121. The Jew Who Made A Peace Treaty With Hashem

00:16 Kinderlech, Selichos. We're in the days of saying Selichos. It's a very, very special time of the year, right, very close to Rosh Hashanah. As you know that the first day of Selichos, we actually say Selichos at night, not in the morning. All the other days of Selichos we say during the morning before davening. But the first time we say Selichos is Motzaei Shabbos, and there we say it at night, after midnight. There's a story of the first Belzer Rebbe, the Belzer Rav. His name was Reb Shalom. Shalom lived about two hundred and fifty years ago in the city of Belz, small town in Poland. And in Belz, there was a little, it was a little town, and, uh, there was a tailor that lived at l- at the edge of the city. He was a simple man who for the... You know, for a period of time, nobody saw him in shul. He never came to shul. He kept for himself. He was Jewish, but he didn't-- He-- We didn't see him in shul. We didn't see him come daven with everybody. He lived at the very-- almost outside the city in a little house. And people hadn't seen him actually for a few years already. He wouldn't come to shul. He wouldn't do anything Jewish. Nobody saw him doing anything Jewish. He, like, kept completely outside the Jewish community, didn't do anything with the Jewish people. It was the night of Selichos, and the Belzer Rav said to his shamash, "I wanna go and

02:02 take the wagon and the horse and wagon. I wanna ride to the house of this tailor. I wanna j- not-- I wanna go into the house. I don't wanna go into the house. I just wanna peek through the window what he's doing now. I'm curious what's going on in his house." And so the, the Rebbe's gabbai, the Rebbe's shamash, told the wagon driver and told him, "Come, the Rebbe wants to take a ride." And they got into the wagon. They took a ride and got to the edge of the city, and there was the little house of the tailor. The Rebbe got off the wagon together with his shamash, and he approached the window, and he looked inside, and he sees that the tailor is sitting at the head of the table, and there's a cup of vodka s-standing in front of him. And in the other end of the table, there's also a cup of vodka, but there's nobody sitting there. The tailor is all alone in the room, and he takes the cup of vodka in front of him and raises it up, and he starts raising his highs-- his eyes towards Shamaim, towards Hashem, towards the heavens. And he lifts his eyes up while he's sitting in his chair, and he's mumbling a few words. He couldn't hear from outside what he was saying. And then when he finished speaking, he took the cup of vodka and gulped it down, a big cup of ninety-six percent vodka. Do you know how strong

03:33 that is? One sip can make you totally drunk. He drank the whole cup. Then he finished drinking the cup. He licked his lips to make sure he got every drop inside. And then he got up and went to the other side of the table and sat down there next to the other cup. Again, he took that cup, too, and said a few words, and then he took that cup and gulped it down. He drank it, the whole thing up, every drop of it. And that's it. Nobody could hear what he was saying. It was a very strange thing. Nobody understood what was going on here. But the Rav said, "Okay, I saw enough. Let's go back home." And they rode back home. The next morning, they come in shul, and the Belzer Hasidim, they say Selichos even on the first day in the morning. They don't do it at night like we do. Most Jews in the world do s- the first night of Selichos at night, and the other days we do in the morning. But i- in the-- But the Belzer, they do it in the morning, always in the morning, even the first day. They do it Sunday morning. So in the morning for Selichos in the city of Belz, a lot of people came, gathered in the shul where the Rav is-- the Rebbe-- the Belzer Rav is gonna come for Selichos. And suddenly, people were surprised to see this tailor who never came to-- who hasn't come to shul in

04:58 many years is actually showing up in shul. People were wondering what is happening. Suddenly, he's showing up in shul. What, what's ha- what's going on? Anyways, after Selichos and after davening, the gabbai of the Rebbe went over to him and said, "Listen, do you know that last night the Rav wanted to see what you're doing? And I went with him, and we watched through the window, and we saw you sitting by the table with a cup of vodka, a big cup full of vodka, and you were saying some words we couldn't understand. We couldn't hear what you were saying. And then you gulped it down, and then you went to the other side of the table and sat down over there and take the same cup, took another cup, and, and, and, and drank it again. What, what was going on?" He answered like this: "You see, I'm a tailor. Hashem blessed me, gave me berachos. I had good-- made a good living. I used to be very religious, used to daven and learn and do all the mitzvahs the way Hashem said. I'm not a learned man. I don't know how to learn. I'm not very knowledgeable. I'm an am ha'aretz, but I, I do whatever I can. I did whatever I could And Hashem gave me, uh, a lot of mazel, a lot of hatslacha and success, and I, I got a lot of contracts. You know, I'm a tailor, so this pritz came to me, and he need his wife and daughters

