169. The Tzadik That Could Smell Kedusha

00:16 Shalom aleichem, kinderlach. Last Friday was the yahrtzeit of a tzadik. His name was Reb Aaron Rokach the Belzer Rav. Do you kids ever hear of someone who could smell kedushah, smell holiness, smell spiritual things, ruchnius? Well, I can't do this, and I'm not sure if you can do this. We can smell with our bodies, with our noses, physical things, right? Something smells good, like there's a delicious cake that's being baked in the oven. You can smell the smell. It's so good, right? You smell besamim, matzah shabbos. It smells good. But those, those are physical things that give off a smell. But to smell holy things, ruchnisdike things, tzadikim can do that. Why? Because their bodies are not like our bodies. They have refined their bodies. Their bodies have become more spiritual, right? Became closer to their neshamah. So their neshamah is revealed, so they can smell with their neshamah, and a neshamah smells not physical things. A neshamah smells spiritual things. So I'm gonna tell you an amazing story. This Belzer Rav, the Rebbe once said-- when, when this Belzer Rav was passed away, the Rebbe said that he was a neshamah without a guf. He had a neshamah, but barely had a guf. His guf was so spiritual that as if it was only a neshamah. You, you couldn't even see his guf because he was so refined. So just to show you how, how this, this actually happened that he could feel, he could sense when something was not appropriate or good spiritually,

02:16 and he right away felt it. Or if something was good, it was holy, it was kedushah, he could clearly feel it, even if he didn't know the person. The Rebbe, before he became Rebbe, before he became a nasi, he was living in Germany. Rebbe was living in the city of Berlin. This is before the war, before World War II, before the Holocaust. And the Rebbe was... In those days, the Rebbe didn't want people to know who he was. He didn't even know people should kn- He didn't want people to know his last name. So he would just say, "You know, my name is Mendel," or something like that. And people didn't know that he was the son-in-law of the previous Rebbe, that he was the grandson of the Tzemach Tzedek, that he had the last name of the Rebbeim. Nobody knew, except for a few people maybe. And he also walked around with, like, with a suit and a gray hat. You didn't-- He looked like a businessman. Nobody thought he was some kind of a big talmid chacham or Rebbe or tzadik. Eh, they thought he was just, like, a nice businessman. He didn't dress like a Rebbe, like a Rav, like a, uh, even the son of a Rav. He's dressed like a regular businessman. So once the Rebbe heard that the Belzer Rav, whose yahrtzeit was last Friday, Reb Aaron, came to Berlin. He came to Berlin because the Belzer Rebbes had a problem with their eyes. All the different Rebbes, there

03:47 were four Belzer Rebbes before the present one, and the Reb Aaron was the fourth. His father, his grandfather, great-grandfather, they all had problems with their eyes, and at the end of their lives they couldn't see. I'm sure you remember the story I told you about the first Belzer Rebbe, Reb Sholom. He was the great-grandfather of Reb Aaron, also couldn't see at the end of his life. And the Rebbe, Marash, once came into the shul and also dressed like a businessman. And the, and Reb Sholom, the, the, the first Belzer Rebbe, said to his shamash, "No, no, I wanna go over there." And he walked straight to the Rebbe Maharash, and people thought, "Who is this? He's just a businessman. Why you, why, why you wanna go to him?" He said, "No, no, no." He took Reb Aaron by the hand and says, "I smell something, that he's a, a very holy person." And he-- Great tzadikim could smell with their n- neshamah, right? Because their guf is, is completely bottled to the neshamah, so the neshamah smell, they feel. And he was able to take the Rebbe Maharash and t- next to him to the head of the table, as I told you this last time, or, um, maybe a few stories ago. Same thing happened with the Rebbe here. The Rebbe told a friend, his name was Itche Meyer. The Rebbe said... Itche Meyer lived in Berlin. Rebbe said, "Listen, I hear there's a tzadik coming to Berlin. I'd like you to take m-

05:02 me to him, and I wanna give shalom aleichem to him. I'd like to see a tza- I'd like to see a tzadik." So he went, and there were a lot of Hasidim, Belzer Hasidim, that came with the Rebbe. And the Rebbe was sitting in a certain place in Berlin, in a shul or somewhere in a room, where people would come by and, and, and give shalom aleichem. Now, the Belzer Rebbe, because he was such a holy person, and his body, his guf, was so s- refined and so holy, that he couldn't touch people's hands who had done averos, or people who had thoughts that were not very appropriate, right? Like, they didn't have heilige thoughts, right? His, uh, people that weren't s- like, on a, on a high level, he couldn't... When he touched their hand, he could feel that all the averos they did, or all the thoughts they had that was not very good, the bad machshavas, the bad thoughts. And so he was very sensitive to that, so he would only shake hands of people with a towel. That means he wouldn't touch their hand. He would just hold the towel, and people would shake the other end of the towel and say shalom aleichem. That's how he did it. Because he was too sensitive. So when the Rebbe came to see the Belzer Rebbe in Berlin, he stood in line like thousands of other people to give him Shalom Aleichem. And to everyone, the Belzer Rebbe gave his towel, and they,

