186. The Chossid Of Reb Mendel Horodoker Who’s Body Floated To Eretz Yisroel

00:15 Shalom Aleichem, ‹foreign language› Chanukah. Want to share with you a story, an awesome story, took place in the time of the Alter Rebbe. As you know, the Alter Rebbe after the ‹foreign language› of the Maggid of Mezritch, the Maggid of Mezritch passed away, the Alter Rebbe took upon himself the ‹foreign language› as his Rebbe, the Mendel of Horodok. He's also called the Mendel of Vitebsk because he was for a while in Vitebsk, for a while in Horodok. We'll call him here for the, in the story, the Mendel Horodoker. Mendel Horodoker was one of the Talmudim, the oldest Talmudim of the Maggid. He was by the Baal Shem Tov a number of times before the Maggid became the Rebbe, and then later on, he became a Talmud of the Mezritcher Maggid, and Alter Rebbe was from the younger Talmudim. So when the Mezritcher Maggid was ‹foreign language›, the Alter Rebbe traveled to Rebbe Mendel Horodoker, and so did other Talmudim Maggid also traveled to Rebbe Mendel of Horodok, that he should be their Rebbe. But then after a while, Rebbe Mendel of Horodok decided to move to Eretz Yisrael, and hundreds of Hasidim came with him. They said, "If the Rebbe goes to Eretz Yisrael, they're going with him." And even Alter Rebbe decided to go with him, and he took his family, and they all traveled through Russia to go to the port, the harbor, where you have to take a boat and travel to Turkey first, and from Turkey, you travel to Eretz Yisrael.

02:03 That's how people traveled to Eretz Yisrael in those days. There were no planes, so you had to take boats, and the boats could take weeks and months sometimes. To go to Eretz Yisrael from Russia was, was a long, long trip. Many, many weeks. Uh, on the way, they had to go to the port of Odessa. Odessa had a big harbor and ships, and those ships would take passengers to all kinds of places in the world. One of the places they would take people to is one of those ships would travel to Turkey, Istanbul. In Istanbul, there was a major harbor, harbor and port as well, and from there, from Turkey, there were ships that used to go to Eretz Yisrael, to Haifa. Haifa in Eretz Yisrael, the city of Haifa has a big port, a big harbor, and ships would arrive there, uh, who came from far away. On the way to Odessa, the Alter Rebbe was told by Rebbe Mendel that the Alter Rebbe should not travel. He should go back to the Lyozno because we need him in Russia. The Alter Rebbe had a great influence on many, many Hasidim, many, many Misnagdim and Hasidim, and i-it was decided that we need to have someone like the Alter Rebbe stay in Russia. He could continue to teach Hasidus and inspire many, many Jews in the way of Hasidus. So Alter Rebbe very much wanted to go to Eretz Yisrael with his Rebbe, with Rebbe Mendel Horodoker, but, uh, he knew that it wasn't

03:55 meant to be. He has to go back. So he said goodbye to the, his Rebbe, Rebbe Mendel Horodoker, and to all the Hasidim, and people cried. People were very emotional because everybody, they have to separate, and Alter Rebbe was very attached to Rebbe Mendel Horodoker, and now Rebbe Mendel Horodoker is gonna go off to Eretz Yisrael. In those days, if you went to Eretz Yisrael, there was no connection because you were far away. It's not like a plane ride, you know, to tell you take a plane in a few hours, you're there. In those days, if you went by boat, it took like weeks, maybe months to get to Eretz Yisrael, and you were far away. A letter would take months and months to arrive. The only way you could, you know, uh, send a message to someone in Eretz Yisrael from Russia, you had to send a letter, and the letter would take months before it arrived. So it was far away, so the Alter Rebbe said goodbye to the, to the Mendel Horodoker, and he and some of his, his, uh, Hasidim and Talmudim went back to Lyozno. Now, Rebbe Mendel Horodoker had a Talmud, a Hasid, a big, big Hasid, very, very important Hasid, a great, great Hasid. His name was Reb Noach. This Reb Noach was the father of Reb Shalom Shabbtai. Shalom Shabbtai was the father of the Tzemach Tzedek. Reb Shalom Shabbtai married the daughter of the Alter Rebbe, Devorah Leah, the famous Devorah Leah who gave her life

05:26 for Hasidus, right? She told her father she's going instead of him. She's giving her ‹foreign language› away to Hashem instead of her father, so her father wouldn't have to be ‹foreign language›, and she passed away instead. So the husband of this Devorah Leah was Shalom Shabbtai. He was the father of the Tzemach Tzedek and the son-in-law of the Alter Rebbe. The father of Shalom Shabbtai was Reb Noach. If you open up the Tanya and you see the Haskamos and the, you know, the, the different Haskamos of the Tzadikim, Reb Zusha, they mention Reb Shalom Shabbtai by Reb Noach. He was the father of, of Shalom Shabbtai, the grandfather of the Tzemach Tzedek. He was a big Hasid of the Rebbe Mendel Horodoker. After the Mendel of Hardach moved to Eretz Yisrael, he moved and settled in Tveria. First he was in Tvass, but eventually he settled in Tveria, and that's where he had his Beit Midrash and his shul and all the Hasidim and all the families all settled in Tveria. If you go today to Tveria, to the old cemetery, you'll see all the kvorum of all the big tzadikim, Reb Mendel of Hardach and all his talmidim, Reb Avraham Kalisker, all great, great tzadikim, they all were buried in that cemetery because they all lived in Tveria at the end of their lives. They all settled in Tveria. Now this Reb Noyach remained in Russia. He didn't go with the, with the, with the Reb Mendel of Hardach to, to, to Israel, to

