167. The Chozeh Of Lublin’s Clock

00:15 Shalom Aleichem, kinders. Tomorrow night is Tisha B'Av. Tisha B'Av, as you know, is the churban of both Bais Hamikdash's. Both were destroyed on B- on Tisha B'Av. Tisha B'Av also happens to be the yahrtzeit of the great tzadik. He's known as the Choizeh of Lublin. Choizeh, that wasn't his name. His name was Rabbi Yankiv Yitzchak of Lublin, but they called him the Choizeh because Choizeh means he saw things. He had tremendous Ruach Hakodesh. He could see from one end of the world to the other. People would come to him, he would tell them what happens far away, to- hundreds of miles away. Tell them exactly what's happening now at this moment. He also knew what happened in people's lives from the day they were born until... and what's gonna happen until the day they die. He could see everything. He had open eyes. He had spiritual eyes, eyes that could see things, that like neviim, almost like neviim. Choizeh is a name that was used for neviim. That's why they called him the Choizeh of Lublin, the seer, the one who sees, the seer of Lublin. The Choizeh of Lublin lived around the time of the Alter Rebbe. As you all know, the Alter Rebbe was nistalek during the time of Napoleon's war with Russia. This was a big war because Napoleon tried to conquer the all of Europe. At that time, everybody thought Mashiach is gonna come soon, and Napoleon's war is the big war that will happen before Mashiach comes. As it says

02:00 in many seforim, there will be a big war before Mashiach. And everybody... a lot of Jews thought this is the last war before Mashiach comes. The Alter Rebbe was nistalek in Chavdal Tevet tet kuf ayin gimel. In the year tet kuf ayin daled, there were three tzadikim who got together and decided they wanna daven very hard to make sure the Mashiach comes and bring an end to the galus. One of the tzadikim was, uh, the Maggid of Kozhnitz. The Kozhnitzer Maggid was a talmid of the Mezritcher Maggid, and the Choizeh of Lublin was the other tzadik, and then there was the Yehudi HaKadosh. They called him the Holy Jew from Prshiskhe. His name was also Yankiv Yitzchak like the Choizeh, but they called him the Holy Jew. I'll tell you they... That, that was his second name. He was the tzadik from Prshiskhe. They decided that the tzadik from Prshiskhe, Reb Yankiv Yitzchak of Prshiskhe, will be nistalek in the year tet kuf ayin daled, and he will work in the heavens in Gan Eden, daven very hard that Mashiach should come, and we will help him. He will help us. We will daven from here, and we'll work together from here and from above and daven and daven very hard until Mashiach comes. And this was a very dangerous thing to do because he's starting to fight with the Satan. The Satan, who's also the Yetzer Hara, who's also the Malach HaMavet, he doesn't want Mashiach to come because he's afraid if Mashiach comes,

03:57 all evil is gonna go away. What does the navi say? When Mashiach comes, there will be no more evil, only good, only holiness, only kedushah, only Hashem. Evil, bad stuff will no longer exist, and the Satan doesn't want that. His whole job is to make people do evil. So the Satan, who is a malach, a very powerful malach, he stood up against them. But of course, we can't see the Satan, but these tzadikim, they could see things, spiritual things, and they knew that this was a very serious milchamah. It was a war going on between the tzadikim and the forces of evil, uh, led by the Satan. Reb Yankiv Yitzchak of, uh, Prshiskhe passed away. The Prshiskhe tzadik indeed did go up to Shomayim. And the Choizeh of Lublin, the Mezritcher Maggid, stayed here, and they were davening, and every davening they used to think, have kavanahs, and plead with Hashem, do all kinds of things to make sure that Hashem sh- must bring Mashiach. The galus must come to an end. There was another tzadik, Reb Mendel of Rimanov, who also tried to daven very hard for Mashiach on that year. This was the year after the Alter Rebbe's hishtalglas. Uh, in tet kuf ayin daled, Reb Mendel of Rimanov sat in Sukkah... or Sukkos, beginning of the year of tet kuf ayin daled. Sat in the Sukkah and he said to his Hasidim davening, "So I should live till the end of the year because if I live long enough till the end

