114. Meir Frenkel Survived The War, Because His Rebbe Came To Him In A Dream And Saved His Life

00:18 As this story also involves some details that took place during the Holocaust and has some elements that can be possibly frightening to some kids, it is advisable parents listen to it first before they let the kids, the children listen to those things. I- most kids probably wouldn't fear, wouldn't react to it, but there may be some kids that will find it too scary and too frightening, so it's better to, uh, wa- to listen to it first. Hello, kinderlach. We just had yesterday Shabbos Chazon. Shabbos before Tisha B'Av is called Shabbos Chazon. This week is the week of Tisha B'Av. We hope that this year on Tisha B'Av we'll have a Yom Tov. We won't have to fast because Mashiach will come before Tisha B'Av. I wanna share with you a story, also an amazing story that I just read. It has something to do with yesterday, the Shabbos. Yesterday was the Dalet Ov, the fourth of Ov. Dalet Ov is the yortzeit of a Rebbe, of a tzadik. His name was Rebbe Tzion Halberstam. He was known as the Bobover Rov. Unfortunately, he was killed by the Nazis in 1941, Tav Shin Alef, Dalet Ov. As I said to you in the previous story, my neighbor that I knew very well as a child was a Chassid of his and was a student of his and was very close to him. I wanna share with you an incredible story that was told by a Jew whose father was also very close to this Rebbe and,

02:17 um, what he went through and the miracles that he saw. Sometimes even when we are rem- reminding ourselves of Tisha B'Av and the tzaros and the galus and all the destruction that Hashem brought upon us so that we can do teshuva. But even in the midst of all the darkness, Hashem shows sometimes these miracles that people get saved even though it, uh, it makes no sense. The story was told by a Jew by the name Rebbe Tzion Frankel. His father was Meir Frankel. Meir Frankel was a child in the 1920s. That means like 15 years before the war, he was like 12 years old. And he came from Hungary. Hungary, a city called Ratzferd. Ratzferd was a very famous Jewish community with a very famous Rov, the Ratzferter Rov, Reb Sholom Lazero. He was the son of the Sanzerv Rov, the youngest or one of the youngest sons of the Sanzerv Rov. This boy ended up, this Meir Frankel, who was from Ratzferd, ended up... He s- he lived in Hungary. His family lived in Hungary, in Ratzferd, but he ended up in Poland. Somehow he had to travel to Poland, but he got stuck there. He couldn't go back home because the, the government wouldn't give him papers, a visa to go back to his home country. So he got stuck in the city of Bobov. But this Rov, the Rebbe Tzion Halberstam, was the Rov and the Rebbe in that town. He ended up learning in the yeshiva there and became very close

04:00 to the Rov, the Bobover Rov. He learned there for many year, for three, four years. He was bar mitzvah there. He couldn't even go home for his bar mitzvah because it was-- they wouldn't let him go through the, the border into Hungary, so his family couldn't come to him. He had to stay there. Family somewhere else. He had a bar mitzvah only with the people in the yeshiva. That was his bar mitzvah. And he grew up. He became a older bachur, and finally he was let go back to Hungary. He ended up going back to Hungary and learned in some yeshivas there as well until he got married, and he was married for 10 years before the war and didn't have any children. Meir, Meir Frankel was very close all the time to his original Rebbe, the Rebbe from Bobov, because since he started off as a child in Bobov and he became very close to that Rebbe, he always had a connection to him, so he would write letters to him. Sometimes the Bobover Rov would come to Hungary to raise funds for his yeshivas. He had many yeshivas in Poland. Thousands and thousands of bachurim learned in his yeshivas, and he needed money to feed the bachurim, and this Meir was very helpful to him. Meir once got him a huge amount of money that would help the yeshivas really, really, really, um, do very well because it would support the yeshivas really well. The bachurim would have what to eat for a

