189. The Poritz The Baal Tshuva

00:16 Speaker 1 Shalom Aleichem, kinderlach. Now, uh, I'm gonna tell you an amazing story, but the story is connected a little bit to the Parsha we just read, Parsha Shemos, where Moshe Rabbeinu was for the first time told by Hashem that he's gonna be a leader of the Jewish people. He's gonna take them out of Mitzrayim and bring them to Har Sinai, and they get the Torah, and then he will take them all the way till the edge of Eretz Yisrael. And the Torah tells us also that Moshe Rabbeinu was a shepherd first. He had sheep from his father-in-law, Yisro, and he took care of the sheep. And right-- While he was being a shepherd, Hashem appeared to him in a burning bush, in a sneh, a burning bush. Now, we're told in the Midrash that this is not just a, um, an accident or a random, uh, connection, that he was a shepherd and then he became the leader. There's a connection between the two. Hashem looks at the great Jewish leader, a great tzadik who's the leader of the Jewish people, like a shepherd to his sheep. We're like the sheep of Hashem. And the tzadik, the leader is like the shepherd. So Moshe Rabbeinu was a shepherd first of real sheep, physical sheep, and Hashem tested to see if Moshe Rabbeinu is gonna be a great leader. And he saw how Moshe Rabbeinu behaved with the sheep of his father-in-law, and Hashem said, "Ah, this is the kind of leader I need for my people."

01:51 Speaker 1 What did Moshe Rabbeinu do when he saw a sheep running away? This happened actually once, that one of the sheep started running away from the whole flock and ran and ran and ran and ran far, far, far. And Moshe Rabbeinu saw this one sheep running off. He left all the sheep, hundreds and hundreds of them, staying where they are. He knew they're not gonna run away. And he chased after that little sheepsela that was running fast and fast and fast. He couldn't catch up with the sheepsela, but he kept running because he knew the sheepsela was gonna get, uh, get killed or eaten up by a wolf. So he ran and ran and ran, and when he caught the sheepsela, he saw the sheepsela was standing next to a river. He wanted to drink, but he couldn't reach the water. So Moshe Rabbeinu had mercy, has pity on this little sheepsela. He took the sheepsela in his hands like a little baby you hold in your arms and took a little cup and started feeding the sheepsela the water and gave him water and water. And the sheepsela was so happy. It drank and drank and drank till the sheepsela felt so much better, and it felt very full. And he brought the sheepsela back in his hands, back to the flock. Hashem says, "This is the kind of leader I want, that he's going to even care about one little sheepsela. He's gonna care about every little sheepsela, he's gonna care for." Now, this

03:04 Speaker 1 is a story with the Tzemach Tzedek. Story is that Tzemach Tzedek once called in his, his shamash, the guy was his helper, and I think his name was Chaim Ber, and took him and told him to go on a mission to another town and to do something. Nobody knew what he told him. All the Hasidim saw that the Tzemach Tzedek called him in very, very urgently. Said, "I need you to go to this and this town." He didn't... And he told him something to do, and nobody else heard it except for this, uh, shamash, and he went to another town. Everybody was wondering, what's this urgency that the Tzemach Tzedek would seem to be very, very, uh, urgent to, to send this shamash to this other city? And nobody knew what was the shlichas, what was he sending him about. A few days later, the shamash came back to Lubavitch and went into the rooms of Tzemach Tzedek, and he reported back what he did and that he did everything the way he told him. When he came out of the room, all the Hasidim were so curious. They wanted to know, "What did the Rebbe tell you to do?" He said, "No, no, no, no. Shh, I can't tell. I can't tell." So people made him crazy and then bothered him, and they nagged him, and they said, "Please, please, tell us, tell us, tell us." Finally, he, he s-- he told them. He says, "The Rebbe sent me to a certain town, uh,

04:37 Speaker 1 not far from Lubavitch, and he said to me, 'Go to the Poritz of that town and tell him that I sent you, and I am telling him that it's time for him to do teshuva.'" Now, this Poritz was a very famous anti-Semite. He hated Jews. He would make all the Jews that live in this town would have problems with him. He would make them-- their lives difficult and miserable. He, he was very, very anti the Jews, anti everything Jewish. And so people never thought he might be Jewish, that he's a real goy who hates Jews. But the Tzemach Tzedek knew something that nobody else knew, and he told the gabbai, the shamash, "Go to him. Tell him I said that it's time for him to do teshuva and come back to Yiddishkeit, to do Torah mitzvas." Now, the gabbai heard this, he was very shocked. First of all, that he never knew that this Poritz, he's so famously anti-Jewish and hates Jews, that he's actually a Jew. But then he said to the Tzemach Tzedek, "But I'm actually afraid, because everybody knows that he has a lot of guards, armed guards with guns and knives standing around his mansion, and nobody can go or go in." And, and then he has dogs. Dogs, vicious pit bulls, like these big vicious dogs. They're trained to bite and tear to pieces anyone who dares to come through the fence into the yard in front of the mansion. So Rebbe, how am I gonna go through there? Is

