118. The Tailor That Ate Treif Food All His Life Yet Went Straight To Gan Eden.

00:16 Shalom Aleichem, kinderlach. We're in the month of Elul, and the 10th of Elul is the yahrtzeit of a great tzadik. His name was Reb Pinchas of Koretz. Reb Pinchas of Koretz was a talmid of the Baal Shem Tov and a friend of the Mizrachi Maggid. The Alter Rebbe considered him one of his teachers, one of his rebbes. Alter Rebbe spent a little time by Reb Pinchas Koretz and learned from him how to serve Hashem. So Reb Pinchas-- The story goes like this. Reb Pinchas Koretz lived for a while in a city called Ostra. Ostra, there was a rav, a great tzadik, whose name was Reb Yeva. Um, Reb Pinchas Koretz never went to a funeral, to a levaya. That was his minhag. He gave a reason which is hard to understand. He says why he doesn't go to a levaya, although it's a big mitzvah to go halvayot ha'mes, to accompany, uh, the mes, the dead person, where you take him to the graveside to be buried in the Beit Hakeveros, in the cemetery. It's a mitzvah to s- to walk with the mes all the way to his place where they bury him. But he didn't go. He says-- He said something like, "I don't see the person in the bed when they carry him. I ca- I can't see him." Not sure what that means, but that's what he would say. He would never go. Once a man died in Ostra. The man was a tailor. He was a well-known tailor, but he

01:59 was well-known not for good reasons. He was well-known because he was a big rosha. He did a lot of averot, a lot of averot. He did averot like eating treif because his business to make clothes-- He was a tailor, so he made clothes. So the pritsim, you know the poritz, the big poritz? There were a lot of pritsim in the whole area. They would invite him to their palace that he would make clothes for them and for their wives and children. And they would invite him to their palace, and they would offer him food, and he would eat it because his yetzer hara was very big, and he didn't know how to say no, right? "I'm a Jew. I'm not supposed to eat treif." He didn't feel comfortable saying that, so he would eat the food until he ate it once, twice, three times, until it became normal for him to eat treif food. And everybody knew in the city that this tailor eats treif food. He's-- does many averot because he does business with all these goyim, the pritsim. So when he died, there was a minhag in, in Ostra that whenever a person died, the shamash of the community, the shamash of the shul, would go from door to door to all the houses and knock on the door and say, "There's a levaya. Somebody just died." And people would come because it's a mitzvah to go escort the, the body to the, to the graveside. And he also-- this shamash, when the,

03:31 when the tailor died, he went and knocked on all the doors. He also knocked on the door of the Reb Pinchas Koretz. Reb Pinchas Koretz said, "What's going on?" And the shamash said, "Oh, somebody died, and the levaya is gonna be today." He says, "Who died?" Reb Pinchas asked. And the shamash said, "It's that tailor, you know, that famous tailor who's a, he's a rosha, a bad person, does so many averot. It's his levaya." Reb Pinchas says, "Oh, his levaya? Can you tell me when the levaya starts? Because I'd like to come. I'd like to participate and be in his levaya." The shamash was so shocked. He knew that Reb Pinchas never went to any levayas for whatever reason. He had a reason. And here he goes. He says, "No, no, no. I wanna know when the levaya starts. I wanna come and be part of the levaya, go and walk together with everybody to give kavod, respect to the person, the person that died." So the shamash said, "Good. I'll, I'll let you know." You know, and he went also to other s- houses and knocked on the doors. Then he came to the rav's house, Reb Yeva, the great tzadik, Reb Yeva, and, and knocked on his doors too. And he said, "You know, the tailor just died. We're going to bury him. The levaya is gonna be today, and we'd, we'd like the rav to know." And Reb Yeva says, um, and, and the man says to Reb Yeva, "I was just

05:02 by Reb Pinchas Koretz, and when I told him that this tailor died, he says he wants to come to the levaya even though he never goes to any levaya." So Reb Yeva said, "Oh, Reb Pinchas Koretz wants to go to this levaya? I'm also gonna go. I wanna see what's gonna happen." Why does he wanna go to this levaya? This man was a rosha. Why does he wanna g-- why does he wanna give him so much honor? So when the levaya came, it started. They sent a messenger, a messenger to Reb Pinchas and to Reb Yeva. They said, "The levaya is starting." And Reb Pinchas came to the levaya and also did Reb Yeva. And they went all the way to the cemetery, and they buried this person. On the way back, Reb Yeva turns to Reb Pinchas and says, "What, what's the reason you wanted to go to his levaya? He's such a-- does so many averot." And Reb Pinchas says, "I'll tell you this story. A few years ago, there was a choson and a kallah that were supposed to get married here in Ostroh. And the choson was promised by the family of the kallah that they will buy him a new tallis, which is the cha- the, the minhag, the custom that when a choson gets married, the kallah is the one that buys him a beautiful new tallis. And this choson never got a tallis, and the chuppah was that day, and he says, 'I'm not getting a tallis. And

