137. A Russian Goy Made Two Yidden Do Teshuva Because Of The Alter Rebbe.

00:16 A good Voch, kinderlech, as it was Chavdala Teves, the Alter Rebbe's yahrtzeit, the hishtalokus of the Alter Rebbe. I wanna share with you another story, an amazing story with the Alter Rebbe which happened, uh, on the day of his hishtalokus. The Alter Rebbe was nistalik on Motzei Shabbos Parshas Mo-eis. And, uh, th- as you know, the Alter Rebbe was then at that time when he rep-- when he was nistalik, he was running away from Napoleon Bonaparte, the French ruler who invaded Russia and tried to conquer the whole Europe, become the king over the entire Europe, and maybe the entire world even. The Alter Rebbe thought that he was very evil and ran away from him. He said that he was very bad because he wanted the Jewish people to become like the Goyim, and he said it's better that Jews should pray and daven that the Tsar should win the war, not Napoleon. So when Alter Rebbe ran away, at one point he ended up in a village called Vienna. And there the Alter Rebbe settled with many families, his family and many other families that joined him. There were sixty wagons that traveled with the Alter Rebbe away from the Liadná, running away from his hometown in Liadná, and they ended up in this, uh, village, Vienna. And the Alter Rebbe stayed in a, in a inn of a Goy, a Russian Goy, who was very nice to them, and he treated Alter Rebbe with great respect. He didn't wanna take any money. He

02:07 says, "I'm, I'm taking care of you 'cause I see you're special people." And he thought that the Alter Rebbe was a holy man, and he treated Alter Rebbe very well. Also, the other families that came with the Alter Rebbe had places all over the village. The people of the village were very nice to the whole group of people that came with the Alter Rebbe. Shortly before the Alter Rebbe's hishtalokus, the Alter Rebbe said-- Alter Rebbe got very sick, first of all, a few days earlier. It was Ches Teves or Tes Teves, I can't remember, and then, uh, he was sick for a while, and then Chavdala Teves he was nistalik. Before his hishtalokus, he said to this Goy, the innkeeper who was very nice to Alter Rebbe and to his family, and he said to, said to him, "I wanna give you a bracha that you should have a long life and you should be very successful. But I also have a request from you. I want you to do me a favor." And the Alter Rebbe said to him, "You know, years from now, maybe ten, fifteen, twenty years from now, there will be some people coming through your inn, your motel, and they will ask you to-- for a meal because you offer meals for guests as well. And you'll see that they are Jewish, you know, that they are Jewish and, uh, their families, their parents are my Hasidim. And you'll see that they have left Yiddishkeit. They don't keep kosher. They'll

03:45 ask you for food that's treif. You'll realize that they are no longer keeping Torah mitzvahs. I want you to do me a favor and use your own fence, your own thinking, uh, think of an interesting idea of how you can make them do teshuva." The Alter Rebbe didn't tell him what he should do. He just told him, "Try to use a certain trick that will make them do teshuva." And, and the Goy said, "I'll try my best." When Alter Rebbe was nistalik, and they buried Alter Rebbe in Haditch, which is a while to travel from, from Vienna. And okay, and then years passed. This, uh, innkeeper really lived a long life like the Alter Rebbe bl-- uh, gave him a bracha. And okay, then one day, it was like maybe twenty years after the... Or maybe fifteen years after the Alter Rebbe's hishtalokus. And, um, okay, so two people come in. Like every day, there are people coming in as guests, and they come in, and they said they wanna rent a room so they can sleep over. They also have-- want to have a meal. So he asked them, "What would you like on the meal?" Now, normally, if Jews would come, he'd give them kosher food. That means he wouldn't give them food that's c- that's cooked in his pots because his pots were treif. But he would give them like, uh, like maybe ve- vegetables and some fruit, things that, uh, fruit and Jews that keep kosher can, can eat. But these

