171. The Ganov Did Tshuva

00:15 Shalom Aleichem, kinderlach. Today is Chodesh Elul, and we're told about Elul that Hashem is asking each one of us to, uh, come closer to Hashem. Let me share with you an amazing story, beautiful story that happened at the time of the Mezritcher Maggid. The Talmidim of the Maggid were once sitting in the Beis Midrash and learning, farbrengen together. Maybe they say l'chaim a little bit, and they learned, and they schmoozed. And suddenly, it was late at night, and they hear the footsteps of their Rebbe. The Mezritcher Maggid is coming into the Beis Midrash. And when Mezritcher came in, everybody stood up. The Maggid said to the Talmidim, "I'm asking you, please, let's get a Minyan, at least ten people, to say Tehillim. We need to say Tehillim for a Jew who lives a little while-- far away from here. He's now in a very, very big trouble, and he's also trying to do teshuva. But he can't. It's hard for him, and he needs a lot of help. He needs help to do teshuva, and he needs help in a problem that he has. It's very, very difficult, and we need to help him. Let's daven for him." Talmidim didn't ask any details, what, who the, who it is, where it is, and what happened. They just listened to their Rebbe, and a Minyan got together, and they said Tehillim for a few hours. One of these Talmidim that was part of the Minyan that said Tehillim at the request of the Maggid, once, years

02:05 later, many... maybe ten years later, traveled far away, came to a city, and he was just traveling through. So he decided to go to the Beis Midrash at the shul in that town, where you can learn a little bit and daven. He sits down by a table and a chair, and he learns. He opens up a Gemara, starts learning. Then he hears one person speaking to another person. He says to him, "Oh, you. Where were you? I, I... Ten years ago, you, you left town." So they came from the same town. "We haven't seen you since. What happened to you?" So the other person who was asked where he was for ten years, nobody saw him. He ran away from the city. First, he didn't wanna say anything. He says, "Well, well, I'm sorry. I, I can't tell you." So when people asked him and asked him, where was he? When the person kept asking him, he said, "I'll tell you what happened. As you know, we were living in the same city, you and I. And I, as you know, was not such a great person. I was a thief of horses. Everybody knew that I steal horses. I used to look for the nicest horse in, in town, and I would go and steal it, and I would get it out of town to another city, and there I would sell it for nice money. That's how I made money. I would steal horses. And that's what I did for many years and

03:48 was never caught. One day, I was, uh, uh, I, I found out that there is a farmer that lives outside the city. He has a big field, has a big farm, and he has two beautiful, beautiful horses. They're not just beautiful. They're strong horses. They run really beautifully fast. Really, they're, they're the best horses you can find. So I wanted to steal those horses. Now, what do I do? I go late at night. I sneak up to the farm, and I make quietly, secretly, I go into the stable where the horses were living. And I thought, 'Okay, I need to steal the horses, but I can only steal one at a time.' So I decided which one is the better horse, and I took that horse. But I didn't want people to hear. Uh, you know, when you... when a horse walks, you can hear the, the clapping and the, the noise of the hooves, right? They make a lot of noise. So I brought with me pads, soft pads. I put it under the hooves of the horses, so when the horses walk, nobody would hear. And this way, I'll be able to take it out of the farm, and by next morning, I'll be already in a different city. I'll be able to sell it for some money. But what I didn't know," says the ganav, "that the farmer had a guard on top of the roof. He was sleeping on the roof of the stable. And when he was sleeping, he heard

05:29 suddenly a commotion. There was some noise inside the, the, the stable, so he was... got very alarmed. He got up... He woke up. And he started yelling, 'Help! Help!' And in those places," this is like a little bit in the country, outside, "there were many farmers living in the area. When you hear somebody screaming in the middle of the night, people would come from all the farms and help the farmer, right? If there's a ganav, they would catch the thief. And these farmers were not nice to a thief. They would really beat him up and maybe even kill them. They didn't care." When the Jew heard the yelling of the guard on, on the rooftop, he got very scared because he realized, that's it, now he's gonna get caught. And then he heard the horses coming from all over. The farmers were all coming to the farm from all the... The farmers around were coming to this farm to catch the thief, and that's him. And when they catch him, he'll be in big trouble. Big, big trouble. They might beat him up so badly until he dies. He got very scared. He didn't know what to do. He can't leave, he can't run away because there were farmers all around. So he said, "Hashem, please help me. Help me, save me." Then he thought, "I thought to myself," he says, "I should ask Hashem for help. I'm a geven. I'm such a bad person. You think Hashem listens to a person like me, who

