128. The Noda Biyehudah With His Cleverness Catches Someone With A Lie

00:15 Shalom Aleichem, kindalech. I know last week I didn't have a story. So today I'll tell you a couple of stories all about the same person, about the same tzadik, the same gaon. Today I'll tell you a little bit about the Noam Eliahu. The Noam Eliahu was Rabbi Cheskel Landau. He wrote a Sefer called Noam Eliahu. He's very, very well known. He was a gaon, one of the greatest geonim of his time, and still today, people are still learning his Seferim. He was in the time of the Baal Shem Tov. He was against the Baal Shem Tov. He was Menaget, Misnaged. And the-- but-- and yet the Baal Shem Tov said great things about him, and he didn't like it when people were saying na-nasty things about the Noam Eliahu. On the contrary, he said that he's a great man and that his Torah is protecting at least a third of the world. A third of the world exists in the zechus of the Noam Eliahu's Torah learning. So Noam Eliahu was a great man, a great tzadik, but he didn't understand the Hasidim well, and he was against them. Now, the, um... There was a story that the daughter of the Noam Eliahu, uh, needed to have children. She didn't have children. And she asked her father to daven for her, and it didn't work. He, he, he tried to daven for her as much-- as many times as he could. She didn't have children. So then she heard that the Baal Shem Tov does

01:51 moifim, miracles. But she knew that her father was against the Baal Shem Tov, so she secretly traveled to the Baal Shem Tov and asked the Baal Shem Tov to give her a bracha. Baal Shem Tov gave her a bracha, and she had a child. She then told her father the truth, that she went to the Baal Shem Tov, and that's why she had a child. So the father said, "Well, I'm not convinced it's because of his bracha. Maybe you would have had a child anyways. And maybe it's because I davened. How do I know it's because of him?" But she kept traveling secretly to the Baal Shem Tov. And one time she was by the Baal Shem Tov. It was Friday night, and the Baal Shem Tov, uh, washed for the meal, washed for challah. It was Friday night after Kiddush. And he said suddenly after he made hamotzi, "Oi, there's a candle, a light from the West." The West is Eretz Yisrael. We call it the West because it's the west of Babel. There's a very big light in the West, in Eretz Yisrael, that just was extinguished, be-- went out. And people didn't understand what he meant. He probably meant that some tzadik was Nistalak, he was Niftar, he passed away now. But nobody knew what he was mea-- what he meant. And after Shabbos... It wasn't after Shabbos. After two weeks, 'cause it took a long time for the news to travel, came the news that the Or HaChaim, Rab Chaim Ben

03:35 Attar, the great tzadik Or HaChaim, some people call him Or HaChaim Hakadosh, passed away that Shabbos, and the Baal Shem Tov felt it, beruch Hakodesh. The daughter of the Noam Eliahu was there by the Baal Shem Tov at the time when this happened, and everybody was, um, was very impressed. Also, Motzaei Shabbos, the Baal Shem Tov right away tore his clothes and made kilayim, and people still didn't know why. They knew that somebody must have passed away in Eretz Yisrael, but they didn't know why. So he, um... Later on, two weeks later, the news came all the way from Eretz Yisrael that the Or HaChaim Hakadosh had passed away that Shabbos, and of course, on Shabbos you can't tear your clothes. You can't show aveilus, right? You can't show that you're mourning on Shabbos, especially tearing clothes you can't on Shabbos. So he waited till Motzaei Shabbos and tore his clothes. So when she went back to her father, she told her father what she had seen. Uh, he's such a Menaget, Misnaged with the Baal Shem Tov. She saw the Baal Shem Tov's ruach Hakodesh. And her father didn't believe the Baal Shem Tov was ruach Hakodesh. So she told him the story: "I saw him tearing his clothes because the Or HaChaim Hakadosh passed away." And two weeks later, they found out that he passed away. How did he know? So the father said, "Well, I don't know how he knew, but he was wrong, because the Halakha is that when somebody, a

