153. Jew Who Passed A Big Test On Pesach

00:16 Speaker 1 With Yontev, with Ma'ayot Kendelech, I'm gonna tell you a story about a Jew by the name of Rabbi Refoel Dubzinsky. He lived in a small village called Princev in Poland. He was a tzadik nister. Nobody knew that he was a tzadik, but later on people found out he was a big tzadik. But he was hidden, a hidden tzadik. He didn't let anybody know what he knows and how great he is. In fact, his father, his name was Rabbi Chil Mechel, was also a hidden tzadik. This Rabbi Refoel, who lived in the small village of Princev, had a business. He made beer. He cooked beer and sold the beer to the peasants and the goyim in the village. They loved his beer. The goyim there loved his beer, and they would come to his inn and buy the beer from him and drink and get drunk. Now, he rented this, uh, store and the brewery where he made the beer and sold the beer. He's-- he rented it from the, from the Politz, and he paid his rent every month. And the Politz loved him too, 'cause Rabbi Refoel was very honest, and he paid every month on time. He was a good person. Everybody loved Rabbi Refoel. All the goyim loved him. He was a nice person. He helped a lot of people. A few months before Pesach, one year, a new galach came to town, and this galach hated Jews. He was an anti-Semite. He didn't like Jews. When he saw that all the

01:58 Speaker 1 villagers love Rabbi Refoel so much, and the Politz also loves him, it bothered him. Why did they love this Jew? They should hate a Jew. So he began to talk to the goyim in the village, in the church. When he had his speeches in the church, he would tell the goyim from the village that they must not buy the beer from this Jew. You're giving him parnasah, you're giving him money. You're letting him make a lot of money from your-- from you buying his beer. You should stop buying his beer. Don't go to him for the beer. But the goyim, they loved drinking, so they didn't listen to the galach. They still came to Rabbi Refoel every single day to drink and drink and got drunk. So the galach tried to talk to the Politz. He says, "Politz, you know, you're, you're renting the space where, where this Jew makes his beer. You're renting it to a Jew. You should rent it to a goy, to somebody else. Why are you renting it to a Jew?" But the goy-- the Politz didn't listen to the galach because he knew Rabbi Refoel was a nice person, a good person. Everybody loved him, and so the Politz did not listen to the galach. Finally, the galach thought of an idea. Pesach was getting closer, and he knew that the Jewish people who own chametz, they need to sell their chametz to a goy before Pesach. Because if the Jew owns the chametz on Pesach, it's an aveira.

03:25 Speaker 1 And not only is it an aveira, but even after Pesach, he can never eat that chametz again. Once a Jew owned it on Pesach and did an aveira for owning chametz, then that chametz becomes asur, forbidden for any Jew to eat ever after. That's it. You have to throw it away. Now, beer is clearly chametz. Beer is made out of grain, right? You know, barley. And so Rabbi, Rabbi Refoel, every year, what would he do? There was one goy in town, in the village, who every year would come on Erev Pesach, and Rabbi Refoel would sell him the whole factory with the whole store, with all the beer, and the goy would own it until the end of Pesach. And after Pesach, Rabbi Refoel would buy it back. Like we do when we sell our chametz through the Rav, we sell it to a goy, right? He did it himself to-- with a, with a certain goy in the village. So the galach thought, "You know what? I'll go over to that goy, and I'll pay him money." He says, "I'll give you a lot of money if you promise you're not gonna buy the chametz from Rabbi Refoel this year. Because if you don't buy his chametz, he won't have a choice, because he doesn't wanna do an aveira in owning chametz. He's going to make it hefker. He's gonna give it away to everyone for free so that you can take it away so you wouldn't own it. And then you'll have-- get

04:49 Speaker 1 a lot of beer for free." The goy agreed. He took the money from the galach. He said, "Okay, this year I'm not gonna go and buy the beer from Rabbi Refoel." And then the galach went to all the goyim in the town, he's in the village, and he said, "I don't want you to buy if he comes-- if Rabbi Refoel approaches you and he says, 'Please buy my beer,' you say, 'No, no, no, no, we can't.'" So Erev Pesach came. Rabbi Refoel did not know what the galach has done, speaking to all the people about not buying his chametz. So he waited like every year for this goy, this specific goy who would come every year. He would come to his house, and he would sell him the chametz. But the goy didn't come. He's looking. It's already late in the morning on Erev Pesach, and soon, soon, soon it's gonna be already forbidden to own the chametz, and he needs to sell it to the goy. And the goy is not coming, so he decided, "Okay, I have to go to his house." And Rabbi Refoel went outside and went to the house of the-- this goy, and he knocks on the door. He sees there's nobody there. This goy knew that Rabbi Refoel would come to his house, so he left the house. He's hiding somewhere so Rabbi Refoel couldn't find him. So Rav Fol, he has no choice. So he went from door to door, asked all the Goyim in the village,

06:13 Speaker 1 "Would you please buy my Chametz before Pesach starts so I can sell my Chametz and then after Pesach I can buy it back?" And everybody said, "No, no, no, no, no." And they couldn't understand. Rav Fol couldn't understand why nobody wants to buy his Chametz. But it was getting very, very late and in a few minutes, that's it. It's already asur to own Chametz. And if you own Chametz after that time, that Chametz becomes asur, forbidden forever. You can never use it again. He needs to sell it before the time comes. Otherwise, he's going to lose all his beer. And Rav Fol realized that he can't sell it. He didn't understand why, but he can't sell his Chametz. And he says, "You know what? I'm going to give it all away. It's not mine anymore. So this way I won't do the aveira of owning Chametz." And what did he do? He took a sign. He wrote on the sign in Polish in big letters, put it on top of the store. He said, "Everybody should know that my Chametz is no longer mine. It's hefker. I don't own it anymore. Anybody who wants to come can come and party and drink as much as they want." And he left the doors of his store open, wide open, so people can go in and drink beer as much as they want. Rav Fol was very excited. He left the store totally open, the doors open, with all the beer inside. Anybody can come and drink