05:40 of this year and till Rosh Hashanah of next year, tet kuf ayin hei, you will be able to hear the shofar of Mashiach. Mashiach will be here. But all I need," he says, "I need to live till the end of the year." So daven so hard I should... that he, that he should not be nistalek. Unfortunately, on the year we... on, on Yutess year tet kuf ayin daled- Five months before Rosh Hashanah, after 59, the, the Mendel of Ribiman passed away. He was in Stalag and, um, a half a year later on Erev Sukkot 59, the Kozhenitz Maggid passed away. On Rosh Hashanah of 59, the Choizeh of Lublin had very big kavanot in davening, and people saw in his face it was red. He was on fire. He was like davening so hard that this year should be the year of Mashiach. Everybody was trembling from fear. They saw how hard the Rebbe was davening and, and pleading with Hashem. Now, during Tekias that Rosh Hashanah, and generally the, the Choizeh wouldn't blow the shofar. He had a Chassid, one of his talmidim blow the shofar, and he would be the Makri. That means he would point with a finger and say, "Tekiah, Teruah." That year, Rosh Hashanah, when it came to Tekias after the Choizeh had davened very, very hard for Mashiach to come, the Talmud couldn't make any sounds. He tried, he blew the shofar, and it didn't come out. You know, great tzaddikim, when they blow the shofar, they do great

07:34 things in shamayim. Through the mitzvah of shofar they can change everything in the heavens and make this year, this coming year that follows Rosh Hashanah a very special year. And the Choizeh of Lublin tried with the shofar, with the mitzvah of shofar, that the shofar would go up, the sound of the shofar would go up to shamayim, to Hashem, and it would bring Mashiach. But the shofar didn't go. The Talmud tried to blow, no sounds. So the Choizeh stopped and said, "Hashem gave us a mitzvah to blow the shofar. If the Satan doesn't want us to blow the shofar and he's stopping it and he's blocking it, let him blow it himself." And as soon as he said that, the sound started coming. The Choizeh won. The shofar was blowing smoothly and nicely. And then when it came after the davening, the Choizeh was sitting at his table, his Yom Tov meal. He said to his Hasidim, "It seems like in shamayim they don't wanna bring the geulah. There's many, many, many difficulties in shamayim against us that don't want us to bring the geulah." But he said, "But don't worry, I think maybe the avoda, the service, the tefilos of Rosh Hashanah and the shofar is not enough because that's all done with fear of Hashem. Rosh Hashanah is a time of Yomim Noraim, time of awe, fear. But Simchat Torah is coming soon. Simchat Torah there we serve Hashem with great simcha, and simcha has more power than yirah, than fear of Hashem.

09:14 So I'm-- I feel that on Simchat Torah we will dance, we will dance with the Sefer Torah with such simcha, and that will bring Mashiach." A day before Shemini Atzeret, the Choizeh told his Hasidim, "Please be very careful with me. Watch me the whole night of Simchat Torah. Watch me every minute that I should be with you." Nobody understood what he wanted. Came the night of Simchat Torah, the Choizeh was standing with a small-- He had a small Sefer Torah like the Rebbe used to dance with a small Sefer Torah by Hakafot. He also had a small Sefer Torah, and he stood on the bimah and everybody was dancing with great simcha, and the Choizeh's face was f- re- was with so much light. You could see that he had so much kavanah. You could see that he wanted to bring Mashiach now with the simcha of Simchat Torah. And the Hasidim were dancing so hard for hours and hours and hours, and then the Choizeh decided to join the, the circle of the Hasidim. Instead of standing on the bimah, he went with the crowds, with everybody dancing around, and everybody was like so into the dancing. Nobody would pay attention what goes on next to them. People, their eyes were closed, and they were singing and dancing. And suddenly, after a while, people look around, the Choizeh is not around, and the Sefer Torah that he was holding is on the bimah now. Nobody saw him leave. Nobody knew what happened. People stopped