05:12 great tzadik, a great leader of the generation, is Nistalak and passes away, you're not supposed to tear your clothes unless you're in the room with him. You're in the room where he passes away. But if you're far away, you're not supposed to, to tear your clothes." So when she went back the next time to the Baal Shem Tov, she told the Baal Shem Tov what her father said. The father said that he was doing not according to Halakha, 'cause he was in, in, in Mezhibezh in Europe, and the Or HaChaim Hakadosh passed away in Yerushalayim. And you can't-- If you, if you're far away from where the person dies, you can't-- you don't tear your clothes. So the Baal Shem Tov said, "Tell your father I was there." That means great tzadikim, even though they can be physically in one place, they can also be in another place at the same time. As we know from many stories of tzadikim. Anyway, this is just, uh, an introduction so you understand the relationship of the Netziv of Yehuda with the Baal Shem Tov. The Netziv Yehuda, um, was a very, very, um, sharp person. He was very smart, very smart, but he had a lot of people that were against him. When he came, he became a Rav of Prague as a very young man. Prague had many, many big talmidei chachamim who felt that they could be Rabbonim, they could be the Rav of Prague. Why did they have to bring some young Rav from

06:48 another city? 'Cause the Netziv came from another city, and they brought him to Prague, and Prague was a very famous city with a lot of big chachamim and gaonim. Why'd they have to bring him? So they tried... Some of them, some of the people, tried to prove that the Netziv Yehuda is not such a big talmid chacham, and that he can make mistakes. People will ask him shailas and halacha, and he will give an answer, and the, the answer won't be right. So once there was a bris that a very rich person, an important rich person in the community, had a bris, and he made a big seudah, a big meal in his house for the, for the bris. And they invited the Netziv Yehuda, the Rav of the city, and all the Rabbonim, and all the Gaonim, Talmidei Chachamim, everybody came to the bris. These people that were against the Netziv Yehuda, and they always wanted to show everybody in the city their Rav is not a talmid chacham, and they should really not keep him as a Rav. They should send him away. So they prepared a very complicated shailah. They were gonna pretend that they had a shailah, and they took a bone of a chicken, or of an animal, and they showed that it was broken a little bit and, and they wanted to know if it's treif or the kosher. Right? You have to know the halachas. Very complicated halachas to know whether, in this case, the bone is broken

08:11 this way, that means that the behemoth is treif, and if it's broken a different way, the behemoth is kosher. They made sure to make a very complicated case that is very, very, very, very not clear. Hard to know whether it's kosher or they're not kosher. So this way, they would make the Netziv Yehuda make a mistake. He would say the wrong psak, and then they'll prove to him that he's wrong, and everybody will watch this at the bris. It will be public, in front of everyone, and they will embarrass him. And then people will realize that they brought a Rav who is not very knowledgeable, not, not such a big chacham. So they prepared it, and when the Netziv Yehuda walked into the bris, people came out with a, with a bone, says, "Rav, Rav, we need to ask you a shailah. Something happened. Um, you know, we have... This is the bone of a, of an animal that we found, and it was broken when we shechted it. After we shechted it, we took out the bone, we saw it was broken. Do you think it's... The behemoth is kosher or not? Can we eat the meat of this behemoth, or can we not eat the meat of this behemoth?" And the Netziv Yehuda looked at it and thought for a moment, and he said, "Yeah, it's mutar. You can eat the meat." Uh, so then the talmidei chachamim that were there that didn't like him started attacking him with, with, with arguments, saying,

09:33 "How could you say this? There's a Meforash of Shulchan Aruch that says this, and there's a Rashi that says this, and, and the Taz says this, and the Shach says this." And they brought proofs from all kinds of places that he's wrong. And the Netziv Yehuda listened, listened patiently, and because he was an, a, a ish emes, he was a true person, he didn't... You know, when he saw, heard the truth, he was willing to admit that he made a mistake, right? He was a, a person of truth. So he t- he thought about it, that they were right. He said, "You know what? You're right." He said, "I shou- I should have, uh... You know what? I made a mistake. The behemoth is treif." As soon as he admitted, uh, the, these, uh, people that were against him made a big commotion and, um, and, and, and you know, th- th- th- "Look, the Rav made a big mistake." And then they, they found other things, other shailahs. They also tried to ask him questions. And again, they tried to make sure that he makes a mistake, and then they told everybody, "Tell me, you're a Rav. You're making such mistakes. You don't have the answer to questions, shailahs people ask. A Rav is supposed to know the answers." So Netziv Yehuda realized that they were trying to trap him and to make him look bad. So he said to them like this: "You're right. A Rav has to be a Yid who learned

