141. The Baal Shem Tov And The Wolf

00:17 Shalom Aleichem. Here's a story of the Baal Shem Tov. The holy Rizhiner, Rabbi Yisroel of Rizhin, once traveled and came to a village, and the name of the village was Sruliva. It was in Russia, right ne-near the Austrian border. The Rizhiner was at that time running away from Russia. As you know, I already told you this before, that the Heilige Rizhiner was arrested by the Russian tsar, and for a while he ran away to Austria, to another country. That's where he stayed for a while and, uh, so to escape from the police, the Russian police, they shouldn't be able to catch him. When he was fleeing from the Russians, he was in a village called Sruliva. He passed through that village on his way to Austria. And he asked... He met the people there. There were no Jews living there. He asked one of the farmers, um, "Is the name of this village Sruliva?" He said yes. So he, he said to them, "Why is it called Sruliva? What is the reason for this name?" And the farmer didn't know what to say. He says, "Listen, in this village is a very old man. He's almost a hundred years old. Why don't you ask him? He might know. He probably remembers when the village started. Uh, when they made this new village for the first time, he, he was, he was already alive because he's a hundred years old. Um, it's very hard for him to walk because he's very old, but he's in his

02:03 house lying down. You go, go to his house and ask him." So the, the Rizhiner asked the, this, this old man, the hundred-year-old Gory farmer, and he says, um, "Do you know anything about this village? Why it's called Sruliva?" And the old, old man said, "Of course I know." And he said like this: "When I was very young, I used to, uh, be a shepherd. I had sheep, and I go... There was no village here. It was just farmland, a lot of grass, and some people lived in houses like separate places, different places, but there was no real village or, or town in this place. Just big, a lot of farms. And I used to come here to this area with my sheep to eat, to feed the, the sheep, to graze in the grass. Once, I was grazing here." It's the middle of nowhere, right? It's this huge place. There's no people here. There's no village here. Just people live far away in different places, different houses, like in the countryside, right? There's no village. People just live a house here, and then a few miles later, another house. There was nobody around. There was just like a big, big, big, huge place with a lot of grass. "And as I was there all by myself with my sheep, I see a wolf. A wolf was getting closer and closer to my sheep. I began to scream, but there was nobody could hear me because it's empty. It's so huge. It's so big. There

03:43 are no houses nearby." Nobody could hear him. "I got very scared because I was all alone and nobody could hear me scream, and the wolf came closer and closer until he came close to my sheep and took one of my sheep and went away. The next day, again, I came with my sheep there to graze, to eat the grass, and again, I see the wolf coming closer and closer. And again, I tried to scream, but there's nobody around nearby. It's all empty space. And the wolf comes and grabs one of my sheep and goes away. I didn't know what c-- what can I do. I can't fight with a wolf. A wolf is dangerous. The wolf could eat him, eat up the farmer. So on the third day, I was really afraid to go by myself, so I told my friends who lived in a village nearby, 'Um, would you please come with me, uh, to take care of my sheep because I'm afraid to go myself. There's a wolf.'" So they all joined him as friends. They came with clubs and sticks and stones that if the wolf comes again, they will throw things at the, at the wolf, and the wolf will run away. They came to help him. And so they went out there again to that field, that big, deserted, open, open place, and again, the wolf started coming. His friends got so scared that they all fled and ran away. "Suddenly, I see that there's a mountain nearby. In the

05:32 top of the mountain, there's a man who is sitting on the mountain. His name was Srul." Srul was the name they called every Jew Srul. Why? Because Yisroel means a Yid. He's just called Bnei Yisroel. They called him Srul in Russian. "I saw this man many times before. He used to come here to this mountain all by himself in a very quiet place where there's nobody around, and he would sit there all by himself and learn." Now I could see him sit there and learn, so I began to scream, "Srul, Srul, come help me, please, Srul." Now this Srul came down from the mountain, and he came all the way down, and he saw the wolf. He walked towards the wolf till he got very, very close. Literally walked over to the, to the wolf. And, and, and then when he's already close to the wolf and touching the wolf, he turned to me and said, "Don't be afraid. The wolf is not alive anymore. You don't have to be afraid." And I said to him, "But I see him standing. I see the wolf standing there." So Srul says to me, "Yeah, he's standing, but he's not alive. Come, come, come to me. I'll show you." So I got closer to the wolf, and I see that the wolf is literally like a, like a statue. There's nothing there. He's not, he's not alive. And the Jew, his name was... We called him Srul, said to me, "If you have a knife, he's already

07:08 dead, so you can take the skin and make a nice fur coat for yourself." And that's what I did. And when the old farmer finished telling the story, he picked up his, his, his jacket, and he showed to the Rebbe Srul of Ruzhin, the Ruzhin, the holy Ruzhiner, that he still has that fur under his jacket. He's still wearing it. When we saw what just happened, we realized that this man, this Srul, is a very holy person. I mean, they are Goyim, but they realize he's a holy person. And he says like this, that not far from where I was grazing with my sheep, there was a well, a wellspring. And this Jew, Srul, from time to time we used to see him go to the mikveh in that well. It was sometimes the winter, very, very bitter cold, below zero. But he would go, he would go every day to the mikveh, even if it was freezing. It was-- And, and when he would come out of the water, and there was ice everywhere, he would stand with his bare feet on the ice. You know, when you put your... When you touch your hand or your skin on the ice, then it gets stuck to it, and it's hard to remove it because ice sticks. So his feet would stick to the ground, and when he picked up his feet to walk, he would leave marks of blood on the ice. So we, the farmers, the Goyim, we knew that he was such

08:42 a holy person, so we wanted to help him. So we put shmatas, you know, rags, towels, all over the floor near the, the well, so that when he walks, he could walk on the cloth, on the, on the, on, on the, on the, on the shmatas, on the rags, so his hand-- his feet wouldn't get stuck to the ice. And with time, other villages nearby also heard that this is a wonder person. This is a very unusual person. He's a holy person. So they decided to make even something more. They made a fence around the well so that animals wouldn't come there to drink the water. And the Goy says, "We called that wellspring the Holy Well." The Holy Well. He says, "One of the farmers, his son got very sick, and they needed to get him some water, so they got water from this well, from this Holy Well, and the boy within a day got well, became healthy. So everybody realized that this is a very holy well, and people who get sick would, would come and drink from that water. They would get healed. So with time, people decided to settle around that well, and from that became a village. It became a whole village, and they called Sruliva. Sruliva because of this Srul guy. Because of him, we made a village here." When the Ruzhiner told-- heard this story, he told the old man, uh, "Thank you very much," and that's it. He left him alone. And as soon as the

10:32 Ruzhiner left, the Goy died. Seems like that this Goy had to live a hundred years so that one day the Ruzhiner would come to that village, and the Goy would be able to share that story with the Ruzhiner. Once he finished that, he accomplished this, he did what he was supposed to do, is tell the Ruzhiner the story. He-- That's it. He was finished his job in the world, so he died. The, the, the holy Ruzhiner said that this Srul was actually the Baal Shem Tov. The Baal Shem Tov, before he became famous... As we know, the Baal Shem Tov used to learn with Achia HaSheloni. Achia HaSheloni was the Rebbe of Eliyahu HaNavi in the time of the Neviim. But he would appear from Shamayim. From Gan Eden, he would come and teach the Baal Shem Tov Torah. The Baal Shem Tov would sit all alone in a mountain in a cave. They would learn Torah day and night and would learn all the secrets of the Torah with Achia HaSheloni. So that Srul, which this Goy was talking about, was actually Rebbe Srul Baal Shem Tov.