10:47 singing and stopped dancing and went to look for the Rebbe. They saw all the windows were closed except one small window in his room. The Choizeh had his own little room next to the shul. That window was open. So they couldn't find him in the shul, so they went outside into the yard. They looked for him, looked for him everywhere, and further away in the yard they heard a sound, somebody sighing, "Ah, oy." So they asked, "Who is this?" It was dark. It was the night of Simchat Torah. They asked, "Who is this person who's crying or is making sighs?" And he says, "It's Yaakov Yitzchak ben Matel." His name was Yaakov Yitzchak, and his mother's name was Matel. That was the name of the Choizeh. So people realized that this was the Rebbe. Nobody knows how he fell out. I mean, he couldn't have jumped out of a window. But he was very, very bruised and wounded, and he couldn't walk. The Hasidim got very, very scared. They picked him up, and they carried him to his room, put him on his bed. Finally, the Choizeh opened his eyes and says to the Hasidim, "Oy, you didn't tell me that the Maggid of Kozhenitz, the Kozhenitz Maggid was nistalek on Erev Sukkot." This was Erev Sukkot 59. And now it was Simchas Torah of Kapain He. That means a week or so earlier, there was-- the Kerzhan Tzemach passed away and nobody wanted to tell the Chozeh that the Kerzhan Tzemach, his friend, the

12:20 Kerzhan Tzemach was Nistalik because they didn't wanna upset him because it's Yom Tov, 'cause he wanted to be in Simcha. He says-- Now he says, "You should know that the Satan didn't like what I was doing. I was trying to bring Mashiach and force Mashiach to come down, and the Satan took me and threw me out of the window. And suddenly I saw the Kerzhan Tzemach, and then I realized that he's not in this world anymore. He was Nistalik." That's when he found out he was Nistalik, 'cause he came down from Shamayim and stopped, stopped his fall. The Kerzhan Tzemach put, like, out his garment, his clothes to stop him from not falling too hard on the ground. He says, "If the Kerzhan Tzemach didn't come from Gan Eden to stop it, the fall, to make him fall less hard on the floor," he says, "I wouldn't be alive now. All my body would be into pieces." This was a nest, and he came, and that's how I n-- found out that he's actually was Nistalik, and nobody told me. Had I known that he was Nistalik, I wouldn't have started with this in Simchas Torah 'cause alone I can't do it. I thought he was helping me, but he's not here. Anyways, the, the Chozeh of Lublin got very, very sick. And the Misnagdim, he had many Misnagdim. In Lublin, there were two big Misnagdim. One was a Maggid. He was a very... He was a Maggid. He was the Maggid of the city

14:02 of Lublin. He was a big Misnagdim to the Chozeh. But the Chozeh used to tell Hasidim not to bother him because he's a special person, and he learns Torah Lishmo. They shouldn't bother him. The Rav of the city was also a big Misnagdim of the Chozeh. His name was Rabbi Israel Horovitz. He was called the, the iron head, the steel head. He was very smart. He was a gon. He knew the whole Torah. Big Misnagdim. There were a lot of other Misnagdim against the Chozeh because they didn't like him because he was, um, a Hasid. And, uh, some of the Misnagdim were not very nice. When they heard what happened to the Chozeh, that he fell down on Simchas Torah and broke his arm and his leg and all the bones in his body were broken, they drank l'chaim 'cause they thought in those days the Misnagdim were too foolish. They thought that the Tzadikim and the Hasidim are going against the Torah. They're not following the Shulchan Aruch, which of course was n- was false. But many of them believed it. So they said, "L'chaim. Okay, now he's gonna stop teaching so many Jews how to go against the Shulchan Aruch." And they said l'chaim. When the Chozeh heard this while he was lying in bed sick, he heard that somebody told him that the Misnagdim are drinking l'chaim, that he got sick, and that he's very sick. So the Chozeh said, "You know what? Tell them that the day I die, they wouldn't