05:22 two men, they were businessmen. They're maybe forty, fifty years old. And they told him, "Well, give us whatever you have." You know, pork with butter, milk and cheese and meat together. Like really treif, treif. Treif, treif stuff. Now, this innkeeper, this Goy, suddenly remembered what the Alter Rebbe told him some years ago, before the hishtalokus, that there will be two people coming in, and you'll remember that these two people are actually Jewish, but they seem to have gone away from Yiddishkeit, and they no longer keep Torah mitzvahs. And I want you to act quickly and do something so they will do teshuva. So this goy remembered what Alter Rebbe told him, and he started asking them questions. Turned out that their parents of these two businessmen, father and mother, were Hasidim of Alter Rebbe. But they started doing business with Goyim, and they started getting friends with the Goyim, went to their parties, and slowly, slowly they became, uh, non, non, non-observant. They left Torah and Mitzvahs. So this goy realized that Alter Rebbe, some ten, fifteen years ago, when he told them about two people that will come, that he should do something, that he meant them. Alter Rebbe foresaw that these two businessmen who came from families that were Hasidim of Alter Rebbe are, are coming to him to eat traif. So the goy thought to himself, "Okay, what can I do to force them into doing teshuva?" So he said to them, you know, he had one room. This goy had one

07:06 room where the Alter Rebbe stayed. And this goy felt that that room is a holy room, uh, because he knew the Alter Rebbe stayed there, and he would lock the door. He wouldn't let anybody in. He would only let Jews who would come by to stay overnight. He would tell them, "You can pray, uh, in that room. You can daven in that room, because this is a very holy room." But he wouldn't let anybody stay there or sleep over. He kept that room as a special holy room which, which nobody else was allowed in. So the goy said to these two people, um, "Okay, you go into that room, and I'll bring you food." So they went in, they sat down by the table and by chairs, and they didn't notice that the goy closed the door and then locked it. So they're waiting inside. They didn't realize he locked the door, but they thought he's coming to bring the food. He's preparing the food and bringing it to them. You know, the chazer, the pork with a bit of butter and this oil. So they, uh, waited and waited and waited till they realized he's not coming. So they started going towards the door, tried to open the door and get out. But they saw that the door doesn't open. The guy locked the door. And he locked the door, and they can't get out. They started pounding on the door. "What's going on? Uh, open the door. We wanna get out." And the

08:37 goy came from the other side of the door and said, "No, no, no, no, no. You're not getting out of here. You don't realize you didn't come here to a real normal hotel. This is actually not a hotel. This is a place where I kill people who have money, and I take their money, and then I kill the people, and I bury them here in that room." So when these two men heard this, they got very scared, and they started, uh, crying, and they started talking, looking at each other. "What's gonna happen? Our, our families, wives and children are far away. They're not gonna know what happened to us. They're not gonna see us." And they started talking about their lives, and they started thinking, "You know, oy, what did we do? We came from such wonderful parents and families, Hasidim of the Alter Rebbe, and look what happened to us. We, like, went away from Yiddishkeit. We went away so far from Torah and Mitzvahs." And they both started realizing what a mistake it was, what they did, and they started, like, doing teshuva and crying and said, "You know what? Let's do teshuva and cry to Hashem. Ask Hashem for forgiveness before we get killed." Because they thought they're gonna get killed soon. And so they waited and waited for the goy, and the goy told them from behind the door he's coming soon with a big ax, and he's gonna chop them up and kill them. So they were crying and doing

10:02 teshuva to Hashem, forgive them for all their averas and that they will-- And, and they wanted to make sure that when they die, they die with teshuva. Then after a while, they cry for an hour, two hours, a-and the goy told them, "You know, I'll let you d- pray before you die. I'll give you a little time so you can... You know, before you die, you say your prayers." So they cried, and the goy heard them cry from behind the door. He knew that he was successful. Alter Rebbe told him to make them do teshuva. No, it seems like they're really doing teshuva. So then he opens the door, and they, they think he's coming with his big ax. So they're getting ready to be killed. But then they see he doesn't have the ax. So they're surprised, and he has a smile on his face. They were even more surprised. Why does he have a smile on his face? He's supposed to be a gangster, a robber, killer. He says he's gonna kill us. But he sits down by the table, the goy. He says to the two businessmen, "I'm not going to kill you. But I need to tell you a story." And he tells them what Alter Rebbe told him some fifteen years earlier, before he was Nistarlek. Said, "There will be two people coming here to your inn, and they will be children of my Hasidim, and I want you to make sure that they do teshuva." So the goy says,

