159. The Tzanzer Rov Reveals Who Really Killed The Goy

00:16 Shalom Aleichem, kindlech. Here's a moedige story that happened with the Tzanzarov. Near the city of Tzanz, in Poland, there was a small village. The village had an inn which was owned by a Jew, and one day two Goyim businessmen who were partners came to that village to do business, to buy stuff, to buy merchandise in the village, and they stayed in the inn of the Jew. Their business was buying pork, pigs. They would buy pigs, and they would take it back to their town where they lived, and they would kill the pigs and sell the meat, and people would eat chazar for the Goyim. Uh, these two businessmen, uh, decided in the morning after they slept at night in the inn that they go-- they will split up. One of them should go one side of the city, the other one will head the other side of the city, and they will both try to find people they can buy pigs from. So they made up that if during the whole day they don't manage to buy any pigs, then they will both come home to the inn, and they'll meet there, and they'll eat supper together and go to sleep. But if one of them does find a good deal where they can buy some pigs from a person in this village, then the person who buys the pigs will be invited to stay overnight in the house of the person that sold them the pigs. He'll stay over there, stay there, and the

02:10 other person who didn't buy anything will come back to the inn and will go to sleep by himself. And if they both don't buy anything, they don't find anything good to buy, then they will both come back to the inn. Now the whole day passed. They went from door to door to try to find a Goy that can sell them some pigs. One of them didn't find anything, anything with a good price that he wanted to buy, so he went back to the inn, and he ate supper. He didn't see his friend come back, but he thought maybe, probably his friend, uh, must have bought some stuff, some pigs from someone, and he's staying in that house overnight. That was the custom, you know. If you bought it from someone, they give you a place to stay overnight, and then in the morning you take the pigs with you. So he went to sleep. This other f-- the friend of this Goy who came back to the inn saw his friend wasn't there, said, "Oh, probably he found some pigs to buy, and he's staying in that house." But then in the morning when he woke up, his partner still didn't come back. So he waited for breakfast, maybe he'll eat breakfast first, but still his partner didn't come back. He's waiting a few hours, and he's still not coming back. He said, "This is very strange. Let me go look for him." So he went through the whole village from door to door, from

03:47 door to door asking them, "Did you see my partner? See my partner?" Then finally he knocks on the door of a judge. There was a judge in that village, an important man, and the judge, uh, opens the door, and he says, "Did you see my friend? Uh, his name is so and so, and I didn't see him. He hasn't come back all night, and it's the middle of the day, he's still not coming back. I don't know where he is." So the judge says, "You know, I actually saw him. He came to my house yesterday. He wanted to buy pigs because I have some pigs. He wanted to buy it. Uh, but then we didn't agree on the price. He didn't like the price that I wanted for it, so he left, but I haven't seen him since. I don't know what happened to him." Now, the true story really was this gala, this, uh, judge was actually, uh, a thief. He wanted-- He knew that this merchant, this businessman had a lot of money on him. He was gonna buy a lot of pigs, so he had a lot of money on him. So this judge invited this Goy to his house. He killed him and stole all his money. Then he took the body of this, uh, Goyish businessman, and he put in-- he took him secretly at night to the inn which was owned by the Jew, and he put him behind the house, behind the inn in the backyard under a

05:25 pile of dirt, so nobody would notice him. And he snuck back to his house. That was the truth, but he pretended that he doesn't know what happened to him. So then the judge says to the Goy, the, the, the friend of the one that was killed, and he says to him, "You know, I have a feeling that your friend, your partner, um, was actually... maybe he was killed by the Jew. I think these Jews, sometimes they kill Goyim, right? Uh, maybe he killed him. Let's go check." So they went and, and, and the friend said to him, "No, that can't be. I know this Jew. I stayed there last night. They're such nice people. They wouldn't kill my friend." And the, and the, the judge says, "Well, I think it's very possible. We should go check." They went to the inn, and the judge, because he was a judge, he's like a, like a big leader in the village, he can do what he wants. So he said to the Jew, "I gotta check your house to see if there's somebody that was killed." So they checked the whole house, they couldn't find anyone. Finally, the judge says, "Huh, looks like there's nobody in the house. There's no proof that somebody was killed in this house. But let's try one more place in the backyard, and if we don't find them there, then I know it's not the Jew, it's somebody else." So they go to the backyard, and the judge knew exactly where he,