15:40 even be able to drink a cup of water." And nobody knew what he was saying. Why couldn't they drink a cup of water? But then he was Nistalik on Tishrei above. It's quite a few months later, but on Tishrei above he was Nistalik. Everybody realized, "Ah, that's what he was saying." He knew already early on on Simchas Torah that he will be Nistalik from the world. He'll be sick the whole time, the whole year from Simchas Torah till Tishrei above, and that's when he'll be Nistalik. They buried the Chozeh of Lublin and I think it was Motzei Tishrei above, and he had a few sons, and they divided all the belongings of the Chozeh between his sons. One of his sons was a name, was Rabbi Yosef. He had a son by the name Rabbi Yosef. He was a Tzadik, Rabbi Yosef of Torchin. Rabbi Yosef, his-- what he, what he got from the inheritance of the Chozeh was the Shabbos Kapote Bekishe, Kapote of the, of the Chozeh, of his father, was a silk, made of silk, a Seiden Bekishe, Seiden Kapote, his Gartel of the Chozeh, and an old clock that the Chozeh had in his room. It was always in the room of his father, of the, of the Chozeh. And that he got-- they, they made a goral who should get what parts of his father's belonging. And this Rabbi Yosef, this son of the Chozeh, he got these three things, his Kapote from Shabbos, his Gartel, and his clock. This

17:25 clock, in the olden days, the clocks would, would, would ring. It was like a bell. There was like a bell inside that would swing back and forth and make a sound every hour. When it was one o'clock, it made one, it made one bell, one sound. If it was two o'clock, two sounds. Three o'clock, three sounds, and that's how people knew what time it was. This also had like a bell. It made sounds. You knew exactly what time it was. And the Chozeh would use it in his room. He would know when to daven, when to learn. Everything was according to that clock. And that clock became be Yerusha, was inherited by Rabbi Yosef Yisroel. Rabbi Yosef came from Torchin all the way to the levaya of his father, and then they split through a goral, a lottery Uh, the, all the belongings of their father, and the Rebbe Yosef, as I said, got the bekishe, the kapote, and the gartel, and the clock, and he decided to go back home to Torchin. He walked on foot, put a, put... uh, took the, um, kapote of his father, the gartel, and the clock. He wrapped it in a bag and put it on his shoulder on a stick, and he walked home, walked his town. On the way, it started pouring rain, and it rained and rained so hard that he couldn't continue to walk. It was the middle of the road, the middle of nowhere, and he saw a, an inn, an inn which

18:47 belonged to a Jew, and he decided to stop over there. He decided to stop over there and went in. He thought, "Okay, I'll just stay here for a few hours till the rain stops." But it kept raining all night. He couldn't go out. He was forced to stay in the inn the whole night. The next day, it just kept raining and raining and raining, so he had to order food from the innkeeper, and he had to get a room, a place to sleep. So for a few days, it kept raining nonstop, and Rebbe Yosef had to stay there in the inn. He ate and drank and slept in that inn. So finally, the skies became clear. No more clouds, no more rain. And Rebbe Yosef went to the innkeeper and said, "Okay, I'm leaving today. What, what do I have to pay you?" Oh, when he got the bill, he, he took... looked in his pocket. He says, "I don't even have enough money for one day to pay, for sure not for three days. I don't know what to do. I don't have enough money on me. But..." he says, "You know what? I have in my bag three things. These are very special things from my father, my holy father, the Chozeh. I have his kapote, and I have his gartel, and I have his clock. You can choose and pick which one you want, and that will be payment for my staying here with you." He was a very simple man, the,

20:08 the innkeeper. So he looked at the three things and said, "Hmm, let me ask my wife." You know, he called his wife. She was also a very simple woman. They put out the kapote of the Chozeh, his gartel on the table, and the clock, and they looked, and his wife says, "Well, the kapote, who's gonna buy from us a kapote? It belongs to the Chozeh of Lublin. W- Who's gonna know it's from the Chozeh? Then nobody's gonna buy it from us, and we can't wear it. It belongs to a tzadik. I mean, you, you're my husband. You're a simple peasant. Are you, you gonna wear the Chozeh's bekishe kapote? Nah. So then what are we gonna do with it? You know what? The clock is the only thing that actually we can use. At least we'll know when do we have to milk the cows in the morning. You know, the clock will, will, will bell, will make a bell, and will make a sound, and we'll know it's five o'clock. We gotta go, uh, milk the cows. So that's at least it's useful for us, so we'll keep the clock." Rebbe Yosef had no choice. He had to part with the clock, and he left with the kapote, with the bekishe, and the gartel, and left to his house. A few years went by, and the clock was sitting in the room of the innkeeper every day making sounds. Very good clock. It was all on time. Very old, but still was very good

