217. The Father Of The Rosh Appeared To His Mother After His Passing And Told Her To Run Away

00:16 Shalom Aleichem, kindleh. The following story was written up by the Reb Chaim Vital, the great Mekubal, the Talmud of the Ari Z"L. He said he found this story written in a letter written by the Reb Yehuda, Rabbeinu Yehuda, the son of the Rosh. The Rosh is Rabbeinu Asher from the Rishonim, the thirteenth century, who came from Germany. One of the greatest, most important Rishonim that wrote the commentary on the Gemara. In every Gemara you'll see in the back is the commentary of the Rosh. Reb Yehuda was the son of the Rosh. He also has a famous brother. Reb Yehuda's brother, who was also a son of the Rosh, is the Baal HaTurim. Rabbeinu Yaakov Baal HaTurim, he wrote Sefer Ba- Baal HaTurim wrote the Turim on, on Torah. Also wrote the Tur Shulchan Aruch. It's not the Shulchan Aruch, it's the Tur Shulchan Aruch. The Tur before the Shulchan Aruch. So th- their father was the Rosh. So Rabbeinu Yehuda, the son of the Rosh, writes in a letter the following awesome story. He says, "I heard from my father, the Rosh. He told me about my grandfather." That means the Rosh's father. His name was Reb Yechiel. He was born in the year taf, taf, kuf, ayin. That's in, um, four thousand taf, taf, kuf, ayin. Not heh alephim, but daled alephim. That means, like, uh, nine hundred years ago. When he was seventeen years old, Reb Yechiel, the father of the Rosh, when he was sev-- when he was sixteen, when he was

02:01 sixteen years old, he had a very close friend in yeshiva. His name was Reb Shlomo Hakohen. And they were such close friends that my f-- my grandfather, Reb Yechiel, this Reb Shlomo Hakohen made like, um, a brit, a covenant. That means they made up like a, um, an agreement between them that everything they do, they do together. All the mitzvahs they do and all the Torah they learn, they will share equally. The zechut of all the Torah, the zechut of all the mitzvahs will be shared equally between them. They will be like partners, b- b'ruchniut, spiritually. They will be partners in all the mitzvahs and the Torah they do. They'll be like close, close friends that share everything. One year on the night of Yom Kippur, you know, many people have a minhag on the night of Yom Kippur that you light a yahrtzeit candle. A candle-- It's actually not a yahrtzeit candle. It's a ca-- It looks like a yahrtzeit candle, but it's a candle, it's called a ner neshama. P-- Everybody lights a candle for their own neshama. Now, it says that if the candle goes out in the middle of Yom Kippur, it could be a not such a good sign. That night of Yom Kippur, the candle of Reb Yechiel went out in the middle of the night of Yom Kippur. And the candles used to be lit in the shul. Everybody used to light the, the neshama candle in the shul. And Reb Yechiel's candle went out. It was very

03:39 scary. So, uh, Reb Yechiel saw, Reb Yechiel saw that his candle went out. He got very scared. And indeed, chalamaiitzukis, that means a few weeks-- a few, few days later, he passed away suddenly. Now, the minhag was in Germany in those days that when somebody died and they put the body in a, in a, in a urn, in a-- right? In a coffin. Before they bury him in the Beis Hakvaros, they put him on a big rock-- They put the coffin on a big rock, and the Chevra Kadisha usually opens up the coffin to see that the limbs weren't, like, uh, crooked or, you know, bent because of the carrying of the, of the, of the coffin. You carry the coffin to the Beis Hakvaros, sometimes it causes damage in the, in the, in the limbs. So they wanted to make su- make sure that everything is straight and good. So when they opened up the coffin to check, Reb Shlomo, who was the close friend of Reb Yechiel, walked over and he started crying loud. And he said in front of all the people that were gathered there, the Beis Hakvaros, the levaya. He says, "I wanna remind my friend, my dear, dear close friend who were like, like a brother to me, Reb Yechiel. And I'm reminding Reb Yechiel that's here in this coffin to-- in front of the entire community, that he should remember that we made a, an agreement that we were going to be like, like one, one thing. We're