11:22 "How am I gonna make you do teshuva? I don't know any Torah. I can't teach you any Torah. I'm a simple guy, so I thought, you know what? I'm gonna scare you. I'm gonna kill you. I'm gonna tell you that I'm gonna kill you. You're gonna be so scared, you're gonna start doing teshuva. So now I want you to know that who you should be thanking. You should be thanking the Alter Rebbe for fifteen years ago, before he's Nistarlek, because he already saw you coming here, and here's the reason why you did teshuva now." When these two businessmen heard this, they made a decision. They're gonna come back and be full Yidden, doing all Torah and Mitzvahs the way they used to do when they were young. And they also wanted to go thank the Alter Rebbe, but they knew the Alter Rebbe is, is Nistarlek. So they wanted to find out where is the Alter Rebbe buried. Wanted to go to his-- to the Ohel of the Alter Rebbe. So the goy told them that they buried him in Haditch. So they traveled to Haditch, and they went to the kever, um, of the Alter Rebbe, and they cried for hours and hours and hours doing teshuva there too and telling the Alter Rebbe they wanna thank him for saving them and for bringing them back to Yiddishkeit. Now, in Haditch, there lived a grandson of the Alter Rebbe. A grandson of the Alter Rebbe, he was the Mitteler Rebbe's son, Rebbe Nachum. He

12:40 was very close to the Alter Rebbe. When the Alter Rebbe ran away from Napoleon and from the French, um, he had his son-- the Alter Rebbe had a wagon, and there were other wagons following him. Rebbe Nachum was sitting next to his grandfather. Every time they wanted to know where to go, they would, um... The Alter Rebbe, let's say they had a, a crossroad, like there was two, two streets. You could go either to this side or that side, right or left. Didn't know where to go. So the Alter Rebbe would get off the wagon and would hold onto his cane and think, and he would say, "Let's go this way." And he would decide, and that was the way they would go. Once, the Alter Rebbe went off the wagon, and they came to a crossroad, like two streets. They didn't know which one to go to. The Alter Rebbe decided to go one way. It's the direction of a certain city. And Rebbe Nachum made a mistake. He told the soldiers and the wagon driver to go the other direction. He, he confused the two-- the direction that the Alter Rebbe gave him. The Alter Rebbe later realized that they went the wrong, the wrong direction, not the place where he told them, told them to go, and, and he was, uh, disappointed. And nobody understands why, wh-why he wanted specifically to go only to that direction and not this direction. And Rebbe Nachum felt very bad that he disappointed his grandfather, and

14:02 that's why when they, when they, when they pu-- buried the Alter Rebbe in Haditch, Rebbe Nachum decided to stay in Haditch, and he took care of the Ohel of the Alter Rebbe. Rebbe Nachum heard these two men, these two businessmen crying. He went over to them, and after they came out of the Ohel of the Alter Rebbe, and he asked them, "Why were you crying?" And they told him the whole story, and that's how we know the story, because Rebbe Nachum told the story that he heard from these two businessmen and what the goy told them, and how the Alter Rebbe worried about them before his hisdelus. And this is a very important lesson. The Rebbe, even though it was Gimmel Tammuz and the Rebbe was, uh, hisdelik, uh, but the Rebbe is still worrying about us even now. And even before the hisdelus, the Rebbe already made sure that he saw what's gonna happen in the future. And for sure, the Rebbe now is aware what goes on with each one of you and us, and the Rebbe tries to help us. We just need to do what we need to do. Just to daven and learn and try very hard to overcome the yetzer hara. And when the Rebbe sees how we try hard, he gives us berachos and davens to Hashem for us, and gives us a lot of hatzlacha. A gut vokh.