199. The Tzemach Tzedek Saves The Life Of A Soldier And The Money Of A Poor Tailor

00:17 Shalom Aleichem, kinderlekh. The following story was told, uh, by the Maharil. The Maharil, Reb Yehuda Leib, was a son of the Tzemach Tzedek. This story was recorded by a great Hasid. His name was Reb Zalx Slonim. In his notes, he wrote down the story, and the story was heard from the son of the Tzemach Tzedek, the Maharil, Reb Yehuda Leib, who heard... Saw the story himself. He was there himself during this amazing story. This story happened right before Pesach, one year before Pesach. Now, the Maharil had asked his father, the Tzemach Tzedek, for a certain period of time that he, the Maharil, should be allowed by his father to stay inside the room when people go into yechidas, to see, to watch how his father advises people and answers their question. He wanted to see, and his father gave him permission. So for a while, he would go into yechidas. Uh, when people went into yechidas, he went into the room and stood there on the side to watch his father. So he told the following story: "Once, it was right before Pesach, I was standing in the yechidas room, and in walked a Jewish soldier who was a soldier for the Russian army. This soldier had been very, very nervous. You could see he's very anxious and very nervous, and he told the gabbai outside the... who arranged for people to go into the Tzemach Tzedek, 'I must go in very quickly because my life is in danger. Please don't let me wait in

02:00 line. I need to go to the front of the line and let in right away, because otherwise my life can be over, and, and it's very... I'm in a big danger.'" So he let him in, and he went into Tzemach Tzedek, and he said, "Rebbe, um, I need help. I need a bracha. I'm a Jewish soldier. I'm a cantonist. I was stolen from my family when I was a little boy and taken to the Russian army, like many Jewish children. And, um, they are going to send me now to the front lines. There's a war between Russia and other country, and they wanna send me to the front lines where people get killed all every day." So he says, "Rebbe, I want you to give me a bracha. I wanna run away from the army, but that's very dangerous because if I run away and they catch me, they're gonna kill me right away. They're gonna hang me. So... But I need a bracha from you that they won't catch me. I will run away from the army so that I won't have to go to fight on the front lines where people get shot every day and killed, so I'll be safe, and also they won't catch me." And the Rebbe Tzemach Tzedek said to him, "My son, go back to the army. Don't run away. Don't run away. I'm telling you to stay, and I give you a bracha and a promise that you'll come back from the war peacefully and that you

03:37 will not get killed in the war, and you will get married, you'll have a family, you'll see children and grandchildren who are learning Torah and doing mitzvahs." The soldier was very surprised and says, "Rebbe, isn't it better and safer for me to run away rather than going to the front lines where the battle of the army takes place and, and put myself at risk of being killed every day?" He says, "Rebbe, you know, my... The officer that's in charge of my group of soldiers is a big anti-Semite. He hates Jews." And what often happens, these Russian, uh, colonels or generals when... who hated Jews, when they saw a Jewish soldier, they would sometimes tell another Russian soldier, "Go kill this Jew," 'cause he didn't like Jews. So I'm always in danger, not only from the war because the enemy might sh- shoot me, but it's also I'm in danger from my own, uh, Russian army group because the... My, my officer h- hates me because I'm Jewish. He might actually kill me himself. So the Rebbe said to him, "Listen, don't worry. I promise that it will be fine. Hashem will save you, and nothing will happen." He heard the Rebbe made him such a promise, so he accepted. He said, "Okay, I'll do what the Rebbe says." But then the Rebbe continued and said, "I have one request from you. Pesach is coming up soon. I want you to ask your officer who's in charge of you that for Pesach, the first two days

05:18 of Pesach, you want him to let you go to the next town where there is a, is a Jewish community, and so that you can be, for two days, Yom Tov, by the Seder and, and, and, uh, and observe Yom Tov in, in a Jewish community." And, um, he says, "Yeah, sure, Rebbe, they they're not even gonna think of that. He's an anti-Semite." Rebbe says, "No, no, no. You ask him, and I promise you he'll give you permission. But then I'm asking you another thing. You are gonna be in that town, and you're gonna stay in somebody's house. There's somebody who's gonna invite you as his guest. And after the Seder, he's gonna offer you a place to sleep, like a room. So I want you to tell him, 'I'm sorry, I'm not gonna sleep in the room here. I'm gonna go sleep in the shul.'" And the shul in those days- All the shuls in the st-- in the different cities, they had like a little room on the side of the shul. It's called a hekdesh. And all the poor people that were homeless, didn't have a place to, to sleep, they would sleep there on the floor. And the community would give them food also, that's how they would eat. Uh, and, and so he's... The, the, the Tzemach Tzedek said to him, "Don't stay in this person's house. Tell your host that you're gonna sleep in the shul." And the second night, the same thing. "I don't want you to stay,

06:35 sleep in the house, I want you to go to the shul." Um, then says the Rebbe, the Tzemach Tzedek, "I have another request. This is the beginning of Yontif, the first two days of Yontif, but Shmini Shavuot, Pesach and Sukkot are the end of Yontif. There's two more days of Yontif. I also want you to ask your officer in the army permission to go to the city, so you can celebrate the last two days Yontif with a family. And again, I want you to do the same thing. When your host says to you, 'Oh, I have a room for you, I'll give you a bed,' say, 'No, no, no, no thank you. I'm gonna go to the shul and, and sleep in the shul.'" The soldier was very surprised at this instruction, because why would the Rebbe want him to sleep ‹foreign word› in a shul amongst all these poor riffraff schleppers and, and, you know, and sleep there, and why not ta-take the suggestion, the offer of his host to sleep in a nice room in a bed? But he didn't ask any questions. The ‹foreign word›, when he told the story, says, "I also was very surprised why my father told this poor soldier to do such a thing. Why didn't he, uh, want him to have a nice room where he can sleep?" But he knew that the Rebbe, the Tzemach Tzedek, has-- saw things that nobody else could-- was able to see, and, and therefore they didn't ask any questions. And