05:20 gonna be connected. So connected, like, like we're partners in everything." And when Reb Shlomo said this in front of the coffin of Reb Yechiel, and the Chevra Kadisha looked inside and saw that Reb Yechiel was smiling inside the coffin. Like, even though he was passed away, but he was smiling when he heard the words of Reb Shlomo. And everybody could see that, that, that Reb Yechiel heard what Reb Shlomo said. Look, after they buried him, days went by, and one day Reb Shlomo is sitting and learning in Beis Midrash in the middle of the day. And suddenly he raises his eyes, he lifts up his eyes, and he sees Rabbi Yechiel sits right in front of him and learns with him. The same halacha that he's learning, Rabbi Yechiel is learning with him. So Rabbi Shlomo was a little shocked to see his friend, Rabbi Yechiel, coming down from Gan Eden. And he asked him, "So what's going on with you in Gan Eden?" And Rabbi Yechiel said, "You should know I'm in Gan Eden. I'm having a very, very, very good time. I'm, I'm, uh, I'm, I'm in a very, very good place. And, um, I am actually the-- I'm in Gan Eden together with all of the greatest tzadikim and geonim. I can learn Torah there with them and with the neshamas." So Rabbi Shlomo said to him, "I'm surprised that you can actually show yourself in front of people. Normally, neshamas in Gan Eden are not permitted to come down into this

07:02 world and show themselves to the living human beings. You can't do that." Rarely do we have that, right? As we know from the Gemara, the Rebbe, Rebbe Yehuda Hanasi, who wrote the Mishnah, after he passed away, he would come every Friday night to his family. He would show up from Gan Eden, and he would make Kiddush for his wife and children. Until one day, um, a neighbor came to the house and knocked on the door while Rebbe was visiting to make Kiddush. He only came to make Kiddush, and then he would leave. In the middle of Kiddush, somebody knocked on the door, and the maid of Rebbe went to the door and told the neighbor, "Don't come in now. Rebbe is here." When Rebbe heard that she revealed that he's coming here every Friday night, he stopped coming. But Rebbe was able to come from Gan Eden looking like in a body as the way he was. Now, Rabbi Yechiel said to Rabbi Shlomo, "You s-- You're asking me if I have permission to show myself physically to, to people here on Earth." He says, "I have permission. I even have permission to go to my family and, and show up and, and show myself to them. But I don't wanna do it because people shouldn't think, oh, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm so arrogant. I think I'm such a tzadik, greater than the tzadikim in Gan Eden, because most tzadikim in Gan Eden can't show their face and can't show themselves to the people

08:39 on Earth. So I decided not to do it. But yes, I have permission." Now, this Rabbi Yechiel, again, is the father of the Rosh. Although he said he could go and see his family, but he didn't. But six months later, after he told this to Rabbi Shlomo, he actually did show up the night of Shabbos, in the middle of the night, to his wife, Rabbi Yechiel's wife, the mother of the Rosh. And he woke her up, and there he was, alive, not in a dream. She saw her husband showing up for the first time. She saw, she saw him after he died. And he said to her, "What are you doing? Rush, hurry, right now, in middle of Shabbos. Get up, take your sons and your daughters, and take them out of this place. Get out of the city right now, because tomorrow the Goyim are going to kill all the Jews of this city." He says, "Really, there was a gezeirah, a decree in Shamayim against the entire area. But we davened-- We, the neshamas of tzadikim, they davened in front of Hashem in Gan Eden, and we-- and Hashem-- and we managed to protect all the cities around. But this city, we did not succeed at protecting, and, and therefore you should know that tomorrow all the Jews will be killed, and I came here to save your life. Take all your children in the middle of the night. Don't wait, and get a wagon, and leave the city, and go wherever you

10:20 can." And she did exactly that. She took-- In the middle-- She woke up all her children in the middle of the night, including the Rosh and his brothers, and they all went out in the middle of Shabbos, in the middle of the night of Shabbos. The Rosh, he had a brother, Rabbi Chaim, and six sisters. They all left, and they were saved. And the next day, they found out that the whole city was murdered by the, by the Goyim, by the Christians. This is a story that was told by Rabbi Yehuda, the son of the Rosh, which he heard from his father, that happened to his father. His father was a child, and he remembered how his mother woke him up in the middle of the night on Shabbos because his father came to his mother and revealed himself openly in a body. Like, he showed up to her in the middle of the night and told her to take all the children out because tomorrow everybody's gonna get killed. That's the story. It shows the greatness of these tzadikim, that, um, sometimes tzadikim are permitted to come and save their families. This is similar to what the Rebbe did. He came to see his family every Friday night and make Kiddush for them. Well, this is only true for great, great tzadikim.