07:37 Speaker 1 now. And he left to go home to do Pesach. He lived a little bit outside the village. So it took him a little while to walk home. He walked home. And that Pesach, Rav Fol was so joyous, with such simcha. He realized that he had a big test. Hashem tested him to see if he's going to be willing to make all his Chametz hefker and lose all his money. Because all the beer that he made, that was his whole money. That's what he needed to have to make money to live. Now he lost everything. But he was with simcha because he passed the test and he was willing to sacrifice to give up all the beer. After Pesach was over, Rav Fol thought, "Okay, let me take a walk. I'll go to my store to see how empty it is. Probably it's all empty. Everybody finished all the barrels of beer." And as he walks back, he meets one of the peasants of the village. And he asked the peasant, "Nu, so did you guys have a good time over Pesach? Over my holiday? You must have partied every day there. There was so much beer that you guys could party every day." And the villager says, "No, no, not at all. Didn't you hear what happened?" So Rav Fol asks, "What happened?" He says, "Nobody could go close to your store." He says, "Why not? I told everybody can come and drink. It's hefker. It's not mine anymore. It's ownerless." So the Goy says,

09:14 Speaker 1 "After you left your store on Erev Pesach to go home to do the Seder, two big black dogs with sharp teeth and a very mean, vicious-looking face, both of them showed up right in front of the door of your store. And anyone who tried to go in and get close to the store even to go in to drink the beer, these dogs would like attack him right away and chase him away. People became afraid to go even close to your store. So nobody was in there for the whole Pesach. Everything that was there before Pesach is still there now." Rav Fol couldn't believe this. He went to the store himself. He has to see it himself. When he walks closer, he sees the two black dogs standing in front of the door of his store and all his beer is still inside the store. Nothing has been touched. At first, he was afraid to go over too close to the dogs because they look like vicious dogs that are willing to kill anybody who goes close to them. But as he got a little closer, the dogs just came closer to him very gently and licked his shoes and were very friendly with him. And finally, that's it. So he saw it was a big, big nes that Hashem made. It saved his beer. But Rav Fol was not so sure. He wasn't comfortable. He thought maybe I still owned Chametz on Pesach. Maybe the fact that I said it was ownerless, yeah, but nobody

10:53 Speaker 1 picked it up. None of the Goyim took the beer. If they were to take the beer, then I understand it's theirs now because they took it. But even though I said it's ownerless, but as long as nobody takes it, it's still mine. So maybe I still can't use any of the beer because I owned it on Pesach. He went to a Rav, Rav Tzvi Yerush Harif, who was a very big, famous Gaon. And he asked him the sheilah, "Am I allowed to drink from that beer? Am I allowed to sell that beer to Goyim and make parnassa? Or maybe not. Maybe I own the Chametz on Pesach, even though I said it's hefker, but nobody picked it up. So maybe it's still mine." The Rav looked into it and decided that the halacha is that no, Rav Fol is allowed to drink his beer. The beer is fine. He can drink it. He can sell it. It's not a problem. But Rav Fol wasn't so sure. He was afraid maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe there's a chance that I did own the Chametz. And maybe the halacha is that I cannot drink the beer again and sell it again. That's it. I have to throw it away. Even though the Rav paskened that it's permitted, but maybe, maybe it's not completely correct, and maybe I still sh- need to get rid of the beer. He decided he's gonna do something very crazy. He yelled out from the store, "Anyone who wants to come and drink should

12:29 Speaker 1 come now and drink. I'm gonna open up the faucet of the beer bar- barrels and let it flow, and you can drink, drink, drink." The Goyim saw that the beer is flowing on the floor, so they all came running in and, and, and, and filling up their cups and drinking and drinking and drinking non-stop, non-stop. They all got drunk. Hundreds of villagers, hundreds of peasants from the village all became drunk, so drunk from the beer until the beer was all gone. It was finished. The last drop was gone. Reb Refoel was, um, very excited that he was able to live up to this, uh, to this test, that he didn't wanna benefit from this beer, even though the Rav paskened it's okay, but he wasn't so 100% sure that it's 100% good. Maybe not, maybe just... Yeah. Because great people-

13:32 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm

13:32 Speaker 1 ... they wouldn't even touch something that m- even there's a small chance that it's forbidden, they'll stay away as far as possible.

13:39 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

13:39 Speaker 1 Reb Refoel didn't touch the beer. He got rid of it. He gave the beer away to all the Goyim. In Shamayim, the behavior of Reb Refoel caused a major commotion, and the Malachim and the Sarim and the Ofanim started getting very excited. Look at this Reb Refoel. He gave up everything. He lost his whole money, only to be sure 100% that he didn't do an Aveira. He didn't own any Chametz. And it was decided that even though Reb Refoel never had children, for many, many years he's been married to his wife, but they didn't have children. They davened a lot, Hashem should make a miracle for them, but nothing happened. Now because of this test that he passed, it was decided in Shamayim that he should have a son. And who was the son that his wife gave birth to? The famous Gaon and Tzadik, Reb Avrohom Landau of Chechanover. The Chechanover Rav. He wrote many Seforim, was a big Gaon, and became also a Rebbe. A Chasidishe Rebbe. And that's the story that Reb Refoel, uh, passed a big test, and that's why he was blessed with a very special holy Tzadik of a son.