175. Reb Levi Yitzchok Of Barditchev Passed Out On Yom Kippur

00:15 Shalom Aleichem, kinderlach. It's right after Yom Kippur. We're getting ready for Sukkot. Agadas Yanov, I wanna share with you a story. It's a very special story that I heard from a Hasidische Rebbe, a Polisher Rebbe. His name was Reb Yankele, the Rebbe from Pshevorsk. He told the following story that he heard from great, great Rabbanim and Tzadikim before the war. The story is, um, a story that he heard from real reliab-reliable people. Story is about Reb Levi Yitzchok of Berditchev. The story was told by great, great famous Rav, a great big Gaon who was known as Reb Yankev Orenstein. Reb Yankev Orenstein was the Rav of Lwow. He wrote a very famous Sefer, Yeshuras Yankev, lived about two hundred years ago. Reb Yankev Orenstein, the famous Gaon, got married to the daughter of a very, uh, rich almanah, a widow, a woman who lost her husband and left her a lot of money. She was very, very rich. And when she married off her daughter, she married off to a big Talmid Chaham, a big Gaon, the Yeshuras Yankev. And she had another daughter also-- I think she had other son-in-laws who were also big Talmidi Chachamim. Reb Yankev Orenstein was a young man, when he was still a young man, just married, told a story what he saw. Story is like this. In the town where he lived with his wife, very close to his mother-in-law, the very wealthy, rich, uh, widow, the one was one Yom Kippur one year, everyone in town heard

02:11 exciting news. The great tzadik, Reb Levi Yitzchok of Berditchev, was traveling through, and he got stuck here for Yom Kippur, and he's gonna be Yom Kippur with them in this town. You know, everybody knew Reb Levi Yitzchok is gonna come to shul and daven with them. It's very exciting to see the great tzadik, how he davens Yom Kippur. Now, everybody in the town knew that Reb Levi Yitzchok is here without his family, doesn't have a house here. He's gonna need a place to eat after the fast. When Yom Kippur ends, people go home to eat. Where is Reb Levi Yitzchok gonna eat? So everybody wanted to invite Reb Levi Yitzchok to be a guest in their house. And so, but how are we gonna do this? Everybody wants him. Everybody wanted Reb Levi to have such a tzadik in their house or such a zechus. Everybody wanted to have him. So the gabbai of the shul decided that before Kol Nidre, right, the beginning of Yom Kippur, we'll make like an auction. You know what an auction is? Where you, uh, tell people whoever's gonna pay the most money gets the zechus. You can buy the zechus for the most money, whoever gives the most money, right? Like people do an auction for the Aliyah in the Torah. Who is gonna give a hundred dollars for Mafteir? And somebody gives two hundred. Oh, two hundred, that's more. Then he gets it. If somebody comes and bids higher and says three hundred, then we give it

03:37 to him. Whoever gives the highest amount of money. Same thing here. They're gonna make a, a bid. Whoever gives the most money gets the zechus to take Reb Levi Yitzchok to his house after the fast is over and after Maariv Yom Kippur, and he'll eat in his house. So they made this auction, this bid, and everybody was saying, "Oh, I give ten rubles, fifty rubles for the shul." It-- The money was going to tzedakah. Whoever gives the most money to tzedakah gets the zechus. Now, in the women's section, you know, in Europe in the olden days, the women's section was on a balcony up on top on a higher floor, and there was a hole in the ceiling, and that was the women's section on top. So the, the hole in the ceiling, which was the balcony really up for the second floor where the woman would, would listen to the davening from upstairs, uh, was right ab-above the bimah, right? It was right above the bimah, a big opening in the ceiling, and there was walls around the opening, so the woman could see down what goes on and can hear the davening. When the, uh, rich widow, the mother-in-law of Reb, Reb Yankev Orenstein, heard that they were bidding for the zechus of having the great tzadik, Reb Levi Yitzchok, she also wanted to bid. And what did she decide to do? She took a scarf that she was wearing, the covered Yom Kippur. The scarf was made from a very expensive silk.

05:06 And not only that, the scarf had studded, like, uh, woven in diamonds and very, very precious stones. This scarf with all the stones were very, very valuable, extremely expensive. It was a lot of money. Nobody in shul could even afford to buy such a scarf. She took a scarf off her neck, threw it down from the women's section above, right onto the bimah. It landed on the bimah, and she yelled down, "This is my bid. I give this scarf for tzedakah, and to have the zechus." Everybody was shocked that nobody expected a woman in the women's section is also going to, uh, you know, try to bid for the-- for the zechus. But, um, that's it. It was... Nobody could give more than that. She was the richest woman in the whole city, and she gave so mu-- such an expensive scarf. There was nobody who was willing to give more than that. They didn't-- They couldn't. They weren't able to. They weren't so rich. So they decided, okay, if she gives such a, an expensive scarf for Tzedakah, she gets the zechus to have the holy tzaddik, Rebbe Yitzchak, for Motzei Yom Kippur. Of course, she had all her children there too, and, and her son-in-laws, the great Rabbonim, they also were, were supposed to be there, and she's gonna have Rebbe Yitzchak also. Nu, Yom Kippur went by. Nu, Rebbe Yitzchak, Badich Avenue, Yom Kippur, you have to understand he was such a tzaddik. When he davened, his neshamah had mamash klos hanefesh.

