huge amount of meat every day. One time the pritz brought the meat for the dog, and the dog was so hungry that he didn't wait for the pritz to bring him the meat. He jumped towards the pritz and grabbed the meat out of the pritz's hand and feasted up. The, the, the pritz got very angry. He broke down the house of the dog, and he beat the dog, and he s- sent him out of the house, threw him out of the house. And from then on, the dog just walks down the streets of the city, all lonely, and he doesn't hurt anybody. He doesn't even bark. And that's the story with the dog. When the Maggid heard these words, he became very happy, and he turned his face back to the amud and began to say three times with great, great excitement. And he says, "You hear, Malach Michol? Do you hear, Malach Michol, what this simple Jew, this villager just told us? Did you hear, Malach Michol?" Three times he said, and then he started immediately saying Kol

05:46 Nidre. Everybody was totally puzzled. What went on over here? It's a very strange story. First, for two hours, the Maggid doesn't say Kol Nidre, and he cries and cries. He's very upset, obviously. Everybody was scared. What was going wrong? What does he see in Shamayim? Something terrible happening And then he asks this very strange question of this villager, whether he knows Pilav and he knows the Poritz of Pilav. And then he hears a story with a dog and he gets all excited and he starts saying Kol Nidre and then he talks Malach Michol three times. What is going on? Motzei Yom Kippur. You know, the second Motzei Yom Kippur is called Gots Namen. The name of the day after Yom Kippur is called Gots Namen. No, it's a special day. So the, um, Kozhin Tzaddik got together with Hasidim for a meal. We usually have a meal on Yom Kippur. So Hasidim, the old Hasidim who were close to the Kozhin Tzaddik, they dared to ask him the question, "What went on last night on the night of Yom Kippur?" And the Tzaddik told them what happened. I'll tell you the story. Yesterday when I went to the Amud to say Kol Nidre, I saw in Shamayim a big kitrug. A kitrug means a very strong cri- criticism, attack against the Jews. That means the Satan and all the malachim that were critical malachim, malachim that their job is to criticize the Jews and always showing how bad the Jews are. They, they, they were,

07:26 they were having a very, very, very strong accusation against the Jews. And the reason why this was a very dangerous situation in the Shamayim, in the heavens, is because of the following story. There's a city called, there's a city called Mechiv. That's, it's a small town near the big city of Krakow. And in Mechiv there lived a Jew who was very, very poor. He had a daughter who was getting of age, and she had to get married, but he didn't have a cent to marry off. And his wife, she kept pressuring him that he should go around from city to city and collect money, beg people for money like a poor person, ask for tzedakah, and until he has enough money to do a wedding so they can marry off their daughter. But this poor man was a very bashful person, always very embarrassed to ask. He didn't have the personality. He didn't have the type-- He wasn't the type of person to, to ask people. He was very shy. He was very shy. He didn't know how to talk to people. He was even embarrassed to speak to people. So if people brought him on their own, they would bring him money he would take. But to go and ask people, it was very, very hard for him. So you can imagine a person who is so shy a- and embarrassed to ask, he, he wasn't able to make a lot of money. So... But his wife said he has to go from city

09:07 to city. What is he gonna do? He needs the money. So he went from city to city until he came to the city of Pilav. No, city of Pilav is one of the cities that had a lot of Jews and p- people, some people had money, some people did have less money, more money. But he g- went from door to door and asked people for money, even though it was very hard for him to ask. But he tried. One day he was in Pilav, still in Pilav, and he's thinking to himself, "You know, I'm so far away from home, and I'm-- Look, I've been away for so long from my house to raise money, and look, I don't even have any-- not even enough. I'm very far from having enough money to do the wedding." And he became very depressed, very sad. And as he was thinking about how terrible the situation is that he's been trying so hard, so hard, but you know how people give a few pennies here and a few pennies there, but it's not enough. So he became very, very sad and he started crying and cried hysterically, bitterly, bitterly, "Oi, what am I gonna do?" And he's walking on the road and crying and crying, and suddenly there's a wagon with a Poritz. The Poritz of Pilav that's riding by exactly where this Jew was walking and crying, and he hears a Jew crying and sighing and sobbing and, and, and blowing his nose and, and he's, he's... So

10:40 he stopped the wagon and he said to the Jew, "Jew, come here. I wanna talk to you." But he, you know, this Jew was very shy, and especially a- an important Poritz like this. Of course, he had a lot of wagons that were following him. He was a very important Poritz. So all of his helpers and all of the-- Some younger pritzim would follow him around, so he was very intimidated. He didn't wanna go. Then the Poritz asked him a few times, "No, no, no, please come, come, come." So finally the Jew had no choice. He had to go. And the Poritz asked him, "Why are you crying? What's the matter?" And he said, told him the whole story, that he's, he's very poor and his daughter is already of age and there's not a penny in the house to do a wedding for her, so he can't find a chassan for her. And he's been trying for months and months to travel, and now he's far away from home. He's in the city of Pilav, and still he doesn't have even nearly enough money that he needs for the wedding. When the Poritz heard this, he said to him, "Don't worry. I'm gonna give you a letter. You go to my secretary in this and this address. You show him this letter, he'll, he'll give you the money. How much money do you need?" And the Jew said, "I need 100 gold coins." It was a lot of money. So the Poritz says, "Here,

