163. The Rebbe Saves A Woman From Going To Jail

00:16 Shalom Aleichem, kinders. We're still very close to Gimmel Tammuz. Let me share with you another amazing story with the Rebbe. This is a story that was told by a Hasid. His name is Rabbi Hirsch Chaitrik. Hirsch Chaitrik was a shliach of the Rebbe in Brazil for a while, um, and then he came back to New York, and he went into business. But while he was a shliach in Brazil, there's a city in Brazil called Rio de Janeiro, and there were Jews living there, and the Rebbe sent him there many years ago. And he became friends with one of the very important Jewish people in Rio de Janeiro. He was a Jew. His name was Dovid. He was the president of the community. He was probably a rich man, a talmid chacham, a Jew who learned Torah. He was very important to the community, very influential. Everybody looked up at him. He was very, very-- Everybody knew about him. He was very famous, very known, and he did a lot of good things for the community. This, uh, Dovid's wife once traveled from Brazil to Florida. To Florida, to Miami. Somebody asked her, somebody in the community, some- somebody she maybe she didn't know so well, uh, asked if she would take a little package to someone. She has a friend in Miami, "Could you please deliver this package? It's just a present I wanna give her." She said, "Sure, I'll do it." She didn't ask any questions what's in the package. And she went, she

02:11 flew to Miami, and you know when you come to the airports, you come from another country. Brazil is another country. It's a different country than the United States. So when you come into a different country, you gotta go through customs, right? You have to go through the customs by the border. They look at your passport and make sure that you're a good person, you know. They don't wanna get people into their country who are not good, who are bad people. So they look at your passport and everything, and they also look at your bags to make sure that you're not bringing in anything into the country you're not supposed to. Now, in most countries have laws about when you bring in, let's say, um, merchandise to sell. You wanna sell, let's say, jewelry. Then you have to go to the customs and tell them, "I have jewelry," and they make you pay a certain amount of money for being allowed to sell your stuff, your merchandise in this country, right? And you have to tell the customs. If you don't, and you try to smuggle it through without telling them, that's a very serious crime. It's considered very serious thing, and then they can put you in jail, right? You can't smuggle. Some people smuggle drugs, which you're for sure not allowed to bring into the country. No country wants to have drugs which are harmful to people. They, they hurt people. So in her case, this woman, the wife of this Dovid, who was

03:40 the president of the Jewish community in Rio de Janeiro, she had a package of this person. She didn't know what's in the package, but the p- police at the border, when she came into the United States in Miami at the airport, they said, "We wanna see what's inside the bag." And they checked and checked, and they opened it up, and they saw that there was in the, in the, in the-- It was like a little suitcase, and in the wall of the suitcase, right? In the lining, the wall, there, there was diamonds, a lot of diamonds. And that was very, very bad because if you bring in a lot of diamonds, you have to pay a certain fee, a tax, and she did not tell anything because she didn't know. She thought it was just a present. So they immediately arrested her and said, "Ha. She's trying to smuggle in diamonds, uh, from, uh, Brazil into this country without paying your, your taxes on this." And they put her in jail, and she was supposed to go to Miami for a wedding. The reason she traveled to Miami was to go to a wedding of a family member, but now she's in prison. She can't go to the wedding. Now, her husband heard about it in Brazil, and he got very upset, and everybody was upset. In all of Brazil, everybody talked about it, that this famous Dovid, who is such an important person in Rio de Janeiro, his wife was caught. She was trying

05:15 to do a terrible thing, a bad thing. She was trying to smuggle diamonds into the country, the United States. She broke the law. She went against the law of the country, and everybody talked about it. And even the president of Brazil, the president of Brazil itself, the goyishe president of the whole country, he also-- He was friendly with this Dovid. This Dovid was a rich man, so he was friendly with the president. So the president tried to help him by talking to the people in Miami and say, "Well, she's a good person." But they didn't wanna listen. They said, "No, no, no. We caught her with a terrible thing. She did a bad thing. She broke the law. She tried to smuggle in diamonds." And she's saying, "I didn't know. I was-- Somebody gave it to me, and I thought it was just a gift, a present." I didn't know there was so much diamonds that th- this other person tricked her into taking this. He didn't tell her that he was trying to smuggle in diamonds. He is the one who is guilty. He is the one who is bad. He is the one who did-- that broke the law, but he, he tricked her and didn't tell her. He said, "Oh, it's just a present for someone." And now she ended up being in jail. Everybody was very upset. Now, this-- the brother-in-law of this woman was so upset, he came to United States, and Rav Chitrik, who was the shliach of the