06:53 Eretz Yisrael. One day, Reb Noyach wanted very badly to go to see his Rebbe. No, it wasn't a simple trip. To go to see his Rebbe, Reb Mendel of Hardach, meant to travel to Eretz Yisrael for several months. But he had such a desire that he couldn't... He didn't care. No matter what, I have to go see my Rebbe. And so he went, traveled to Odessa to get to a ship. He found a ship, he bought a ticket, and he traveled to Istanbul, to Turkey, and there he waited for the ship, the next ship to go to Eretz Yisrael. And on the ship, the ship took, as I said, could take weeks, maybe months to get to Eretz Yisrael. This Reb Noyach was an older person. He was already an old man. He started feeling sick on the ship. And in fact, he got very, very sick. Very sick and very weak. And they were still very far from Eretz Yisrael because it took, as I said, it can take weeks or months. So they were still far from Eretz Yisrael, and he was getting very, very sick. And in those days, if somebody, if people traveled on a ship and somebody died on a ship, there was no way to bury him. It's all water around you, you know. There's, there's no way to bury the person. So they would throw the body in the water because what can they do? They can't leave the body lying there. It's, it's on the ship. It's

08:34 not good. The body is gonna, you know, disintegrate. So they would throw the body overboard. But Reb Noyach saw that he was getting weaker and weaker. He felt that the time has come. Apparently, Hashem wants his neshamah to go to Shamayim and finish his life here on Earth. So he told... And the people around him on the ship, there were Goyim there also, he told them that, um, that he knows that he's not gonna make it. He's gonna die on the ship. So he asked them to do the following. He said, "I want you to take a note and write down my name, Noyach." Write in his father's name and what town he's from. S- And he, they told him to attach the, the... After he dies on the ship, they should attach this note on his clothes, so it would stay stuck to him. And then he told them, "I want you to tie my body to a board, like a plank, a wooden board, and stick that note on my, on my clothes, and then you tie me really well to that board, and then you can put me into the water." And that's what happened. Reb Noyach unfortunately passed away on the ship, and the people did what he asked them to do. They tied him up to a board, to a wooden board, and they stuck his name, uh, on a note onto his clothes, and they pushed his body and the board into the water. And they kept traveling. Now,

10:24 the board floated on the water, but it floated away from the ship till people couldn't see the board anymore. It was floating away on the water and floated away. Nobody saw where it went. A while went by, it was a Shabbos in Tveria, and Reb Mendel of Hardach is telling his talmidim, uh, "My dear talmidim, we're having a very special guest arriving in Eretz Yisrael. He's arriving at the harbor, the ports of Haifa." Haifa has a big port. "He's... And he's arriving there at the harbor. I'd like you to go and g- meet him." That's all he said. And he asked them that after Shabbos they should go to Haifa. So that's, uh, some of the talmidim got together and they decided a few of them will travel to Haifa and greet this special talmid of the Reb Mendel of Hardach, who the Reb Mendel of Hardach saw Beruch HaKodesh that he's coming, and he wants them to greet him. They would travel to the port, the port of Haifa, and they waited, and they saw different ships, fisherman ships, like little boats. They knew this is not the boat that they're waiting for. And they waited and waited. Then there was a big ship that arrived, and they asked everybody, "Is a person by this and this name on the ship?" "No, nobody on that ship." They kept waiting for hours until at one point they saw some strange thing in the water, in the ocean, that's approaching the shores of Haifa, and they

12:13 couldn't make out what it was. As it kept closer and closer, they saw it was a board, a, a wooden board, and there's a body attached to the board. So they waited until the board swam up to the shores, to the beach of Haifa. And talmidim of Reb Mendel of Hardach went to see who it is, and they saw... They read the note, and they saw this was Reb Noyach. Reb Noyach, the great, great Hasid and talmid of Reb Mendel of Hardach. And they saw that he, he wasn't alive. But a nes happened to him. He was a great tzaddik, this Reb Noyach. This Reb Noyach was a great tzaddik. He was... He told them to put him attach, attachment to a board, and he knew that Hashem will guide the board all the way to Eretz Yisrael. Obviously, they took his body and they buried him in Haifa. We don't know where the kever is. We never found his kever, but apparently it must be somewhere in Haifa. And he was buried, and that's when people realized that Reb Mendel of Hardach felt Beruch HaKodesh, that his talmid, the Reb Noyach, is coming to Eretz Yisrael. And, uh, and he felt it. He knew it, Beruch HaKodesh, and that's why he sent the talmidim to go take care of him and give him a proper mechavedike burial the way it's appropriate. That's the story.