06:36 You know what klos hanefesh means? A great tzaddik, when they have such a love for Hashem, they wanna, like, leave the body and go completely one with Hashem. They, they don't wanna stay in the physical body because they, they have such a love that they wanna break free from the body and go straight to the heavens and be completely one with Hashem. Especially, you know that Yom Kippur, we daven a special section. We say how the Kohen Gadol goes into Kodesh Hakodashim and takes some of the blood of the Korbanos, and he sprinkles it on the Aron Kodesh in the Kodesh Hakodashim. And what does he do? He sprinkles it one time upwards towards the ceiling of the Beis Hamikdash, and seven times down, right? Um, the, in the direction of downwards. Achas l'maalah, sheva l'matoh. And you remember in shul, have you been to shul this Yom Kippur when they davened in Mussaf, and we read the whole of Avodah of the Kohen Gadol on Yom Kippur, and the Chazan sings how the Kohen Gadol would sprinkle the blood and say, "Achas, achas v'yachas," right? He says, "Here is one towards Hashem." And seven times, "Achas ushtayim, achas v'shalosh," right? And he goes seven times down, one time up. That's what Hashem said to do the Avodah in the Beis Hamikdash on Yom Kippur in the Kodesh Hakodashim. This is the holiest Avodah, the holiest, I think, that the Kohen Gadol has to do on Yom Kippur. This is the most amazing, the most

08:19 important Avodah. And you know what Chazal says, achas means the neshamah. That's just the neshamah, the, the deepest part of the neshamah that is so close to Hashem that he wants to be just all the time connected to Hashem, doesn't wanna separate even for a second. Rebbe Yisroel Badich Avenue, when he said achas, he was davening for the Amid Mussaf, and he started singing, "Achas," and he remembered what achas means. Achas means that deepest part of the neshamah that loves Hashem so much that he wants to be one with Hashem. He got so excited that he, like, ran outside the shul in the other room and, and, like, almost fainted. He was, like, in such excitement that people couldn't talk to him. He wasn't listening. He wasn't hearing anything. It looked like he fainted or something, but his neshamah was going up, lamailah. After two hours, he woke up again and ran back to the Amid and said, "V'yachas, achas ushtayim." And he, he finished the whole, the whole Avodah. You can just imagine what a, what a, uh, what a love for Hashem. He felt such excitement that he, he was barely staying alive, you know? Tzaddikim have such intense love sometimes, their neshamah can't stand in the body, and they go up to Hashem and they die, Chas v'Shalom, like the sons of Aaron, other tzaddikim over the, the, the years. Anyway, so Rebbe Yisroel Badich Avenue, when he was Yom Kippur, his neshamah was like, wow, yearning for Hashem in such an

09:47 intense way. It's a miracle that he stayed alive through Yom Kippur. Now, Yom Kippur came to an end, and Rebbe Yisroel Badich Avenue, uh, was told that he, he's gonna be the guest in the house of this rich widow, the rich almanah, and she has the zechus to have him there. So good, he went there, and the Shuras Yankov Reb Yankov Orenstein was there too. And as soon as Rebbe Yitzchak walked in, he sat down, and the table was decked with so much food, beautiful, beautiful food. It was like, you know, she was rich. She could afford so many beautiful delicatessen and fish and meat and, and, and, and kugels and, and, and, and, and cakes and, and all kinds of dishes. Rebbe Yisroel didn't eat. He just said... He didn't even break his fast yet. He said to Reb Yankov Orenstein, said, "Yungerman, can you do me a favor? Bring me a Gemara Yoma." You know, the Gemara Yoma is that Gemara which all the laws of Yom Kippur are in that Gemara, in that Masechta. He needs a Gemara Yoma. So Reb Yankov Orenstein got up, went to the book, the, the Sefer HaMefarshim, the bookcase, took out the Gemara Yoma and handed it to Rebbe Yitzchak. Rebbe Yitzchak, Rebbe Yitzchak opened up the Gemara Yoma in the beginning on the first page and sat there and learned, and learned the Masechta page after page after page after page until he finished the Masechta by 5:00 in the morning. He sat there maybe

11:17 for 10 hours learning and learning and learning. He finished all the Rashi and all the Tosfos, everything, the entire Masechta, and then he broke his fast. He ate something. This is the story Reb Yankov Orenstein told, and that's the story I heard from this Chasidishe Rebbe, and then I realized what happened. Do you understand? Rebbe Yitzchak, during Yom Kippur, his neshamah was mamash on fire, was burning. He wanted to be so close to Hashem, and he could barely hold in his neshamah. It shouldn't leave his body. So he needed, right after Yom Kippur, to come down, to come down because the Hashem wants your neshamah to be here in the world. He doesn't want you to go and die and let your neshamah fly up to Hashem. He wants to be here in this world to do mitzvahs and make the world a ha- a heilige place, a holy place. So he says the first thing he needed to learn Gemara, Gemara Yoma. The Yom Kippur, he needed to take the Gemara which deal with all the halachas, and that made him feel, like, more connected to the world and to his life. Because in the Gemara Yoma, it talks about all the halachas, what you can do, what you shouldn't do, and what you must do, and all the mitzvahs that are connected to Yom Kippur, and that made him feel more connected back to the life and to the world that Hashem wants his neshamah to be in. This is what tzaddikim like

12:43 this were like. Yom Kippur came, and they almost passed out, and their neshamah just flew so high. He wanted to be so close to Hashem. But then in order to come back into his life, into his body, and feel like he needs to connect on the world and do mitzvahs in the physical world and not fly away to Hashem, he needed a Gemara. And that's how he calmed down and was able to come back into his guf, into his body, and live, and live life and do mitzvahs and get excited about doing mitzvahs in the physical world.