06:23 Speaker 1 it-- I'm gonna be eaten up and then shot by the guards. Tzemach Tzedek said to him like this: "I'm gonna teach you a certain Shem." A Shem is a name of Hashem. It's a special name which is mentioned in Kabbalah. And when you... This is a type of name of Hashem that when you think about it, and I'll tell you what to think about it. You think the name and also what Kavanas to have, and you'll see that nothing will happen to you. You'll just go ri-right through. You'll be able to deliver the message. And so the, the Shamash said, "I did that, okay. The Rebbe taught me the Shem. I went to that village, the town, and I asked people, 'Where is the mansion of the Poritz?' And they said, 'Yeah. Oy, that Poritz. Oy vey, he's such a bad person. He hates the Jews and gives problems to the Jews. But he lives over there.'" Okay. He went straight there, and he closed his eyes. He thought of the... He started to remember the name, the Shem that, uh, the name of Hashem that, that the Tzemach Tzedek taught him, and the Kavanas he told him to have in mind when he thinks about the Shem, about the name. And he went through the gate, and the dogs didn't move. They just sat there, you know, on their duffs. They were sitting there doing nothing, just quiet and calm. And the guards were very friendly and-- which was very not normal because normally

07:53 Speaker 1 these guards would be very mean, and they would shoot anybody who would dare to come into the fence without permission. But he walked right in, and the guard said, "Oh, what can we help you with?" And he said, "Well, I need to speak to the Poritz." He said, "Okay, no problem." They opened the door for him, and he went right in. It was literally a nes. He walked in, and he told the, the doorman, "I need to speak to the Poritz now." So he says, "Okay, I'm gonna go call him." Calls him out. The Poritz comes out, and he's shocked to see a Jew with a beard, looks like a Hasid. He's showing up in his mansion. And how did he get through all the dogs and all the guards without getting hurt? So he was a little bit shocked. But then the, the, the Gabbai, the Shamash of the, of the Tzemach Tzedek said to him, "Listen, I'm here only for one single message, and then I'm leaving. The Rebbe in Lubavitch, Tzemach Tzedek, has sent me to tell you that he wants you to know it's time now for you to do Teshuvah." Now the Poritz was really shocked. How does this Rebbe know that I'm a Jew? Nobody in the world knows that. It's a secret. Well, the, the Gabbai gave the message and left the mansion right away, and he walked past all the dogs and the guards, and nobody hurt him. And, uh, he was thinking of the name of

09:15 Speaker 1 Hashem, the Shem that Tzemach Tzedek taught him. And he left immediately and went back to Lubavitch. Traveled back to Lubavitch. He came to Tzemach Tzedek, said, "I delivered the message." A few months went by, and everybody heard the news spread all over the area. Lubavitch, everywhere people heard that this famously, um, hateful, bad Poritz who hates Jews disappeared. Like one day he went outside and never came back, and nobody knows where he is. He's lost. They're looking for him everywhere. Nobody knows what happened to him. Then a few weeks later, somebody shows up in Lubavitch with long hair. The hair was a little bit frazzled. It wasn't-- He didn't brush the hair. It was like, just like wild hair. His clothes were like old clothes, torn and with, with patches everywhere, and old shoes. He looked like a poor man. Walked into Lubavitch, went straight to the shul of the Tzemach Tzedek, and sat down in the shul and opened up a Tehillim and began to read Tehillim. He read Tehillim all day and davened and also tried to learn. He didn't say a word to anyone, didn't tell, tell anyone where he's from. Nobody knew. But a few of the Hasidim found out that this is actually the Poritz. He grew his hair long, so nobody would recognize him, and he changed his clothes to simple clothes of a simple person. Not a Poritz, but, uh, like, uh, torn clothes, and he sat a whole day in shul and slept on a bench, and