12:04 I'm gonna write in the letter that he should give you 100 gold coins, and then you go home and do your wedding and don't worry. You don't have to cry." The Jew took the letter and and he said goodbye to the Peretz. The, the Jew thought this Peretz must be crazy. Why is he-- why is this Peretz, who's not a Jew, why would he give me a hundred rubles like this? Maybe he's making a joke, he's mocking me. Yeah, it's probably nonsense. He's just making a joke out of me, and he's just making fun of me, and that's why he's giving me the letter so that I would think that he's gonna give me a hundred rubles. And so he said, "Ah, I'm not gonna go. I'm not gonna go to that address. I'm not gonna go pick up the money." He was afraid, and said, "Okay, let me go on with my way. Go from city to city. Maybe I'll make a little more money." Till he came a city called Dubenka, and there he looked at a... It's very far away from his house, and he thought to himself, "Listen, it's almost Elul, and then Yom Teruah, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur. I can't be on the road during Yom Truev. I have to go home. No, I have some money already, but not enough. I-- uh, it's better if I go home now, so that I can be Yom Teruah with my family." That's what he did. He went back to his house,

13:31 and again, he passed through the city of Pilav to go home, on the way home. And in the city of Pilav, he stayed overnight. He stayed in somebody's house 'cause he couldn't travel at night. And he's speaking to his host about what he's doing here. Why is he traveling? He told him the whole story, and he also told him the story that happened with this Peretz of Pilav. Now, he was in the city of Pilav, and this host knew the Peretz of Pilav. I mean, he knew about him. And he said to him, "You know, this Peretz of Pilav gave me a letter, but I think he was making fun of me. He was mocking me." So the host says to him, "Show me the letter." He showed him the letter. He said, "Wait a second. This is his signature. This is a real letter. You crazy? You should go to the secretary and get the money. This is not a joke." Uh, but he just said, "Nah, I don't believe it. I can't believe it." Said, uh, he was too late. He was too shy to go. So the, the host said to this Jew, "Give me the letter. I'll go get it for you." And he takes the letter and goes to the secretary of the Peretz. And yes, the secretary gave him a hundred rubles, a hundred gold coins. And he gave it to that Jew, and that Jew was so happy. He went home. He had all the money he needed.

14:50 And he was very excited. But after that story, this was close to Rosh Hashanah, as I mentioned before. It was coming to Rosh Hashanah, the Yom HaDin, the Day of Judgment. A big commotion started brewing in the heavens, in Shamayim. And there was a very, very serious accusation against the Jewish people, that the Jewish people are not as charitable, they're not as kind as this Peretz. Look at this Peretz. He heard how much the Jew needs, he gave him the whole money so he shouldn't have to travel anymore. And look, he's been asking from so many Jews, and everybody gave him just a penny here and a penny there and a penny there. Nobody made sure that he has all the money so he can go home on time. And this goy showed more charity, made big more tzedakah than all the Jews together. That's a serious accusation against the Jewish people, that the goy is more charitable, more kind, and a bigger baal tzedakah than the Yidden. The Maggid of Medzhybizh-- the Mag-- the Kerzhner Maggid said, "When I saw this story in the heavens," that it was, it was the night of Yom Kippur, "and I saw that in the heavens there was a big commotion and there was a big argument and a debate, and the Satan and the other malachim, they were accusing the Jewish people and had a very strong case. It looked very bad for the Jewish people. And Malach Michol didn't know what to say." Malach Michol is

16:25 always the defender of the Jewish people. He's the Malach that always protects the Jews and always, you know, says nice things about the Jews. But here he didn't know what to say. It was a very, very strong argument. Look, this Peretz, what he did. And none of the Jews could do that. So the Kerzhner Maggid said, "When I saw this terrible situation in the heavens, I cried. And I cried and cried and cried, and finally I thought of an idea. I found this Jew. I was looking for a Jew from Pilav because I knew about this dog. There's a story about this dog that the Peretz had. And what was the story telling me? It was telling me that this dog, the Peretz spent two thousand rubles for this stupid dog, which means that money is nothing to him. He's so rich. He has so much money that two thousand rubles is a joke. It's nothing. He doesn't care about money. The money is like dirt. He's got so much of it that it's not even exciting anymore. So you think it's a big deal that he gave a hundred rubles to a Jew? To him, that money means nothing. It's not because he's so kind and he felt the pain of this Jew, and that's why he took money out of his pocket." That's what tzedakah means. Tzedakah means that you're taking money which is not easy for you to give. It's, it's important money that you can buy shoes, you can buy stuff

17:59 for yourself, you can buy a lulav and esrog, you can buy tefillin. It's, it's important to you. But you see the pain of another Jew, so you're willing to give up the money. That's real tzedakah. But this Peretz giving a hundred rubles to a Jew because money means nothing to him. It's like a joke. It's like asking me, "Give me a little bit of... A few pebbles, a few stones." It's-- nobody will say that's tzedakah. Oh, that's amazing. It's impressive. It's not impressive. It just is-- It's worthless. And the proof of that, that it's worthless, look how much he spent on the dog, and then when he didn't like the dog anymore, he threw him out of the house. So now he wasted two thousand rubles on a dog, which now he doesn't even have the dog anymore. "And then I said to Malach Michol, 'You hear, Malach Michol? That's what-- this argument you can use.' And that's when I said Kol Nidrei because this was successful. Because when Malach Michol used this argument, the gezeirah, the decree against the Jews went away."