06:39 they had promised me a tallis.' But they didn't have any money. They were very poor, so they couldn't afford to buy him a tallis. So the choson said, 'Well, if there's no tallis, I'm not going to the chuppah. I'm not gonna get married. She's gonna be stuck.' And so the people started begging him, the choson, to please go to the chuppah. 'We'll try to fundraise. We're gonna ask people to give money, and we're gonna buy you a tallis after the chasuna, after the wedding. Don't, don't hold up the chuppah because of this.' And he said, 'No, no, no, no, no. I am very insulted. I was promised a tallis, and I wasn't given the tallis. I'm not going to the chuppah.' Oy, there was so much trouble now. Everybody was waiting. The kallah was waiting. The kallah was crying. 'What's going on? Why am I being... Why am I have-- why do I have to wait? What's wrong with this choson?' And Reb Pinchas Koritz saw what was happening. He said, 'Oy, I gotta act quickly. I wanna make sure I'm getting him a tallis quickly.' You know, when he says how, he said-- Reb Pinchas tells the story to Reb Yechiel, 'I went around from door to door. It was late at night already. The chuppah was gonna be very late, but they got delayed, so it was very late. I'm going knocking on doors, ask people to give money. And I came to-- uh, I saw that most people, their houses were already

08:00 dark. You couldn't get in, people went to sleep. But I saw one light coming from a little shop, and I went over. I saw it was the tailor. He's still working. I said to the tailor, "Listen, I came to fundraise to help a couple getting married because the choson didn't get his tallis, and he doesn't wanna get married without a tallis." So the tailor gave me, he said, "Okay, half a ruble." So I said, "Okay, I'll go to the next person, the next person till I get enough money." But as I'm leaving the, the, the shop, the, the, the-- where the tailor was sitting, and I was rather opening the door, ready to leave, the tailor calls me back. He says to me, "Rebbe, I have a question for you. If I give you the money for the whole tallis, will I go to Olam Haba? Can you promise me I'll go to Olam Haba to-- for doing such a big mitzvah to help a choson and kallah?"' And Reb Pinchas Koritz says, 'I told him, "Yes. I promise you you'll go to Olam Haba."' He said to Reb Pinchas, 'I wanted to see what's gonna happen at the levaya.' When he died, a, a few years later, he died, and I said, "I wanna go to the levaya because I promised him he'll go to Olam Haba for doing this amazing mitzvah." So I wanted to see what's gonna happen at the levaya. You know, Reb Pinchas Koritz was a big tzadik. He could

09:32 see malachim. He could see good malachim, bad malachim. He could see spiritual things, right? He was a big tzadik. So he said, "I wanna go to the levaya to see what's gonna happen." Not just what's gonna happen with the people that are there, with the malachim that come to the levaya and those that are in charge of, you know, taking care of this person. You know, when a person dies, malachim come and take their neshamah to the Beis Hamikdash, to the Beis Hamikdash. So I wanted to see what's gonna happen. So I went to the levaya, and I saw they had wrapped him in a tallis. You know when a person dies, if it's a man, you take his tallis that he davened in, and they put him-- they wrap him in the tallis. That's how they bury the person. So they wrapped him in a tallis, and I saw that because of the tallis and the tzitzit, because of the tallis, it was protecting him. And the bad malachim that wanted to grab the neshamah and, and take it to, and, and, and punish him, they couldn't get to him because the tallis was, was stopping them. But I saw that the bad malachim were standing in front of him, in front of the, you know, in front of the levaya where people were carrying him, um, the body, they were carrying him. And in front of it, there were mali-- these bad malachim hanging around. So I decided to walk in front of

10:52 the coffin, in front of the, the, the bed where the, the dead person was, the tailor, and I drove away all the bad malachim.' And he said, 'This is to show how great it is to do one mitzvah. Sometimes the one mitzvah is very hard. To give 16 ruble was a lot of money, but the tailor did it anyways. And in that zechus, he went straight to Olam Haba.'