10:57 Torah day and night, and he learned everything. He knows all the halachas, and he's f- has yiras Hashem, yiras Shamayim on him, that Hashem, he never makes a mistake. And, um, because he's a Rav, he has special help min Hashamayim from Hashem that he should say the right thing. Hashem protects and gives help to a Rav that because he's trying to help a whole community to know what to do, what not to do, that the Hashem helps him, that when he, you know, has this very difficult shailah and he has to go look into the Meforshim, into the different sources, that he will come up with the right answer. But this help a Rav has, a real legitimate Rav, if he's a real Rav, a Rav who's w- worthy of being a Rav. But that's only true if the shailah's a real shailah. Never mind there was actually a story like this, right? They shechted a behemoth, and they found such a bone, and now they wanna know whether that means the behemoth is kosher or they're treif. But what if people just are acting and pretending that such a story happened? It never happened. They just set it up just to embarrass him." Since it's not relevant, it's not real, nobody needs to know because it didn't really happen. So then you don't have that special help from Hashem. Hashem is only helping the Rav because Hashem doesn't want the Rav to give the wrong psak to a Jew, and then he's gonna eat

12:27 the wrong thing. He's gonna eat treif because the Rav made a mistake, so Hashem helps him that it shouldn't happen. But if it's just a set up, and they pretend that such a story happened, it never happened, so it's possible for the Rav to make a mistake. That's what he answered him. The Rebbe told that story many times, that the Rav has special assistance from Shamayim, that if they ca-- ask him a difficult shailah, and he tries very hard to answer it, that his answer will be right. Now here comes a very clever story that shows how the Netziv of Yeshivat Volozhin, when he settled in Prague, there were many people from the community that came with, with arguments and fights about business, about money. You know a Rav has to come up with a psak, with an answer, who is right and who is wrong. So the story goes like this. Once, there was a man from Prague, a poor man, who needed money, so he decided to travel to Hungary, to another country, 'cause Prague is in Czechoslovakia. He traveled to Hungary to raise money, so he would have enough money to feed his family. So he traveled there and stayed there for a few weeks, for a few months. And after a few months, he, he had enough money, he thought he was gonna come back to Prague. While he's walking in the streets of the city where he's in, in Hungary, he sees that there's a man from Prague that's in

13:54 the street. He wa-- runs over to him and says, "Oh, Moshe." Moshe was a very rich man. He was a big businessman. He used to do business with wine. Uh, he used to buy barrels of wine in Hungary. Hungary had a lot of vineyards, a lot of good wine, so people would go travel to Hungary to buy the wine, big barrels of wine. They would bring it back in their wagon all the way back to Czechoslovakia, to Prague, and he would sell the wine over there to the Jewish community. He sees this wine businessman that he's walking there in the city, and he says, "Oh, are you going back by any chance to Prague anytime soon so I can catch a ride with you?" So the-- Moshe says, "Yeah, sure. Of course. No problem. I'm leaving tomorrow morning." So this, this poor man who just came here for a little bit to, to raise money said, "Oh, great. I'll go together with Moshe." Next morning, they go into the wagon, and it's a long trip, and the wagon is full of barrels of wine which Moshe had bought in Hungary. And our poor man is sitting in the back, and Moshe is sitting in the front. And in the front, all the way in the front, the one who was, uh, you know, whipping the horses was a goy who was the balagola, right? The wagon driver. Now, the poor man had a whole bundle of money that he collected for so many months, and