05:37 long time. It would really help the bachurim learn Torah better. And the Rebbe, the Bobover Rov, was very appreciative of Meir that he did this incredible thing for him. He connected him with a very rich man in Hungary that was willing to give a lot of money to the yeshiva. Now, Meir, who was married, as I said, for 10 years, still didn't have any children. He didn't get a bracha for children. He used to go to his Rebbe. He used to write him all the time to the Bobover Rov, "Rebbe, I need a bracha for children." And the Rebbe would always give him a bracha, but nothing would happen. Now that he saw he did this incredible favor to the Rebbe, the Rebbe was very, very happy w- of what he did. So he said, "Okay, now is an opportunity, a chance for me to go to the Rebbe and ask him, really, I need a, a bracha that works." Right? The bracha still now were just brachas, you know, good wishes, but it didn't work. So he went into the Rebbe's room before the Rebbe left back to Poland and said, "Rebbe, I need a child. I'm 10 years after my wedding." And the Rebbe got very excited, very emotional, and he said to Meir, "Meir, I promise you you'll have a child." These words, "I promise you", that's different than a bracha. You know, a promise and a bracha are two separate things. The Rebbe once told my father, Oliver Shalom, my father...

07:04 He was in Yechidut. My father asked for a bracha. The Rebbe said, "You want a bracha or a promise?" And my father wasn't sure what to say. But the Rebbe offered him, instead of a bracha, a promise. A promise is, is a whole different thing because when the Rebbe gives a promise, it's gonna have to happen. What does it say in the Gemara? Tzadik gozer ve'Hakadosh Baruch Hu mekayem. When a tzadik says it has to happen, then Hashem makes sure it happens. And so, Meir felt very, very good. The Rebbe says not just a bracha, he promises him he'll have a child. So he walked out of the room very happy. He says, "That's it. I know I'm gonna have children." The Rebbe went back to Poland, and then the war broke out. Oi, how terrible it was. Oi, Jews were sent to concentration camps, and there was such terrible times for Jews, as you all know probably from the stories that you have heard before. Meir also ended up being caught by the Germans, by the Nazis. He was put on a train to Auschwitz. But because he had this promise from his Rebbe, he knew that he's gonna have to survive the war because how is he gonna have a child? The Rebbe promised he's gonna have a child, that he must live. So he decided to do a very dangerous thing. When they took the train with all the Jews to, to the concentration camp, to Auschwitz, where they ended up killing

08:36 most of the Jews, he decided to jump out of the train while the train was speeding. It's a very dangerous thing to do. If you fall the wrong way, you can die. Many people tried to jump from the trains in the time of the, of the Holocaust war, and many lost their lives over, over jumping from the trains. Also, the Nazi soldiers, when they saw somebody jumping, they would shoot at him. Many times they, they were able to shoot at them and kill them. He decided he's gonna take a chance. He has a promise of his Rebbe. He jumped out of the train, and he managed to run and run and run and run. They shot at him, but they didn't succeed. He ended up in some town all alone, but then he got caught again. It happened three times. He was put back on the trains until the third time. He was caught again. He jumped off. He was caught again. He was on the train, and he saw there were very few guards on the train. So he took an opportunity, a chance, and he jumped out again. It was in the winter. A lot of snow, freezing cold and, um, f- like maybe a foot of snow. But he jumped anyways. They started shooting at him, but he kept running and running and running. "I have a promise from my Rebbe. I have nothing to worry about. I just need to keep running." And he ran. He ran and ran and ran

09:58 until they stopped shooting because they couldn't reach him. And finally, he kept running for hours and hours. He was exhausted. He came, he saw from a distance a house with a light. So he went closer to that light. Maybe he can find a place where he can get warm because he was freezing. He can freeze, uh... He can die from frost. So he went closer to the house. He sees there's a stable. He didn't want to go into the house because it was a German town, and maybe they'll catch him again. So he decided he'll go into the stable. And there are cows in the stable, and the cows, you know, their bodies are warm, so he'll s-sit between the cows and get a little bit warm. He walks into the stable. He sees there are cows. He gets closer, deeper inside, and he sees a Jew lying on the floor who has been beaten, full of blood on him, and he's unconscious. So he immediately took off his shirt, tore it into pieces, bandaged him up, and washed him off, and brought him back to, to life. His name was Yeshua Katz. This Yeshua Katz told the story later. He also survived the war. But this Meir Frenkel saved his life. Well, what, what happened? This Yeshua Katz was taken by the Nazis to milk cows. You know, sometimes they took a Jew, they needed somebody to work on a farm. They had farms maybe for milk for the soldiers. So they said, "You,