07:05 where he buried or where he hid the body of this other merchant, and he removed a pile of dirt, and there he was. And he says to the other merchant, "You see, your friend, your partner was killed by this Jew, and they buried him right here in the back of the inn." And the other partner listens to the judge and says, "That's not possible. I was all night in the inn last night, and all the members of the family of this Jew who owns the inn were inside the house. They would've never left the house. It's clearly impossible that they would kill him." But the judge says, "Listen, the body is here. They must have done it." So they decided, the judge said, "Okay, I'm the judge of the village. I'm gonna arrest the Jew who owns the inn." And he puts him in chains and handcuffs, and they take him away to the jail until we wait for the judge to decide what to do. Now, the word spread all over the village that this Jew who owns the inn was arrested, and he's accused of killing a non-Jewish merchant, a businessman, and everybody suspected he killed him because they found the body behind his inn. And the news also spread to Tanz. The judges of the city of Tanz, Tanz was the biggest city, and the judges, the goyishe judges of the city of Tanz also heard about the case. Now, the son of this Jew, the owner of the inn who was

08:50 arrested, quickly traveled to Tanz, which was nearby. Tanz was not far. And he went to the Tanzer Rav, and he told him the whole story. So the Tanzer Rav asked the son, "Tell me, is it 100% true that you, you, your father, nobody killed this goy?" And the son says, "I promise you, we would never do such a thing." So Tanzer Rav says, "In that case, I want you to go tell the judges in Tanz," 'cause in those days, the judges of Tanz were also in charge of the villages around Tanz, and they will be also involved in the court case. So when the court case happens, they would probably want to take the body of the goy that was killed, and they would, uh, do a little, um, operation, right? It's called, uh, an autopsy, to see the, how he was killed and to see if there's evidence that he was killed by someone. "So tell the judges that I said that when they're ready to look at the body to make sure that they can prove that the Jew killed him, they should call me first. I wanna come and be there. I wanna watch this." He says, "Go to the judges of Tanz because they will also be at the court case." So the son of the, of the innkeeper went to the judges of Tanz and said what the Tanzer Rav had said. And they were very respectful of the Tanzer Rav. They knew he was a very big Hakham, and

10:27 they, they... Even the goyim respected him a lot. They said, "Good. We'll, we'll call him when, when we're ready to look at the body to make sure that we have proof that this Jew killed him." And so when the time came, they invited the Tanzer Rav to come to the court. And the Tanzer Rav said to the judges, "I'd like to, to say something to the goy that's killed, that's dead." And the judge said, "Sure, go ahead." Went over to the deceased, to the dead goy, and he whispered in his ear for 10 minutes. Nobody could hear what he was saying. He was talking, talking, talking, talking to him. And then he grabbed the hand of the, of the person, of the body, and he held it like a Shalom Aleichem. And then he said to all the judges and everybody who's in the courthouse should also come and shake the hand of this person, of the dead body. So all the judges lined up, and all shook his hand. And amongst the judges was also the judge from the village who actually killed him. But of course, nobody knew about it, so he was the last one. He was a little bit nervous. When he came over to, to shake the hand of the dead body, he put it, shook his hand. The, the dead body's hand got very tight, and he couldn't take his hand out. The, the, the judge was not able to take his hand away 'cause the dead person was

12:11 holding his hand very tight. And he started screaming and screaming, "I can't get my hand out. I can't get my hand out." So the Tzanzer Rebbe said, uh, to the judges, "He's the one who killed him." And the judges went over to him and said, "Tell us the truth. Did you kill him or not? Because if you don't tell us the truth, he's gonna hold onto your hand. You're not gonna be able to go away." So he's, he was so scared, he screamed, "Yes, yes, I did it. I, I did it, I did it." And when he said that, the, that person let go of his hand, and he was able to go away. But of course, they let the Jew out of prison because they realized the Jew did not kill him, and they took the, the goyische judge, who was really the killer, and they put him in prison until they were going to judge him. And the entire village, and the entire towns in the whole region, all the goyim heard the amazing story with the Tzanzer Rav that he did in front of all the goyim. And all the goyim said, "Ah, this rabin, this rabbi, this rav is such a big, great man." And even the King Franz Joseph, who was the m- was a powerful king, he was the king over the entire Hungary and Austria. His name was Franz Joseph, he was a very famous, famous, powerful king, and he was the king of... The Tzanzer was also

13:45 in his kingdom. When he heard that story, he said he wants to meet this rabbi, and he sent a special letter asking, inviting the Rav to come to his palace because he wants to meet him. He heard so much about him. And that's the end of the story.