15:18 he wanted to hide it somewhere, so during the trip it shouldn't get stolen. So he sees a barrel of wine and decided to put it, um, right next to a ba-- between two barrels of wine, like hiding it, tuck it in between two barrels of wine so nobody would see it there. They travel and travel, and they arrive in Prague, and the poor man is very thankful to Moshe for giving him a ride, and he's trying to go and get his money. But when he looks there, he sees it's not there. It's gone. So the man turns to Moshe, the businessman. He says, "Moshe, you and I were sitting here in, in the back half of the wagon, and my money's gone. So w-what do you think happened?" In other words, he was saying, "I am suspicious that you took my money." Moshe is, like, very insulted. "What do you think, I would steal your money? Everybody knows me in Prague. I'm a very important person. I give a lot of tzedakah. I'm a rich man. Everybody respects me. You think I would steal your money? How can you even think that?" But the poor man is not happy. He says, "Well, let's go to the Rav." And they went to the Netziv, and the Netziv said to Moshe, "You gotta come to the Beth Din because somebody's, um, having a charge against you. He's, he's saying that you stole his money." Moshe came, was very insulted. He says, "Rav, how can he accuse me

16:49 of stealing his money? I never... I would-- Why would I even do such a thing? You know me. Everybody respects me. I wouldn't steal his money. I'm an honest person." So the Rav listens to both, and then he says to Moshe, "You know what? There's a halakha. The din is if, let's say, somebody sues another person, says, 'You owe me money.' Whether he says he stole his money or he owes him money because he borrowed from him money, there could be many reasons why somebody claims that the other person owes him money. Why does he owe him money? I, I loaned him money, uh, a month ago, and he hasn't paid me back. Or he owes me money because, uh, he stole my money, and he needs to give it back to me. Or he owes me money because he, he broke my door, and now he has to pay me for the expenses of the door. So the halakha is that the one who is asking the other person to pay him money in Beth Din, he has to bring the proof. You can't just make somebody pay you money if you don't have proof that he really owes you the money. That's called in halakha, 'Ha'motzi mechavero olah v'chayah.' If you want to-- another person to give you money, you want the Beth Din to tell him he must pay you money, then you used to bring proof that he owes you the money. Otherwise, we, we-- how do we know it's true?

18:09 For he is denying it. The other guy says it's not." Same thing here. Moshe said, "I never stole the money." The other poor man says, "Yeah, you stole the money." Hey, we sell to the other, you gotta bring proof. You gotta bring aid and witnesses that saw Moishe steal the money. Otherwise, he can't make Moishe pay you the money. How do we know you're saying the truth? So the neighbor says to Moishe like this, "It's true. When it comes to money, if he wants you to pay money, he's gonna have to bring proof. He doesn't have any proof. But there's another problem here. If you didn't steal the money, who else was in the wagon? The goy that was sitting in the front. Eh, maybe you stopped for a while, went to the bathroom somewhere in an inn, and while everybody was out of the wagon, the goy came and snuck in and, and, and, and took the... And found the money. But if the goy was sort of fishing around trying to find money, he must have touched the barrels of wine. If a goy touches wine, the wine becomes treif, becomes ‹yayin nesech›. A goy is not allowed to touch, uh, Jewish wine. So then all your wine should be considered treif, 'cause when it comes to food, kosher and treif, if we're not sure, we say, 'Hey, it's treif.' If we're not sure if something is kosher or treif, what do we do? Do we eat it or we don't eat it?

19:28 Of course, we gotta be strict. With money, if somebody says you owe me money and he can't prove it, we're not sure he's saying the truth, well, we say you don't have to pay because he has to prove that you owe him the money. But when it comes to something which is kosher or treif, whether you're allowed to eat it, not allowed to eat it, if we don't know something, then we are being strict. We don't eat it. So if we don't know who stole it, it's possible the goy stole it. You're saying you didn't steal it, so then the goy must have stolen it. And if the goy stole it, that means he was messing around in the back of the wagon and looking between the barrels and kept looking inside the barrels and finding the, the money. Then I must say that all your barrels are now treif." When Moishe heard this, he says, "Oh, no. That's a huge loss of money." If all his wine is not kosher, he would have to sell it to goyim, and we don't even know if you're allowed to sell it to goyim, if it's, uh, ‹me'ot be汉na›, whatever. He, he's gonna lose a huge amount of money. So Moishe didn't know what to do. He told the Rav, "Rav, can you come to the side for another room? I wanna talk to you." And they went to the side room, and when they were alone, he told the Rav, "Okay, okay, I, I,

