142. Aguna Saved By The Alter Rebbe's Vision

00:16 Shalom Aleichem, kinders. I wanna tell you a fascinating story with the Alter Rebbe. And the Alter Rebbe with his ruach hakodesh saved a woman. There was a woman who lived near Liadz, in a city nearby. There were Jews living in that city. She had two little children and a husband, and the husband traveled and never came back. A year passed by and he wasn't home. Nobody knew what happened to him. Apparently, he disappeared. Nobody know where. And she is an agunah. An agunah means a woman, she can't get married to someone else because her husband didn't give her a get, and we don't know if he's dead. If a husband is dead, dies, then the woman can ma- get married to s- to another man, or if he gives her a get. But he didn't give her a get, he just left and never came back, and we don't know if he's, if he died or not. That's called an agunah. She's an agunah, she can't get married. So the people in the town where she lived told her to go to Liadz. There's a big tzadik there, the Alter Rebbe, and maybe he can help her. So she traveled to Liadz with her two kids, and, um, sh- they told her that the Alter Rebbe doesn't see people now. Nobody's allowed to go into yechidas for the last, next few weeks. Nobody can go in. But they gave her advice. They told her she'd stand by the door of the Alter Rebbe's room, and

02:03 maybe the Alter Rebbe, when he opens the door, will see her and give her either advice or a bracha, "I'll tell her where her husband is." So she did so. She went to the door of the Alter Rebbe's room, and of course the door was closed, but she stood behind the door and she was crying. Crying, crying that she wants to talk to the Alter Rebbe. She needs help. But they didn't let her in. She couldn't go in. Hasidim came to the Alter Rebbe for Yontif, for Shabbos, and she was standing always by the door every day. In the morning, she would go to the door and cry and cry. One day, the Hasidim, older Hasidim, very famous Hasidim, important Hasidim, came to the Alter Rebbe and they saw this woman crying the whole day, that she's looking for her husband and she didn't g- he didn't give her a get, and she's stuck. She can't get married, and she needs her husband that can give parnasah to the family and to the kids and can take care of the children, and she's alone, and she's crying. So they felt bad for her, and they told her they'll try to do something so the Alter Rebbe would answer her question. And so they talked to the Alter Rebbe, and Alter Rebbe gave her a very short answer. He called from inside his room to her to say to her, "Go travel to Vilna," and she should look for a man by the name Meir of

03:30 Volozhyn, and he will know where her husband is. When the Hasidim heard what Alter Rebbe answered her, they knew she has no money, so they got her... They, they paid for a wagon driver to take her to Vilna. They also gave her some extra money. She should have money to buy food for the way and everything. And so she traveled to Vilna. It took her a few weeks till she got to Vilna with her two kids. When she got to Vilna, it was Erev Shabbos, Friday, and she started asking people. She was sitting in the wagon and calling over people. There were many, many Jews in Vilna, and she called over people in the street, "Do you know a man by the name Meir of Volozhyn?" Nobody knows who he is. Meir of Volozhyn, never heard. Meanwhile, people were gathering around her wagon because they were wondering: Who is this woman with two kids, and she's looking for someone, a strange name? So finally somebody said to the group, to the rest of the people around there, and said, "Maybe she's looking for the famous, famous gvir, the rich man in town, who's also a big talmid chacham, and they call him Maran VeRabbono Harav Reb Meir of Volozhyn." They... She said Meir of Volozhyn, so the people said Meir of Volozhyn is some kind of a regular guy. But she didn't know that he's there, she's referring to this great, great, highly respected rich man and talmid chacham. Everybody respects him in the Vilna

05:01 Gaon. Everybody respects him so much. So they... She didn't call him, uh, call him with all the titles, you know, Maran VeRabbono. So they told her, "Maybe you mean him. Well, he lives over there. They got a big mansion. He's very rich. Go there. Maybe that's the person you're looking for." So she traveled there and she stopped the, the, the wagon, stopped right in front of the house of Reb Meir of Volozhyn. And the wife of Meir of Volozhyn saw a wagon standing in front of the gate of the courtyard of their house, so she went outside and asked her what she wants, who she's looking for. And the woman said, "I'm looking for Reb Meir of Volozhyn." Her husband, the husband of this woman. And she said, "Okay, come inside." She told the servants to open the gate, and the wagon went inside into the courtyard, and he told her to come off the wagon with the kids and to come inside the house. He gave-- She gave her food. She saw that this woman was poor, so she gave her food and for the children to eat. And she waited for her husband to come home. Her husband went to the mikvah for it was Erev Shabbos. He wasn't home, so the, the, the wife says, "Listen, wait for my husband. I hope that he will be able to help you." Of course, this lady told the wife of Rabbi Meir of Fulce the whole story how the-- There's this Rebbe in Lyozno