07:59 that's what happened. The soldier went back to the army, and nobody bothered him. And came Pesach time, he asked his officer, "Could-- would you please give me permission to go away for two days and be in a community nearby where I can celebrate Pesach and be by a Seder?" And the officer surprisingly agreed, which was not normal because he was a big anti-Semite. He would definitely say no. But he's-- he agreed. He went to a, a family invited him, and after the Seder they offered him a place to sleep. He said, "No, um, I'm sorry, but I, I will go to sleep in the shul." When he was in the shul, um, he, he, um, s-s-met a lot of people there that were sleeping there, that were staying there, that were eating there. And there was a, a man that he met there that also stayed in the shul, and he told him his story, a very sad story. The man told this soldier... The soldier's name, by the way, was Grisha. Grisha. So this, this, this, this, uh, Jew told, uh, Grisha, the soldier, um, "I used to be a very rich tailor, and people respected me because I had a very, very special way of making clothes that nobody else was able to do. And that's why a lot of people, and they were very rich people, important people, would come to me that I should make their clothes for them, so I became rich, and I was very successful. I had somebody

09:35 who was my manager, my main manager who worked in my sh- there were a lot of workers working in my shop, but he was my main guy. His name was Voshke. Voshke was also Jewish, but not from the, not from the finest Jews. And I taught him the, the, the profession of how to be a tailor, and I even revealed to him my secrets of the trade, my secrets of how to sew in a special way, the way I do it. This Voshke, he learned so much from me. I was so kind, kind to him. But one day, what he did to me, he took all my money and ran away, and I haven't seen him since. He disappeared." And the tailor says, "Since then, I've become a very poor man. I owe a lot of debts. I couldn't afford my house anymore, so now I moved to the shul. And I go from town to town, I go from one shul to the next shul. Uh, can't stay in one place because, you know, uh, looking for a better place with... One place gets too crowded, I go to another shul." Anyways, this is the story. Grisha listened to this man, and he asked him for questions, details, because he knew if the Rebbe told him to sleep in the shul, there must be a reason. So maybe he needs to hear the story of this, uh, tailor that was rich and, and became poor. Okay. Um, after the second day Pesach, he went

11:03 back to the army base, the soldier, Grisha. And when it came to Shmini Shavuot Pesach, again, he asked permission, and surprisingly, the officer said, "Yes, you can go." He went to the nearby town, um, and, um, he went... There's-- there was a, a, a Jewish family invited him, and he was there. And he stayed with the family, and after the meal, again, they offered him a place to sleep, and he said, "No, I won't sleep in your house. I, I, I prefer to sleep in the shul." He went to the shul to sleep, and as he goes in there, he sees a lot of poor people there gathered. You know, probably they were planning to sleep there as well. You know, over here is a conversation, like a whole group of these poor schleppers, uh, beggars, um, are talking to one of them, to one other schlepper, a beggar, who looks a little bit strange, and they were mocking him. They say, "Hey, Voske," they say. "Voske, where were you the whole Yontif? We didn't see you the whole Yontif. While you went somewhere to eat chametz the whole Pesach, and I came here to, to sleep in our hekdish, in our room here, like a kosher Jew?" Like they were mocking him. When Grisha, the soldier, overheard this conversation, he heard the word Voske. He remembered that in beginning of Pesach, the first two days, this rich, this formerly rich tailor had told him about a Voske that stole all his money, and he

12:43 doesn't know where this Voske is. This Voske disappeared. Now, the, the, the rich tailor who used to be rich, he wasn't there tonight. But the fact that he heard the name Voske, he, m- was very interesting to him. So Grisha went over and started asking questions about who this Voske is, and whether he's someone who used to work for a tailor. Turns out that all the details were correct and accurate, and that this Voske was indeed that ganev that stole all the money from this tailor. Ri- Grisha realized that the Tzemach Tzedek saw Baruch HaKodesh, that this soldier, by going and sleeping in the shul, he'll be able to save this tailor who lost all his money and get his money back from the thief. So what did he do? He went to the Rov in the town, and he says, "Listen, this Voske needs to be grabbed by the members of the community, and they need to take him and force him to give back all his money that he stole from the tailor." And that's exactly what happened. The tailor had no idea that this was the Tzemach Tzedek. Thanks to the Tzemach Tzedek's Ruach HaKodesh, that he saw that this soldier will go and sleep in the shul, and the tailor will also be there. And the end of Pesach, Voske will be there. And then Grisha will be able to grab this Voske and take all his money and return it to, to the tailor. And the Baril finished the story

14:22 and said that this story happened when he told the story, this happened last year before Pesach. This year before Pesach, just a few days ago, the soldier came to Lubavitch again and came to Tzemach Tzedek and says, "Rebbe, you live in Lubavitch, but you can see in the entire world. You see what happens all over the world." A gut Yontif and a kosher and freilechen Pesach.