11:29 your job will be to milk cows." As long as he milks cows, they let him live. So he milk cows every day. But one day, one of the Nazis who were in charge of the house and the farm came in dead drunk. He was drunk like Lot. Remember Lot in the Chumash? He was drunk. And he came out drunk and with a big baton, like a big stick, and started beating the Jew till he became unconscious and then he left. So that's-- You see the hashgaha protis. Meir is jumping from a train. He's running away from the Nazis who are shooting at him. He comes to the stable just on time when Yeshua Katz was still alive. He had no idea that he was gonna find a Jew there. He saves his life- Not only that, he realizes that he needs a few days to recover, to get healthy again. So he knew that if he doesn't milk the cows every day, you have to milk cows every day. If the Nazis see that he's not milking the cows because he doesn't have any strength, then they'll send him to concentration camp, and that would be the, the end. So he used to sneak into the farm every day and milk the cows for this Yeshua, so the Nazis wouldn't think that he's not milking the cows, till he saw that Yeshua was strong enough and then he disappeared. Meir disappeared because he was afraid the Nazis are gonna find him here, and they're gonna

12:51 send him back to the concentration camp. He kept running and running and running till he came to a city, a small town, Ger- in Germany, and he felt sick. He started feeling very sick. You know, in those days there was a type of illness that used to spread amongst many people in Europe. It's called typhus. Typhus is a dangerous illness, you could die from it. He felt... He usually get a high fever, and it's a dangerous illness. He felt he had a high fever, and he had typhus, and he kept going and going, but he didn't know where he's going because he had nowhere to go. But he just kept walking in the city, on the street, and then he collapsed. He fainted because he had so much fever, he couldn't walk. The German people that lived in the town saw a person lying on the ground. They looked at him, they saw he must be Jewish. So they had in that town a hospital just for Jews. The Germans made a special hospital, it wasn't a real hospital, it was like a tent or something, for Jews and gypsies. You know, the Nazis, they hated Jews, but also hated gypsies. Gypsies are a type of tribe, a non-Jewish. Not Jews, they're, they're, they're just like goyim that live in the streets. In Europe, there was a lot of those people. So they used to have a hospital just for Jews and gypsies, which they used to treat very badly. So the German people found

14:16 Reb Meir on the floor. They picked him up and put him in that, in that hospital. And Meir is lying on the bed with a high fever, and he can't think straight. He can't move. He has no strength, and he falls asleep. And as he falls asleep, he sees in his dream his Rebbe, the Bobov Rebbe. It would-- It seems that the Bobov Rebbe at that time was already an Olam Haemes. As I told you before, he was killed by the Nazis in 1941. This must have happened much later during the war. But he sees his Rebbe in the dream, and he says to him, "Meir, I have a question for you. What does it mean when it says... We say in the Shema: 'וְהָיָה אִם שָׁמַעְתָּ לִשְׁמֹר אֶת מִצְוֺתָי'" That if you listen to my mitzvahs, Hashem says, "I'll give you all the good things." "And Chas ve'Shalom, if you worship idols or you do the wrong thing, וְחָרָה אַף יְהוָה בָכֶם. Hashem's anger will be aroused against you." He said, "What does that mean?" The Rebbe asks Meir in the dream, and Meir begins to cry hysterically in the dream. He says, "Rebbe, we've never seen Hashem so angry in history. Look what's going on. They're killing millions of Jews." And he's sobbing and crying, and the Rebbe says to him, "Ah, I, I interpret it differently. וְחָרָה אַף יְהוָה. Even when Hashem's anger is aroused very strongly, בָכֶם, He's still with you. Hashem is always with the Jewish people, even in the

