112. The Curse Of A Hidden Tzadik And The Rebbe's Bracha

00:16 Shalom Aleichem, kinders. The following story I read in a book, in a sefer by Rabbi Fol Nachman Kahn, Rabbi Olkan's father, who heard the story from a good friend, Rabbi Leib Friedman, who was present when the story took place. There is... In Yerushalayim, there's a yeshiva called Yeshivas Chayei Olam. It's a yeshiva who's been there for many years. It's not a Chassidish yeshiva, but it's been there for many years and many great people have come out of this yeshiva, have learned in that yeshiva. This story took place in the תשי"ז. That means in the 1950s. The Rosh Yeshiva of Chayei Olam was a Yid, a Jew by the name of Rabbi Chaim Chaikel. I don't know his last name, but I only know his first name, Rabbi Chaim Chaikel. He was the Rosh Yeshiva of Chayei Olam. This Rosh Yeshiva unfortunately suffered terribly on his legs. His legs got so bad that the doctors were afraid of some infections in the leg that can cause-- it can spread to the whole body, chas v'shalom. If it spreads to the whole body, it can be very dangerous. A person can, chas v'shalom, die from it. But the doctor said, "Listen, it may be the only answer, the only way to save his life is to remove at least one leg, and maybe they may have to take off another leg. They're not sure yet." This Rabbi Chaim Chaikel was so weak he couldn't walk on his feet because the weakness-- his feet were so bad. He

02:01 was so sick, so ill, so he had to lie in bed most of the day. One day his son got married, so he wanted to come to the wedding, but he can't walk, so they-- he asked that they take him in his bed, with his bed to the wedding, to the chasuna. During the wedding, people were dancing. Many rabbonim were there, and they were dancing and making simcha for the chosan and the kallah. And during the chasuna, the wedding, the, the Rosh Yeshiva, Rabbi Chaim Chaikel, the father of the chosan said, "I'd like to say a few words." And they gave him the mic, and he told the following story. He says, "I, many years ago, before the war, when I still lived in Europe, in Poland or Russia, there was a city called Szczecin. In Szczecin was a yeshiva. There were thirty talmidim in that yeshiva, and I was one of them. We learned very really well. We learned a lot. We learned all the time, day and night. We st- kept studying and learning all the time, Torah. In Szczecin there was a man who was a shiker." A shiker means somebody who drinks, drinks all the time non-stop. "They called him Itche the Shiker. He would get drunk every day. He would drink a lot of wine, and then he would fall asleep on a bench in the shul, and then he would wake up and drink again and go back to sleep. Nobody bothered asking him where he lives. Nobody knew

03:42 where he lived. They didn't know where his house was, uh, nobody cared about him because he was just a shiker. The little kids, you know, used to love teasing him and laughing at him, but, uh, nobody else cared, you know, cared to check on him and see who he is, what he is, um, uh, and where he lives. Uh, Itche the Shiker would usually spend his time in the shul where the yeshiva was." You know, the yeshiva was learning in the shul, in one of the shuls. "And he loved to hang out in that shul. He would drink and sleep on a bench there. He knew all the bacheim in the yeshiva there by name. And so day after day... One night, it was late at night, we were all learning in the beis medrash in the shul, and a man, a balagola, a guy who was-- had a wagon and a horse, he was riding with his horse and wagon. The wagon was full of stuff, merchandise that he was going to sell in another city. But unfortunately his, his, his horse fell down and the wagon turned over and all the merchandise fell out. And now the wagon fell, uh, uh, parts of the wagon fell on top of the horse and the horse was sort of couldn't breathe. And he-- this-- a man came into the shul really, really crying, saying, begging the bacheim, "Please, please come and help me get the wagon straight up so the horse, uh, could, uh, stand

05:15 up and he wouldn't choke." The bacheim, um, were talking between each other, "Is it right for us to stop learning Torah to help someone with a wagon and a horse?" And they decided no, according to Halakha it's not appropriate to stop the learning, and they told him, "We're sorry. Find somebody else." He was very, very, uh, disappointed, and he was very upset, and he went outside the shul. A few minutes later, suddenly the bacheim hear, um, Itche the Shiker. He was sleeping, but suddenly he's waking up and he's saying to the bacheim, "You better go right now outside and help this, this Jew. He needs your help. Go outside and help him. And if you don't, you don't walk outside to help him, you might not be able to walk on your feet one day." That's all he said. And we laughed at him and said, "You know, what are you-- you know anything about Torah, about halakha?" We decided that the pi halakha, we shouldn't stop learning in order to help a Jew in, in his, in his problem with a horse and a wagon. Anyways, he didn't say any more. Few, like a half an hour passed, and the wagon driver came back in crying again and begging us. Says he tried to find someone, he couldn't find anyone, and the horse is dying. He needs help. And we discussed it again, and then we came to the conclusion that maybe we should go, and we did. And we went outside, we helped

06:45 him. But by the time we got there, the horse already died. It was too late. All right. The next morning, Itche the Shicker comes to shul, and I was there. Uh, and he asked the barkeep, "Where is Chaim Chaikel?" And they told him, "He's out, he's, he's coming soon." Okay. Itche went to lie down on the bench like he always did. And when I came to the shul, my friends told me that, "Itche the Shicker was asking about you. He, he wants to talk to you." So I went over to the bench and said to Itche, "What do you want? What, what, what can I do for you?" And Itche says, "Listen to me." Tonight he says he's gonna die, uh, sometime during the night, and I want someone to come to his house to be with him by yitziat neshama. When his neshama goes away from the body, it's a very special thing to have someone there, maybe to say Shema Yisrael. He wanted somebody to be there. He's asking Chaim Chaikel to come to his house and be there all night and waiting for him to die. Uh, Chaim Chaikel looked at Itche and says, "Itche, are you really joking or something? How do you know you're gonna die tonight? And besides, I don't even know where you live. Nobody knows where you live." And Chaim Chaikel said-- and Itche said, Itche the Shicker said, "You know, I live... If you go to the edge of the town, all the way to the