06:59 does so much evil, so much bad stuff?" So I said... But then I said, "No, Hashem will listen to me." And I said, "No, I'm still gonna ask Hashem, and I'm sure Hashem is gonna listen." Although it was hard for me to believe it, because why would Hashem even listen to such a rasha like me? But I said, "No, I'm gonna daven anyways, and I know that Hashem listens to everyone, and I will daven to Him now." And he said, "Hashem, if you save me from this, I make you a promise. I promise you that I will never steal a horse again. I'll become a good person. I'll do teshuvah." And as I made this decision, seems like Hashem listened, because suddenly I saw in the corner of the stable there was a pile of clothes, and in another corner of the stable there was a pile of hay, straw. So I had this quick... Suddenly this idea popped into my head. I took the clothes and I stuffed them up with hay, and I took a jacket and those pants, and I filled it up with straw, and it looked like a regular person, a straw man. And I put that straw man on the horse. And since it was very dark at night, people wouldn't be able to see that it's a straw man. They'd think it's a person. And then I took the horse by the entrance of the stable. I gave him a little patch in the back, and the horse

08:32 started running, and it ran out of the gates of the farm with the straw man on top. And everybody, all the farmers saw the horse running with the straw man on top and said, "Ah, that's the geven, that's the thief. Let's go catch him." And everyone, everyone, the guard which was the... who was on top of the stable and all the farmers that came, uh, they all ran after this horse that went very fast with the straw man, thinking that the straw man is a real person. And then I realized I can run away now because there's nobody around. They all went after this horse, and I left town. Said, "I cannot stay in the same city because they'll catch me. They'll find out who I am." And I went to another city, and I became a baal teshuva, and now I never stole a, a horse again. Two things about this story. One is Hashem listens to everyone, and this is what Elul is. The King comes in the field and says, "It doesn't matter who you are. It doesn't matter how bad you were a whole year. I wanna see you, and I want you to come to me, and I want you to hug me, and I wanna hug you because we're gonna be friends. We're gonna be, we're gonna be together now. From now on, you're gonna be a tzadik. You're gonna do good things. You're gonna daven, you're gonna learn, you're gonna give tzedakah, you're gonna do all the good

09:51 things. You're gonna try very hard." It's a new beginning. It doesn't matter what happened before. The other thing is, it says in the Gemara that when you... when a person is in a terrible situation, let's say a dangerous situation, and you want Hashem to save you, make a promise. Say, "Hashem, if you save me, I promise I'll do this and this, this mitzvah. I'll keep this very strongly." And the Gemara says it helps. Who, who do we learn it from? From Vaye... Vayakov. Vayakov, right? When he asked Hashem to protect him against Esav, what did he say? "If, Hashem, if you save me and you protect me, then I will give tzedakah. I'll give 10% of everything I have." And that's how he was saved. There were many Jews who were in concentration camps. I know people who made a vow, or they make a neder, that, "Hashem, you save me, I'll do and do this thing. I'll help people. I'll give a lot of tzedakah." And they were saved. So this is what this geven did. He promised Hashem that he'll never steal a thief again and, uh, never, never steal a horse again, and that's... He was saved. And I know of a person who was from Israel, and he was not from at all, was not religious at all. He wrote us in an article. He went off to Africa, to the desert, the jungles of Africa, just to go touring. So he's in a desert where there's a lot of wild

11:23 animals, and they tell you not to go out of your car because it's dangerous. But he tried to take pictures. So he stopped his car in the middle of the wilderness, in the middle of the jungle. It wa- it was a desert, and he went out to take pictures of... Maybe from far away, there was maybe, um, a giraffe, an elephant. He didn't notice there was a lion from the other side approaching him, and he wanted to go back to the car, but it was too late. The lion was too close. He wouldn't be able to run away. And if you run away, then it's dangerous because the lion can run faster than you. So he realized he needs Hashem. Says, "I was not keeping Shabbos and not eating kosher, and I made a neder to Hashem. Hashem, if you save me now, I promise when I go back to Eretz Yisrael I will go to yeshiva and I will become a baal teshuva. And he... I closed my eyes. Didn't wanna look, and I waited and waited and waited, and then I s- felt something on my shoes. Something was moving on my shoes. I looked down. It was the lion, started licking his shoes and then just walked away. Walked away. And I went back to my car and my life was saved." And he went back to Israel, and now he's a rav. He became a rav. A rav, a rabbi. Anyways, Hashem is always there, even in the difficult times. But

13:02 the most important lesson is that on Elul, Hashem is saying, "It doesn't matter who you are or what you did. I come down to the field. I wanna meet everyone, everyone, and I want you to come close to me, and then you can follow me to the palace, going into the city. And then if you do teshuva, you'll be able to come into the palace, be one of the important people in the government that can always see the king in the palace."