15:55 darkest times." And then he says to him, "Meir, you should know you're in an imminent danger. There's a danger in this place where you are now. You must get up and leave right away." Meir wakes up. He couldn't believe his dreams. It was an incredible dream. And he thinks to himself, "The Rebbe says I have to leave, but I can't even move my hand, my arm. I'm so weak. I can't even move my... Who talks about getting up? It's not possible." So he's thinking, "What should I do? But the Rebbe says I have to leave." So he's thinking and thinking, and he's falling asleep again, and the Rebbe comes back. And this time the Rebbe is angry with him and scolds him and yells at him. He says, "I told you, leave now. You're in very imminent danger. You must leave at once, this second." He wakes up, and he realizes this is serious business. Twice, twice in a row, the Rebbe came and told him that he must leave. He says he pushed himself out of bed, literally had to crawl on all four on his hands and feet because he couldn't walk straight, and snuck out of the hospital. He even crossed the street to the other side and saw an abandoned house with a fence that had a breach on the bottom where he can go sneak under the fence. Went into that abandoned house, and the house was empty, and looked out of the window, and then five minutes later, he

17:24 sees the Nazis came. They surrounded the building. They set it on fire, and everybody there, nobody survived. He saw that the Rebbe saved his life. In other words, the Rebbe gave him a promise when he was alive, and he made sure that the promise will come true even after he passed away, coming in a dream and telling him when to leave. To make a long story short, Meir ended up surviving the war. He came back. His wife that he was married to for more than ten years... Now it's 15 years. Five years later, she had been killed by the Nazis. He remarried, and he had two sons, and one of the sons told that story Kinderlach, one of the things that the Hasidis teaches us, that Semach Zedek tells us that even in the most terrible times for the Jewish people, like Tisha B'Av, the time when we remember the most saddest and most difficult times that we Jews had to have, we have to know that Hashem is with us. "V'cho ahav Hashem bochem." But Hasidis says more, that Semach Zedek says, "Not only is Hashem with us even in the most difficult times when we suffer so much." You say, "Where's Hashem? Why doesn't he save us?" Hashem is there. Not only that says Semach Zedek, the love Hashem has for us then is greater than the love that Hashem has for us in the time of the Beis Hamikdash, when everything is good, and we don't have any suffering. We only have

19:07 great things. The love of Hashem for us when we suffer is even greater then. And when Mashiach comes, we'll see that greater love that was hidden in a time of suffering and time of darkness. This time of the year, right before Tisha B'Av, we have to remember, yes, we are reminding ourselves of the terrible times when Jews suffered so much, but we have to remember also these are the times when Hashem revealed his greatest love for us. You wanna understand it better? I'll give you a mashal. You know, when a child... A, a father and a son, a parent and a child, or a mother and a child, when the child is having a hard time and suffering, then the, the parent feels a stronger love for the child. They feel sorry for the child, a stronger... That's one thing. Same thing with Hashem. We're like Hashem's children. When we suffer, Hashem feels stronger love for us. But there's another thing. What do you think is harder for a parent? Is it harder for a parent to give the children candy and everything, everything their children want and make them happy, or is it harder for a parent, more uncomfortable for them to punish their child when the child cries? Which one is harder for the parent to do? Causing the child to be happy, give them what they like, or causing them to cry and give them a punishment because they want them to get better. Which one is harder for the parent? Everybody

20:39 understands for the parent, the hardest thing is to make the child unhappy and to punish them. 'Cause every parent who loves their child wants their child to be happy and have what they want, have what they need. No parent likes the child to be unhappy. So why does the parent then make him a punishment which causes their child to cry and to feel bad? Because the parent loves the child so much that he wants to make the child better, and he knows sometimes he have to punish him. So the parent is willing to be uncomfortable and to be pained. It's hurtful to the parent to watch the child cry, but he's willing to be pained by watching the child cry because he loves the child so much that he's willing to even endure pain. See, this is a, a mashal of how davka in the times of suffering, time of galus, the love of Hashem is much greater for us. And we hope very soon Hashem will reveal that great love that is hidden specifically in the times of darkness, the time of misery and suffering and galus, and then these days will be transformed, will be changed around into Yomim Tovim, the happy days.