08:14 end, there's like an old des- half-destroyed building. This is where I live. You please come there tonight and please be with me until my neshama goes away." I found that very strange, bizarre, but that night I decided, let me go. I took my Gemara with me. I thought, "Listen, I'll sit in his house, and I'll learn Gemara there." I went there, and I sat down on a, on a box, an old broken box, 'cause there was nothing there in the house, no furniture. The broken box was like a chair for, for the house. And I saw Itche lying down on boards on the floor, sleeping. So I started learning. After a few hours, I said, "Why am I sitting here? He's sleeping, and I'm just learning here in an old half-destroyed building, house." And I decided to go and leave and go back to the Beis Midrash, to the shul. But as I was getting up, Itche woke up and said, "Please, no, no, no, don't go away. Wait. I'm telling you, it's four AM. Four o'clock in the morning, my neshama is gonna leave. And please..." He asked him another thing. He said, "Chaim Chaikel, I ask you a favor. When, when I die," he says, "tell the Rav and the Chevra Kadisha that I asked that they bury me in the old cemetery, not in the new cemetery, the old cemetery where all the big Rabbonim from many years ago are buried, and I want them to bury me right next to this

09:42 famous Gaon and Tzadik that was buried in that cemetery." Chaim Chaikel started laughing. He says, "Itche, you think they're gonna bury you next to such a big Tzadik? Usually, a place like this they give to Rabbonim, to great Tzadikim. They're not gonna put somebody who doesn't even put on tefillin. We never saw you wearing tefillin." And Itche says, "What? You think I'm not putting on tefillin? Go look in that box over there in the corner of the, of the house, of the room, and open it up." And I opened it up. I saw a beautiful set of tefillin. Then I, "Yeah, but Itche, listen. Even if I tell the Chevra Kadisha that they should bury you in the old cemetery next to this big Tzadik, they're not gonna listen to me. They're gonna say the guy is crazy." So Itche said, "You know what? Here's another box right there in the room. Open it up. You'll find all my writings of Torah and Kabbalah, and you'll show it to the Rav and the Chevra Kadisha, and they'll know that they need to do this." Chaim Chaikel went over to the box. He opened it up, picked up the pages, couldn't believe his eyes. A lot of Kabbalah and deep, deep Yoni of Torah. He realized that Chaim Chaikel was actually... That Itche was nothing else but a Tzadik Nistar, a hidden Tzadik that nobody knew. People thought he was just a Shicker drinking all day, but really he was a very holy man. Four o'clock

11:10 in the morning exactly, that's when his neshama left. I ran to the Rav and the Chevra Kadisha. I showed them the, the, the hands, the handwriting and the papers that I took from, from Itche's house, and I showed them who Itche was, and everybody realized Itche was like a Tzadik Nistar. But he said, "We can't bury him next to this big Tzadik in the old cemetery. The old cemetery is already full. There's no room. That's why we have a new cemetery. We haven't used the old cemetery in many years. There's no room to bury people there." But we decided to go look anyways, and we were so amazed and surprised when we saw that next to this Tzadik that he wanted to be buried, there was actually an empty space. Nobody knows how it happened. Was the space there all along? Did it just happen by a nest? Nobody knows. All they knew is that suddenly there was this, this one little space that they found right next to this Tzadik. The whole city heard about it and it was... Everybody was talking about this. "Wow, Itche the Shicker is a Tzadik Nistar. He knew he has to be buried next to this Tzadik in the old cemetery, and they found a space just for him." And they buried him there. There was a big levaya. Everybody came because everybody realized that nobody knew who he really was. The Rosh Yeshiva of Chayei Olam who told this story, all about him, started crying. He said,

12:33 "This Itche, the shikker, who was a tzadik nistar, when he cursed us and said because we're not going out to help this Jew with his wagon and a horse, we may not be able to walk ourselves later. And I think this is his curse is why I am having problems with my legs and I can't walk." And he cried and cried. Everybody at the wedding cried with him, and they felt bad for him. This is Reb Leib Friedman who told the story to Reb Fol. Reb Folikan was there at the wedding, and he felt terrible. He also felt very bad for the Rosh Yeshiva, and he decided to write to the Rebbe. It was Taf Shin Yud Dalet. He wrote to the Rebbe. He was at a wedding. There was this Rosh Yeshiva, told this terrible story. And Rebbe, please, maybe the Rebbe can daven for him and give a bracha. He got an answer back from the Rebbe to go to the Rosh Yeshiva and tell him that if he promises to learn Chitas every day the way the previous Rebbe instituted and, and made us do it, and he does it every day, and he also tells other people, his talmidim, to do Chitas, then in the zechus of the Friediker Rebbe and following his instructions, the Rebbe promises that he will be able to walk, and he will not have to take off his legs. Reb Leib Friedman said, "I ran to the house of the Rosh Yeshiva. I showed him the

13:55 letter, and he started crying. He got so emotional. He started k- kissing the letter, and he said, 'Please, let me hold the letter for a little while, for, for a few, for a few weeks. I'll give it back to you, but I promise I will do Chitas every day, and I will tell everybody to do it, too.'" Reb Leib says, "I went back to visit the Rosh Yeshiva six months later, and I couldn't believe my eyes. He was sitting at the table. He was walking around like a regular person. He was getting better and better every day." And that's the story that Reb Folikan mentions in his sefer that he heard from Reb Leib Friedman. Zeit gezunt.