06:25 they touched the towel, and that's how they said Shalom Aleichem. When the Rebbe came up to him, he couldn't see with his eyes well, and the Rebbe looked like a regular, simple, like a businessman. He put down the towel, the Belzer Rebbe put down the towel, and gave the hand, his hand straight to the Rebbe and shook his hand. It was very unusual. People said, "Wait a second. Why is he suddenly putting down the towel and for this person he's making an exception, is, is holding his hand?" When the Rebbe walked away, he talked to his gabbi, to his shamash, "Who is this young man? He had a very warm hand." He sensed that despite the fact the Rebbe was sort of disguised and dressed like a regular businessman, actually there was kedusha there, and he could feel it with his hands. This shows you how, what a great person he was. So here's a story that I wanted to tell you about him, and I read it recently. Somebody who was actually there and saw it with his eyes. This Belzer Rebbe, the tzadik, used to every Friday night make kiddush in front of the whole community, right, all the Hasidim, on a cup of wine like we do, always do Friday night. And he would say kiddush with great kavana, like a tzadik, and he would always have somebody give an honor to someone wh- who would lift the cup and place it on his palm, on his hand, right? When you make

07:56 kiddush, you're supposed to pick up the cup and put it on the palm of your hand, of your right hand. He would honor someone to lift the cup and put it on the Rebbe Aaron's, the Rebbe's palm of his hand. There was one person who he would often honor with doing this, giving this honor, and there was a, a man by the name of Reb Yosef Eichenstein. Reb Yosef Eichenstein was a descendant of a, some great tzadik, so the Belzer Rebbe wanted to honor him with putting the cup of wine before kiddush on the Rebbe's palm, on the Rebbe's hand. One Friday night, Reb Yosef came a little bit late to the shul. It was before the Rebbe made kiddush, but the shul was already packed with a lot of people, so very hard to get in. He had to push and push. So when you push between people, he accidentally touched the shoes of a person who was, like, like standing somewhere on a, on a bench. Now, in Shulchan Aruch it says if you tie your shoes, if you wanna go daven, you have to wash your hands first. Tying your shoes is one of the things that it says you should wash your hands before you daven, before you say a bracha. Always wash your hands, just like when you go to the shower, or you go to the bathroom, or you take a haircut, or you cut your nails. In all these cases, after you finish doing it, you have to

09:18 wash your hands six times before you can daven or learn or say a bracha or go to eat. So it says also when you tie your shoes, but some people it says even if you touch the shoe, people would wash their hands. So since he touched the shoe of the person, he thought, "Oh, I should go outside the shul to wash my hands," because the sink was outside the shul. But he thought, "Oi, then I'll be late, and I'll have to go back in and push back in." He said, "Eh, it's not a big deal. I just touched the shoe." And he squeezed in all the way in till he got to his seat. His seat was by the head of the table. Uh, you know, there was a long head of the table with a lot of rabbonim people sitting by the table. He sat by the end. Well, came the time for kiddush, and the Rebbe, Rebbe Aaron, uh, called Reb Yosef to, w- to honor him with picking up the cup of wine and put it on the Rebbe's palm on his hand. Reb Yosef came over, he was very honored, and he took the cup, put it on the Rebbe's hand. The Rebbe thought and thought and thought, closed his eyes, didn't say kiddush. Stopped. Didn't say kiddush. He thought for a while, and then to everybody's surprise, he took the cup and put it back down. Did not say kiddush. And then he sat down. And everybody all sat down

10:43 too. People were wondering, "What's going on? Why isn't the Rebbe making kiddush?" He picked up the cup, put it down, didn't make kiddush, and then he's sitting down. Then he turned to his left. There was a rav from a city in Eretz Yisrael that was sitting at, to his left side. He said to him, "Reb Yankel, would you mind going washing your hands? I'd like f- for you to wash your hands. I have a specific reason." Now he was wondering, "Why does the Rebbe want me to wash my hands? The Rebbe's asking. Okay, I'll go wash my hands." Then he turned to his right to Reb Yosef Eichenstein, the one who lifted the cup, and the Rebbe didn't make kiddush. He turns to him, "Also, also you, do you mind going washing your hands?" And Reb Yosef went outside to wash his hands. And when they both came back, the Rebbe turned to Reb Yosef again and said, "Okay, now you lift the cup again and put it on my hand, and I'll make kiddush." The Rebbe made kiddush. And Reb Yosef thought about this, "What just happened here tonight? What was going on here? That the Rebbe made me pick up the cup, then he didn't say kiddush, put it down. Then he told somebody to his left, a rav, to, to put it to, to wash his hands, and then he told me to wash my hands. Why did he do all this?" Then he realized, "Oh, I understand now. The Rebbe sensed

12:11 that my hands weren't totally 100% pure because I touched shoes. Remember, I didn't wanna go wash. I was afraid I won't be able to get back in. There were so many people." But he sensed that he had... He could feel with his hands, and he could smell with his nose when something was spiritually not so clean, so perfect. And he didn't wanna embarrass his Reb Yosef and say, "Go wash your hands first." That would be embarrassing. It would embarrass him, saying, "Hey, you didn't wash your hands." So he sat down and turned to somebody else first. "Uh, maybe you to my left, go wash your hands, and you to my right, also go wash your hands." For whatever reason. This way, he didn't embarrass his Reb Yosef. So a great rav said, "No, that the Belzer Rebbe had Ruach Hakodesh, and he could feel that this man's hands touched shoes or touched something which, uh, Pialah, you have to wash your hands." That I've seen before. I knew that he was a Baal Ruach Hakodesh. But he's Ahavas Yisroel. He didn't wanna embarrass his Reb Yosef, so he stopped and told somebody else to wash, and then he told Reb Yosef, so it wouldn't be obvious that he's pointing out something to Reb Yosef that he did something wrong. That shows how great these people are.