11:10 Speaker 1 he had a little money in his pocket, would go buy himself some food. That's how he lived. Davened, said Tehillim all day. And that's how he said. Now Hasidim, when they found out that this is actually the Poritz, they realized that the Tzemach Tzedek was able to get this Rosha, this bad Poritz who was so mean to the Jewish people, to do Teshuvah. Just by sending him a message, he was able to do Teshuvah. So the Hasidim felt a little bad. They said, "What is that? We are always coming to Tzemach Tzedek and asking him to help us do Teshuvah for our little Averis, or maybe big Averis. But we, we, we, we, we're struggling with our Yetzer Hara every day. The Yetzer Hara makes us do this, makes us do that, and we're always trying to find ways to beat the Yetzer Hara, and how can we overcome the Yetzer Hara and not-

12:04 Speaker 2 Do bad things, and we're struggling with this, and we ask the Rebbe, and the Rebbe teaches us by Ma'amarim, Chassidus. There are all kinds of important things for us to remember so we can learn and know how to fight the Yetzer Hara, but it's not easy. Look what they did. Look what the Tzemach Tzedek did. They took a guy who was a Rasha, bad, bad person. He's like Treif, Chazer Treif. He's steeped, sunk deep into Tumah and evil, and he just pulled him out in one message and pulled the Neshamah out from the depth of evil and Tumah, and right away he did Teshuva, and he, he became a complete Ba'al Teshuva. Why can't he do this with us? You know, we come to him, say, "Rebbe, I have a problem with Gaava. I have a problem with anger. I have a problem with this. How, how can I overcome it?" The Rebbe could just do like, um, a trick, like a, a Nes, and, and, and say something, and then we-- right away we get rid of the Yetzer Hara. Why isn't it happening to us? Only to such a person who's so bad and so evil and so far away from Yiddishkeit. And so they decided to go to Tzemach Tzedek, and they asked the Tzemach Tzedek this question, and the Tzemach Tzedek said to them, "I'll give you a Mashal." As we all know that Moshe Rabbeinu was a shepherd, and every Jewish leader, every Rebbe, every Tzadik who's a leader of

13:29 Speaker 2 the Jewish people is compared to a shepherd. He says, "I'm gonna give you a Mashal. A shepherd has hundreds of sheep. Every once in a while, he goes out to the field and has them graze in the field, and one of those sheep runs away." Runs away. No, but there's other sheep running away. There's another sheep. Suddenly it happens that three, four sheep at the same time run away, one in this direction, one in the other direction. Now, how can the same o-one shepherd get everybody back? They're running in different directions. They can't go in this direction at the same time I'm going the other direction. So how does he do? He doesn't go chase after each sheep. There are sheep that he just yells and screams, and the sheep gets the message and comes back. Some sheep, he does do something a little bit harsher. He takes a stone and throws in the direction of the sheep, and the sheep sees the stone flying over his head and, and immediately he gets scared and runs back. S-some of the sheep. But then there are sheep, they run away, and they fall into a pit, a deep, deep hole in the ground, and of course, they can't get out. They're stuck. So in that case, the shepherd can't just throw a rock or scream. It's not gonna work. The sheep is inside the pit. He can't get out. So there, in that case, the shepherd himself climbs down into this deep pit, right? With, with

14:59 Speaker 2 all the dirt around him, and he goes inside and pulls out the sheep himself. And the Tzemach Tzedek says the same thing with this. You're, you're like sheep. I'm like a shepherd. So you guys, sometimes you run away from the flock. You do an Aveira or you do something which you shouldn't be doing. Didn't have enough Kavanah in davening. Maybe you didn't learn Torah when you were supposed to learn Torah. So I give you a Ma'amar, and I give you a little inspiration, but you gotta come back yourself. You gotta do the work, 'cause you're not so far gone. You can help yourself. You can, you can pull yourself back and make a decision, "I'm not gonna listen to the Yetzer Hara anymore." But what if it's a sheeeep that falls into a pit, into a hole, and he can't get out? He's stuck. That means a Neshamah who's so stuck deep, deep, deep in Tumah, and he doesn't know how to get out. He's, like, stuck there. In that case, I have to do something very special. I gotta send my special, special Koach and strength to pull him out from the pit. That's why for him I had to do it, 'cause otherwise he would not be able to get out himsel-- on his own. But you, I throw you a rock, or I throw you a Ma'amar, I throw you a Sicha or something, hopefully that will give you enough inspiration that you will make the effort to overcome the Yetzer Hara

16:28 Speaker 2 and come back.