06:20 need dresses for a wedding, so I, I made, made all the dresses for them, and I made a lot of money from that. Then he needed a suit, and then his sons needed a suit. Then another pritz heard from him that I'm a very good tailor, so he also wanted me to make the suits and the clothing for his family. And pretty soon, all the pritzim in the area, in Poland, right, all around the, the, the, the, the city of Belz, they all came to me, and I made a very good living. I made a lot of money. I made... There was... I was very comfortable. And I was, "Thank you." I thanked Hashem. I said, "Hashem, you know what? I'm gonna say extra Tehillim, you know, in, in exchange because You were so nice to me, I'm gonna do more things. I'm gonna daven extra. I'm gonna say every day, like, 10 Kapitelach Tehillim, right? Because I'm so grateful for You, for blessing me with, with hatslacha, you know?" But then something happened. One pritz decided that he found another tailor that he thinks is better than me, and he's no lon- no longer hiring me to do his clothes for his family. And I got very upset because that was a lot of money, because he used to make by me all his clothing from all his family, and, and I, I got a lot of money from that, but now I'm losing that money. So I got very upset, and I said

07:36 to Hashem, "Why is this happening to me? I, I've been increasing my davening, my learning, doing better because You have been so nice to me, but now You're taking away my parnasa." And I said to Hashem, "You know what? I, I, I, I... From now on, I'm gonna say only five Kapitelach Tehillim. Instead of 10 Kapitelach, I'm gonna say five Kapitelach. I'm gonna... Less, I'm gonna do less now because You took away some of my parnasa." And then a few months later, another pritz said the same thing. "Oh, yeah." Well, he heard maybe from the first pritz there's a better tailor. "We'll go with the other guy." So I lost more of my money. Now he's also not using me anymore. So I said, "Hashem, okay, now I'm not saying Tehillim anymore. I'm dropping the, the other five Kapitelach as well. I'm not saying them either now because You're taking away my parnasa." Then a few months went by, and another pritz dropped me. And I said, "Hashem, now I'm not gonna daven. I'm just gonna put on tefillin and say Shema Yisrael, and that's it." And then another pritz dropped me, and I said, "Hashem, I'm not putting on tefillin anymore." And then another pritz, and pretty soon I said, "Hashem, I'm not doing any mitzvahs anymore. You're being mean to me, so I'm gonna be mean to You. I'm not gonna do mitzvahs." He was a very simple man, you know? For him, Hashem was like his best... His, his friend. But if

08:50 a friend messes up with you and, and, and doesn't do what... Doesn't, doesn't help you, then, then you, you, you know, you do the same to him. So came Selichos last night when your Rebbe, Reb Mendel, came to see through the window what happened in the room. I'll tell you what happened. I decided it's enough. You know, I've hurt Hashem. Hashem has hurt me. We gotta make up. It's coming, Rosh Hashanah is coming. It's Selichos. So I decided that I'm gonna make a peace treaty with Hashem. We're gonna sit down and drink a l'chaim and make up. Make up. I'll forgive Hashem, and He'll forgive me, and we'll be friends again, and I'll be davening and learning and doing all the mitzvahs again, and He'll give me parnasa again. So I got together, we made like a little farbrengen. I had l'chaim in front of me. I put the other cup at the other side of the table. This was Hashem's cup. And I said, "Hashem, from now on, let bygones be bygones. My... Whatever happened in the past, let's forget about it. Let's forgive each other. And from now on, I'll be a good Jew. I'll do whatever I need to do, what You want me to do, and You will be nice to me. You'll give me parnasa again." And I said, "L'chaim, Hashem." And I drank up the cup. Then I sat there. I knew Hashem is not gonna drink His cup, so I decided to go myself to the other side,

10:13 and I said, "I'll drink it for Hashem. I'll drink His cup. Since Hashem is not drinking it, I'll drink it for Him." So I went to the other side and said, "Hashem, here, this is Your cup. Again, l'chaim. L'chaim to a new year where we're gonna be friends, and we're each gonna do what, what the other one wants." And he drank up the cup. He says, "I decided that's it. It's a new day, and I started a new relationship with Hashem. I'm here in shul now." Then the Gabai went over to the Belzer Rav and told him the whole story. That what they saw last night, this is the story of what happened inside the room. 'Cause the Belzer Rav couldn't hear, so he told him the whole thing, that, that this Jew, this tailor told him. And the Belzer Rav says, "Ah, now I understand something. Motzei Shabbos last night, I, I heard a commotion in Shamayim, in the heavens. Malachim were getting all excited. Everybody said they w- I asked, 'Where are Malachim going? Where are you people rushing?' 'They're rushing to see what this tailor is doing in his house.' There was big excitement. The Shomayim, the Malachim, everybody wanted to see what this Jew is gonna do. And I said, 'What? This tailor? Ev- all the Malachim wanna see what this tailor is doing tonight? I also wanna see.' So I went, and I saw, but I couldn't understand. But now that I know the whole story, I understand that in

11:35 Shamayim, they, they love when a Yid is really sincere and with an emes, so is emesdik, says to Hashem, 'Hashem...' You know, he was a simple man. Obviously, he was a little bit very simple, and he didn't fully understand what Hashem is and so on, but he meant it, right? He said it with his whole heart, and therefore Hashem s- said, 'Wow, this is a Jew who really means it. He wants to do the right thing. He wants to do teshuva, and therefore I will give him brochos for the next year.'" A shana tova u’metuka, a year of, of blessing and sweetness.