06:26 that told her to come here to Rabbi Meir of Fulce in Vilna, and that he will tell her where her husband is. So the wife says, "Okay, maybe my husband knows who your husband is, and he'll help you." So we're waiting for-- They're waiting for Rabbi Meir of Fulce. Rabbi Meir of Fulce shows up at home. He sees a woman that he doesn't recognize with two children, and he asks his wife: "What, what is, what is she doing here?" And she says, "He came-- She came from near Lyozno, and the Rebbe from Lyozno said that she's an agunah. She needs to find her husband, so he can give her a get, so she can marry someone else. And she-- The Rebbe said that you would know her husband." Rabbi Meir of Fulce was very surprised. "Me? I don't know anyone. Uh, first of all, I don't know who this lady is. Uh, I, I've never met her, and I, I don't know who her husband is. Well, I'm not dealing with agunot. Uh, b-but I have, I have other things on my head. I have to run a business, and I have to help with the community. Uh, I don't know why is this Rebbe..." Rabbi Meir of Fulce didn't know the Alter Rebbe at all. He was a Misnagid then. He was, uh, b-very close to the Vilna Gaon. He was a Talmud of the Vilna Gaon. So he, he didn't, uh, you know, was not very fond of, of Hasidish Rebbes, especially not

07:37 the Alter Rebbe. And he says, "I don't know why he's sending to me. Well, what do I know about, about her husband?" And he got a little bit annoyed, you know. Why, why is the Alter Rebbe sending these, uh, poor women that need help to him and to drive him crazy that he doesn't know anything about it? But his wife said, "Listen, listen, listen." Uh, when the woman heard what the Rabbi Meir of Fulce said, she fainted. "Oi, he can't help her," he says. He's like saying, you know, "Well, what is she doing here? What is she doing in my house? I can't help her." And she fainted because of that. And the kids started crying. They saw their mother fainted. So the, the wife of Rabbi Meir of Fulce says to her husband, "Please, have rachmanus on this woman. Look at her. Look. Look at this poor woman and the kids." He says, "Listen, I don't know what to do." He says, "I, I, I don't-- I can't help her." Finally, they woke up the woman, and the, the, the, the, the wife of Rabbi Meir of Fulce took very good care of her and of the children. She gave her a room in the house. Says, "You listen, you can stay here with me till Hashem will help." Now, Rabbi Meir of Fulce is very annoyed at the Alter Rebbe for sending him women that he doesn't know what to-- how to help them and doesn't know wh-who their husbands are. Why is

08:47 he telling him to do this? Meanwhile, it was Shabbos, and Meir of Fulce is a little bit tumult, distraught. He's a little confused by this whole thing with the Alter Rebbe. Uh, that, um, when he ca-he went to shul, but his head was completely confused. What is this whole thing with the Alter Rebbe sending him a, a poor woman with two children that he's gonna find the husband, and he doesn't know anything about it? Very strange. The whole thing was very strange to him. Friday night came. They sat at the table, and the woman and the two children also sat at the table. They didn't speak about this at all. They just ate Shabbos meals, sang some zemiros, and then went to bed. And, um, Rabbi Meir of Fulce couldn't sleep all night because he thought, "This is very unusual. Why is this Rebbe in Lyozno sending a woman to me? There must be some reason for it, but I don't understand." So Shabbos morning came, and Rabbi Meir of Fulce decided to get up early because he couldn't sleep anyways. And he's gonna start walking, taking a, a shpatzir. Shpatzir means a walk, a pleasant walk through the streets of Vilna. Early in the morning, as he's walking early in the morning in the streets of Vilna, he sees a officer from the army, the Russian army, who is, um, walking down the street so early in the morning. And Rabbi Meir of Fulce being a rich man and very famous, even by the

10:13 Goyim as a very important person, um, knew all the officers and all the generals of the army that were camped nearby. He knew them very well. So he recognized he knows this officer, and he says, "Why are you doing so-- What are you doing so early in the morning here in the, in the streets of Vilna?" He said to him, "Well, there was a soldier in my, my unit that ran away. He ran away secretly, and we caught him. And the punishment is to give him fifty lashes, and we're gonna do this in the center of the town of Vilna. And every, you know, with soldiers, and they're each gonna lash him, uh, fifty times. And, um, so I'm preparing the center of the city of Vilna at the big plaza, a big, uh, open space where we can, uh, perform this punishment for the soldier." Rabbi Meir of Fulce says to the officer, "Is it okay if I come and watch?" Says, "Sure, you come. You can come. We know you. You're, you're a good man. Come, you can come and watch." Now, Rabbi Meir of Fulce goes to the plaza, to that center place, open space in the Vilna, and they bring this, this guy, this soldier, and they take off his shirt, and they, they start l-lashing him. And the first lash they give him, the, the, the, the soldier screams, "Shema Yisroel Hashem Elokeinu Hashem Echad!" Now, the s- the Russian officer and the soldiers didn't know what he was talking