06:41 Rebbe in Brazil and knew him very well, said to him, "Why don't you come to the Rebbe? Come to the Rebbe. The Rebbe..." He says, "No, no, no. I'm a Misnagid. I'm a Litvak. I, I, I, I g-- I come from Misnagdim. I don't go to Rebbes." So Rav Chitrik said to him, "Listen, the lawyers, they hired very, very, very good lawyers to, to see if they can help her get out of jail. But, uh, the lawyers said they tried everything, and it's not p-- it's very, very hard. They might put her in prison for ten years. That's a lot of time. Ten years in prison. Poor woman." And, uh, so this brother was like, "No, I'm not going to the Rebbe." He said, "No, no, come. What can you lose? The lawyers already said that they can't help you anymore. They tried everything, and it's not working." So finally, he agreed, and they made him yechidus. He went into yechidus by the Rebbe, told the Rebbe the whole thing, and the Rebbe said just one thing: "Go to Miami. Go to Miami, and it will be good. It will, it will be all good. Just go to Miami. Travel to Miami." He comes out of yechidus and tells Rabbi Chitrik, "I don't understand what you said. What-- You told, you told me to go to the Rebbe, and you told me to go to Miami. What am I gonna do in Miami? He didn't even tell me what I should do there. Who should

08:07 I meet? Who should I... I just go to Miami." So Rav Chitrik said to him, "You don't know. If the Rebbe says go, you go. Don't ask questions. You'll find out there that something will happen." So finally, he agrees. They looked up a hotel. He wants a kosher hotel with this kosher food, and he got into a flight and flew to Miami, and he went there before Shabbos. It was, like, Friday. He came there and stayed in the hotel. And Friday night, he wanted to go to a shul, so he asked the hotel person, "Where do-- Where is the shul?" So he told him, "You go there. There's a shul." So this, um, this Jew from Rio de Janeiro, this brother-in-law of this woman, uh, went to shul, and in Sh-- But he was very, very hurt, broken inside that this happened to his sister-in-law, and he's, like, very embarrassed about it and feels so bad that she's sitting in jail. So when he was davening Friday night, he couldn't stop himself. He kept crying and crying and crying the whole davening, which was very strange on Shabbos. You don't cry on Shabbos. And, um, you know, Shabbos is a, is a time of joy, time of happiness. You don't cry on Shabbos. But here's a Jew standing Friday night and cries and cries. So somebody in the shul came over to him and said to him, "Reb Yid, what's the matter? I see you crying so much." He said, "Nah, you can't help me.

09:38 Leave me alone." So he said, "No, no, no. Just tell me. Tell me. Maybe I could help you." So finally, this Jew, he tells this, this, this person, "You know what happened with my sister-in-law? She came from Brazil to Miami, and somebody tricked her and told her to take a, a little package, a little, little suitcase to someone. That it was a present to someone. But then they found at the border that there was actually a lot of diamonds, which she was supposed to report and tell the, the, the, the, the, the police that you have diamonds, and she didn't, and she was put in jail. And now I don't know what to do, and, and she's here in Miami. She's in prison." This Jew said to him-- This Jew who came over to him said to him, "Reb Yid, is, um... When is the court case? Is it this Tuesday, right? This Tuesday?" And he said, "Yes, it's this Tuesday." He says, "Listen, I am the judge in this case." They had a Jewish judge. "Don't worry. I heard what you said, and I am convinced that she's not guilty. I will make sure that she comes out of prison." And it's true. The next Tuesday, when the court case took place, and all the lawyers were arguing back and forth, the, the judge, who was a Jew, he was actually a, a somewhat of a firm Jew, he went to shul Friday night, he said, "Okay, I think she's not guilty. They should

11:14 let her out." And she was free. Within an hour, she was outside, and that's how she was saved. And now this Jew who said, "I'm a Misnagid. I'm a Litvak. I don't believe in Rebbe," he realized how the Rebbe saw... The Rebbe saw Baruch HaKodesh that when-- if he goes to Miami, he'll find the solution, and, and, and the answer will come. But later on, when Rav Chitrik was in yechidus, the Rebbe asked him, "What happened? Well, how did it work out in Miami?" Because this Jew didn't tell the Rebbe. Um, he just went to Miami, and then this happened. This, this wonderful thing happened, but he didn't tell the Rebbe what happened. So the Rebbe asked Chitrik, "But what happened?" And Chitrik says that it all worked out, and told him what happened. He went to the shul, and he met the judge himself. So the Rebbe s-says-- And he said-- And, and then Rav Chitrik said to the Rebbe, "In all of Brazil, everybody's talking about the big miracle the Rebbe performed." And the Rebbe said, "Nah, that's not a miracle. The real miracle is that he listened to me." You know, he's a Misnagid, that he actually listened to the Rebbe and took a, a ticket and, and a plane, and he flew to Miami, even though he didn't have no idea what he's gonna do there. That he had emunah and trust. That is a big miracle.