21:30 shape. It, it, it worked very well. On time, was just on time, always on time. One day, a tzadik by the name Rebbe of Radashitz, Reb Dov Ber of Radashitz, was traveling through that village, and he stayed in that inn. Um, so he went into the innkeeper and says, "Listen, I need a room to stay overnight, and, uh, a place where I can learn and daven, a place where I can have my private room." So the innkeeper says, "I don't have a special room for guests now. But if you want, I'll give you my personal room." "No, I'll live in another place. I'll, I'll, I'll sleep somewhere else in a, in a, in a little room next door." So the tzadik saw he has no choice, so he accepted the offer, and he moved into the room, the private room of the innkeeper. The innkeeper and his wife, they moved next, next door to the room next to it. When the innkeeper decided to go to sleep, it was late at night, went to that little room next to his room, and he hears that the, the, the tzadik, from Radashitz, is walking back and forth. He can hear his footsteps, and he's singing. Then he hears him dancing. In middle of the night, he's making noise, and he couldn't sleep because he could hear from behind the wall that the tzadik was singing and dancing. He was very happy. He waited maybe an hour, he'll get tired and will go to sleep. But it

23:02 didn't happen. He kept singing and dancing all night. Finally, early morning, the innkeeper was so exhausted that he fell asleep. He woke up, it was already, you know, light outside, and he walks out of his room and he sees the, the, the tzadik of Radashitz comes out of his room. So he's asking him, before he could say anything to the tzadik, the tzadik asks him, "Where did you get this clock from? That clock in your room, where is it coming from?" So the innkeeper was very surprised. Why would he think-- why is it, what's special about this clock? And, uh, the, the tzadik of Radashitz says, "Listen, I... This is the-- I can tell this is the clock of the Chozeh of Lublin." And so the innkeeper tells him how he got it. The son of the Chozeh was passing through here, didn't have any money to pay, so he gave him the clock. So then he asks to the, to the, the tzadik of Radashitz, "But how did you know it was the Chozeh's clock?" He says, "I'll tell you why. Every clock, all clocks make sounds. One o'clock, a ding-dong. Two o'clock, a ding-dong, ding-dong, twice. Three o'clock, ding-dong, ding-dong, ding-dong, three times. And yeah, that's what every clock does. But when you listen carefully, what is the clock saying to you? Every clock in the world when it makes a sound, oh, it's three o'clock. You're thinking, oh, another hour has passed by. Oy, time flies by. We gotta do teshuva because,

24:45 hey, when you get older and time flies by more and more and more, every person gets closer to the day when they have to go up to Shamayim, and the person has to pass away." So it reminds you that life is precious and time is very, very precious, and you can't waste time. You have to use every moment to daven, to learn, to do a mitzvah. Because once you die, you look back and you go, "Oy vey, what I could have done with that minute, what I could have done with that moment." So when the, when the clock starts dinging it's 3:00, you said, "Oh my God, there was a whole another hour passed by. And what did I do during this hour? Did I fill this hour with mitzvahs, with good deeds? And I'm getting closer to the end of my life now." That's with all of the clocks. But this clock from the Chozeh, you hear something very different. The Chozeh's clock, you hear like a, a sound of joy. Simcha. Ah, the galus is coming to an end. We're getting closer to Mashiach. Another hour closer to Mashiach. Because the Chozeh lived every moment with this desire to see Mashiach come now, this second. Just like the Rebbe. Remember the Rebbe would always, always, always cry and beg us, "Daven for Mashiach." The Rebbe wanted Mashiach to be every s- now, not a second later. The Rebbe said once, "People say I'm crazy for Mashiach." The Rebbe wanted so, and the Chozeh

26:13 was like that, too. He wanted Mashiach, so even his clock would cry out with a dinging and say, "Mashiach is coming. Ah, we're closer to Mashiach, another hour closer." May we have a easy fast, or better yet, may this Tisha B'Av be a Yom Tov, because Mashiach will be here before Tisha B'Av.