11:38 about. What kind of gibberish is this? Shema Yisroel. They never heard-- They didn't know any Hebrew. They didn't know what he was talking about. It was very strange. They thought maybe he went insane, you know, started talking gibberish. But Rabbi Meir of Fulce understood this is a Jew. He's saying Shema Yisroel. He was very surprised because it-- normally there were no Jews in the Russian army in those days. In those days, Jews did not go to the Russian army. In fact, the Tsar didn't want it. He didn't want to have Jews. He thought Jews were not gonna be loyal to him. So he was surprised. The soldier screamed, "Shema Yisrael." See, and they said it was a Jew that fell into the Russian army somehow, and they didn't know he was Jewish. So he told the, the officer, "Listen, can we cut his lashes in half? Instead of 50 lashes, let's give him 25 lashes. Or if I offer you money, c- can we redeem him and, and not gi- give him lashes? I'll give you money instead." The officer says, "I can't do this because I need to punish him, but I'll make sure that the second half of the lashes will be much softer and less painful." Anyways, at the end of all the 50 lashes, he was pretty bruised up. They took him to the hospital to recover, right, after the punishment. So Rabbi Meir of Fulk got permission to visit him in the hospital. And when he got to the hospital,

12:59 he asked him, "How did you get into the army? It seems like you're Jewish." And the man says, "Yeah, I'm a Jew. Uh, but what happened to me is like this. I was married to a wife and had two children in a city near Lyozno. And one day I left, and I didn't wanna come back, and I decided to marry a non-Jewish woman. And the father of the non-Jewish woman made me go to the army pretending that I'm his son, because he didn't want his son to go to the army. So when the authorities said, 'Hey, where's your son? You gotta go to the army,' he sent me instead, like as if I'm his son. And so I ended up in the army, um, even though I'm Jewish, but they don't know I'm Jewish." When Rabbi Meir of Fulk hears this story, he says, "What? Did he say he comes from a town near Lyozno? He left a wife with two kids and never came back to them and married another woman, a non-Jewish woman? That sounds like the story he heard in his house." He asked him, "What's your name? And what's your last name? And what was your wife's name?" He started asking him questions. The guy tells him everything. Rabbi Meir of Fulk runs back to his house and tells his wife, "Wake up the woman and ask if, if the, her husband's name was this and this and this." And the woman says, "Yes." So Rabbi Meir of Fulk went strictly

14:21 back, s- s- straight back to the hospital and told the guy, "Listen, you're gonna need to give a get to your wife. And tomorrow morning is Sunday. Sunday morning I'm gonna set up a bet din, and you're gonna give her a get." And the man says, "Yes, okay. I'm happy to do it. I feel like Hashem punished me with all these lashes because I, I did something wrong, so I'm happy to, uh... I wanna give her a get." Next morning, they got together, and he was able to give a get to his wife, and she was now free. Before she left to go back to her town near Lyozno, Rabbi Meir of Fulk told her like this: "Tell the Alter Rebbe who sent you to me that I'm apologize. I ask mechilah, ask forgiveness for me being so, uh, rude and, and, and, and skeptical and, and like questioning him and, and being angry at him. Tell him that I'm sorry for this. I realize now that he's a great man. He's a tzadik. He's Ruach HaKodesh. And tell him that I'm coming soon. I will, I will come to visit him soon." Rabbi Meir of Fulk indeed went to visit Alter Rebbe eventually, and he became one of the greatest Hasidim of the Alter Rebbe. From being a Misnagid, uh, Talmud of the Vilna Gaon, he became a Hasid of Alter Rebbe. And this is one of the stories that made him a Hasid. There was actually another story which I told you a

15:45 while ago that happened to Rabbi Moshe, uh, from Slavita, the, the publisher of the printing press Slavita, when he needed to have a permit. I don't know if you remember that story. There was also, um, happened in Vilna, and Rabbi Meir of Fulk heard about that story. So the, the two stories made him become a Hasid of the Alter Rebbe.