202. The Ramo Saves The City Of Krakow From Eating Treif

00:16 Shalom Aleichem, kinderle. This week is Lag BaOmer. Lag BaOmer, as you know from some of the stories I've told you in the past, in addition to the fact that Lag BaOmer is a yahrtzeit of Rab Shimon bar Yochai, it is also the yahrtzeit of the Rama. The Rama stands for Rabbi Moshe Isserles. The Rama, who wrote s-- the part of the Shulchan Aruch is the Rama, who lived about four hundred years ago. Uh, he was nifter. He passed away on Lag BaOmer. The Rama was the Rav of the city of C-Kraków, big city in Poland. In his days, Kraków was a major city with a lot of Jews, and once a year there was a big like marketplace, like a fair. A fair is where people come, merchants, business people come and sell their goods. Uh, there were people who sold textiles. Textiles is like garments, clothes, and so on. And then there were people who sold animals like horses or bulls or sheep. Some w-sold meat, ready meat to eat. Some sold, um, jewelry. Everything people came to sell. And there were so many merchants coming from all over Europe that they had divided... The whole city was divided like one big marketplace where certain streets were for people who sell, uh, clothes, and the other neighborhood is where all the markets and all the people that sell jewelry. And the third one is where people sell, um, f-fruits and vegetables. There was all kinds of neighborhoods, and each one was special that they

02:22 had all the merchants come in that neighborhood that sell the same things. And people would come from all over Europe to buy from there because the prices were very low. When you have a lot of merchants come to one place, they, they lower the prices so people would buy from them. So it's a good time to come and buy. This was every year. Every year on a certain time of the year for several days, it was a big market and a fair where everybody came to sell their goods and people came to buy. One year, the Rama is sitting in his house and he's learning, and it's during the market time when people came from all over Europe to sell their goods. And the Rama suddenly looks outside, and then he calls over his gabbai, his shamash, and he says to him, "Please, let's go outside." That was a bit strange, because why would the Rama suddenly wanna take a walk in the streets of Kraków, uh, where there was a big fair going on now? He's not a merchant. He's not a businessman. He's not buying stuff. He's not selling stuff. He's a Rav. He sits and learns, but he wanted to go out. So the shamash thought he wants to go out to take a little walk and see how people are doing and... But as the Rama was walking through the streets of Kraków, he kept walking and walking and walking till they reached the edge outside of the s-of the city,

03:58 and he kept walking between the fields outside the city, which was very surprising. Why would the Rama do this? Why-- Why is he going outside the city between the fields? What is he looking for? But the, the shamash didn't ask anything. And the Rama sees... The Rama is like looking, looking, looking, staring at something in the air and very deep in thought. Suddenly, they see a whole caravan. A caravan means a group of wagons of different people with wagons, with a lot of merchandise in the wagons, who are arriving from outside the city, and they wanna go to the city of Kraków. So the Rama and his shamash met them in the fields. The Rama told the shamash, "Stop the wagons," and told them they should stop for a moment because the Rav wants to say something. And so the shamash went right there on the path, on the road, and stopped all the wagons, and the Rama went between the wagons and pointed to one wagon. He says... These were wagons. These were merchants. All of them were selling meat. R- That means meat which, you know, packaged meat, which they all came to the Jewish community, to the Jewish fair. You know, there, there was goyishe fairs also, but the Jewish fairs was for the Jewish people. So they brought kosher meat, people who wanna buy kosher meat. One of the wagons the Rama pointed to and he said to the man who owned the wagon, "What's in that wagon? Where is the

05:37 meat from?" And the Jew said, "Well, all my meat is kosher, 100% kosher." And, uh, he said, "Well, I don't know why the Rav thinks there's a question." The Rav said, "No, no, no. I want this wagon. I don't mean the other-- The other wagons I'm not questioning. This wagon I'm questioning, and I wanna know where the meat is from. Who is the shochet? Who shechted those animals and made them kosher?" The Jew said, "They're all kosher. They're all kosher." And the Rav says, "You are lying. It's not kosher. Come down here. I want you to talk to me right here." Tell him to come down from the wagon and tell him to stand in front of him, and he looks him straight in the eyes and says, "You are not saying the truth. There is treif meat on your wagon." And the Jew says, "No, no, no, no, everything is kosher. Rav, I... You remember this shochet? You know this shochet? These are all the shochtim that shechted this meat." The Rav says, "Tell me the truth now." When he saw that the Rav is very serious, it seems like the Rav knows something that, that nobody else knows. He broke down, he started crying and said to the Rav, "I'm sorry, you're right. There's one wagon that has treif meat, and I was gonna sell it in the Jewish market and tell everybody that it's kosher because treif meat doesn't cost as much. It's, it's cheaper than, than, than, than kosher meat. So

07:04 I thought I was gonna sell it as kosher, then I'll make a lot more money. And I'm so sorry that this... I promise not to do this again." And, and he cried, and he cried. And the Ramah tells him, "Listen, you take that meat from that wagon, you cannot bring it into the Jewish market. You have to take it straight to the Goyim and sell it over there. And I'm gonna take my Shamash and make him walk with you and make sure that you do the right thing. And after you sell all the treif to the Goyim, you can come to the Jewish market and sell the other meats from the other wagons, which are kosher to the kosher market." And that's what he did. No, uh, a little bit later, the Rav went back home and went back to learning. Then the Shamash came in and asked him, "Rebbe, how did you know? I mean, how did you know that this wagon has treif meat? You went all the way outside the city, and you knew there's gonna be wagons coming, and then you saw one wagon." He said, "This wagon is the wagon that has treif meat." "I mean, how did you know? They all look the same. All the wagons look the same." And the Ramah told him like this: "I have a tradition I was told by my teachers that ravens, you know these black ravens, uh, birds, they, they love treif meat. They love treif meat. I was sitting in

08:36 my house, and I looked outside the window, and I saw a group of raven flying and making a lot of noise, like chirping like, like birds, but very, very loud. And when I looked there and I thought, okay, this must be a reason why Hashem is showing me this. It's a very unusual sight. Usually, ravens don't fly together. You know, they're, they're, they're not so beachtus, not together. They, they, they fly by themselves. There was, like, a group of raven and making a huge noise, which is also very unusual. And I thought this must be min Hashamayim. Hashem is showing me something. That's why I asked you to go with me. I wanted to see where the ravens are gonna go. And that's why I saw the ravens flying outside the city to the field. And when these wagons arrived, these wagons with meat, I saw that the ravens were flying to that one wagon, and they wanted to pick off the meat from only that wagon. There were so many other wagons with meat. They weren't interested in the other wagons. They were only interested in that one wagon. And I knew that since ravens, uh, raven like... They like treif meat, it's min Hashamayim. They're showing me that this wagon must have treif meat. And that's why I made the wagon driver tell me the truth until he admitted that these were treif meats." And that's how the Ramah saved the Jewish community from someone serving the Jewish community treif meat. Zechusa Yageen

10:18 Aleinu.