20:36 I stole the money. The goy wasn't anywhere close to the barrels of wine. The wine is kosher. Uh, it's me, I stole the money." So the Rav said, "Well, I don't believe you. Maybe you're just saying it now because you don't want your wine to be treif. Um, how do I know you're saying the truth? But if you promise me you go to shul and go on the bimah and tell everybody in front of everyone, 'I, Moishe, stole the money from this, uh, poor guy who was traveling with me on the wagon,' then I'll believe you." Moishe had no choice, 'cause he wanted to save his wine, 'cause the wine was worth a lot more money than the money that he stole, and he didn't wanna lose his wine. So everybody saw how smart the Rav was. See, to be a good Rav, it's not enough that you know the Halakha. You also have to know how to catch people when they say a lie. And one last story. There was a very famous story in Prague, where a woman's husband was lost. Now, he disappeared. He went on a trip, and nobody knew where he was, and for several years never came back, and they didn't know if he was alive or dead, and his wife couldn't get married, 'cause we don't know if she's still married or not. If he's dead, then she can get married to someone else. But if he's still alive somewhere, he needs to give her a get, otherwise

21:59 she can't get married. So one day, a man shows up that looks very, very much like her husband, and he says, "I am your husband. It's me. I finally decided to come home. I got lost on the way." He gave a whole excuse why he didn't come home, and he said, "It's me, it's me." So the woman is listening to him, and she sees, yeah, he looks very much like my husband, but there's something about him that I feel it's not him. And she couldn't understand why she feels that way. And they went to the Rav. He went to the Rav. Her father. Her father and her went to the Rav and told the Rav the whole story. So the Rav said, "Bring him here. I wanna see him." They brought this man to the Rav. The Rav looked at his face and didn't say a word, just looked and stared at his face for a few minutes, then he said, "Okay, take him home." Then he called over the father and said, "You come alone. I, I wanna talk to you privately." He says, "Listen, you keep him in your house. Don't say anything. When Shabbos comes, you're going to shul. He's also going to go with you to shul. And like, you know, like your son-in-law, her husband, used to go to shul when he was here, living here, every Shabbos to shul." And in those days, people had their own seats. Everybody had their seats where they sat down. Not like people

23:25 go in Seven Seventy, and you sit here, you sit there, one Shabbos here, one Shabbos there. In those shuls, everybody had their place. So when he, she said to the father of the, of the, of the woman, "When your... When this man goes with you to shul, pretend that you're busy by the door when you go into the shul, that you're busy with someone. Tell him to please go ahead of you and go to his normal seat where he always sat. And you pretend you're preoccupied with someone else by the door to s- you need to discuss something." "Okay." "And then you tell me what happened." They went Shabbos to shul, and the father-in-law said, "Oh, um, just go to your seat because I need to talk to someone here about a very important thing." And he saw that the young man was a little confused. He kept walking into shul and didn't know where to go. So they came back to the Rav and told him what happened. So the Rav said, "Bring the man to me." They brought the guy to him, and he said to him, "You better tell the truth, or else you will be punished by Hashem. Tell the truth now." And the man opened up and said, "You know what? You're right. I'm not the husband, but I know the husband. I became very friends with him in another city, and I tricked him. I, like, spoke to him about different things, and I found out some personal things

24:56 of his in his life about his wife. So when I came here, I told these things to her to make her believe that he's the husband, because how does he know these personal things that nobody else knows? And I, s- I'm really not the husband." And then everybody again saw what a ‹chacham› and how smart the Rav is. He knew how to catch a liar, and that's very important for a Rav to have, not just knowing what the Rambam says, what the Shulchan Aruch says. He also has to be able to catch someone, you know, to see how people think and catch them when they're trying to lie to the Rav.