224. How The Baal Shem Tov Tried To Kill The Evil Frankistim

00:16 Shalom aleichem, kindalech. I'd like to share with you an, an amazing story. A story that took place in the time of the Baal Shem Tov. The time of the Baal Shem Tov, there was a group of Jewish people that behaved very badly. They were known as the Frankistim. The Frankistim, the reason they were called Frankistim because their leader, his name was Yaakov Frank. Yaakov Frank. So all his followers were called Frankistim. Yaakov Frank decided that he's Mashiach, and he's going to bring all the Jewish people away from Galus into Eretz Yisrael and build the Beis Hamikdash. He was a student of another mashiach, a, a false mashiach, Shabtai Zvi, who caused so much trouble for the Jewish people because he lied and said to everybody, "I am Mashiach." And many people believed him, but he did a lot of averas, and it was very, very clear that he's just a liar and a bad person. But when Shabtai Zvi was arrested by the government of Turkey, because the government of Turkey heard that he called himself Mashiach, that means he's gonna be the king of the Jewish people and take all the Jewish people away from Turkey and from all over Europe and from all over the world and bring them to Eretz Yisrael. They got very upset. He thinks he's a king? He lives in Turkey. We have a king, the king of Turkey. He's not gonna be another king. And they took him, they arrested him, and eventually he converted to the Muslim

02:05 religion. The Muslim religion was the religion that the people in Turkey practiced. That's what they followed, Islam, Muslim religion. Yaakov Frank lived in Podolia. That's not far from Poland, and he had a big group, and they all followed him. And he said, "Okay, I'm now-- I'm the Mashiach." And they did a lot of averas, big averas, terrible averas. And all the Jewish people all over Europe, they didn't want to have anything to do with them. They threw them out of the community, of the shuls and said, "You can't come in the shuls." And they said, "You guys are-- Until you don't do teshuva for your averas, you can't come and join us." This Yaakov Frank and his followers who were called Frankistim, they got very upset at the Jewish people because they threw them away. So they started making problems for the Jewish people. They went to the Christians and especially a famous guy, which you probably already heard of him in one of my stories. Remember the galach, the priest, Dombowski? You remember the story with the Baal Shem Tov that Dombowski burned the Gemaras from all over his, his, his town and all over the cities around him, and they burned the Gemara, all the Shas and all the Gemaras they made them bring to the center of the town and to burn it, and then he had-- suddenly he died. Remember? It's a long story which I told you a long time ago from Rabbi Chaim HaCohen Rappaport. So these Frankistim are

03:44 the ones who caused Dombowski to do this. They went and told the Christians that the Jews have the Gemara which says terrible things about the Christians, and even told the Goyim, the Christians, that in the Gemara it says that Jews must take blood from Jew-- Christian children and put it into the matzahs. You've probably heard of this before. Many, many times Jews were accused of such terrible, ridiculous things that are not true, which cannot be true. We're not allowed to even drink blood of an animal. How can we have blood of a person? Like it was so stupid. But they made it up, and many Jews were killed because of this, because of these false lies that they made up. And these Frankistim, in order to, you know, to have the, the Christians protect them and, and give them a good life, they pretended to help the Christians against the Jews. And eventually they made a deal with the, with the galachim that they will convert to Christianity. They will become like the Christians, and they will all practice the Christian religion and, and this way the Christians will give them everything they need, money and, and happiness and, and, and they, they will all act against-- make problems for the Jewish people, and that's what they did. Yaakov Frank and five hundred Jews all converted to Christianity, and they be- started making big tzaras and problems for the Jewish people, telling the government how bad the Jews are and what they say in the

05:17 Gemara against the Goyim and so on. The Baal Shem Tov was very strongly fighting against the Frankistim and told the Jews not to have anything to do with them. But then when the Frankistim became Christians and they converted to do aveiras zarim, the Baal Shem Tov got very afraid that this is gonna be a terrible thing. They look at-- They, they, they, they almost, almost they burned the Gemara. They burned the whole Shas in public and all the Gemaras from all over the city, from the shuls. They took everything out to be burned. And now they're telling things about Jews which is going to cause the Goyim to kill the Jews. So we need to do something very, very bad. Now, first, I want you to know that the Baal Shem Tov when he heard that Yaakov Frank and his followers converted to be Christians and do avodah zarah, the Baal Shem Tov cried very, very, very hard. He was so sad that Jewish people, neshamas of the Jewish people can be so far and so badly going off, so badly going to avodah zarah. That's such a terrible thing. It was so painful for the Baal Shem Tov, he cried and cried. But when he saw that the Frankisten were going to hurt the Jewish people and cause the Goyim and the Christians and the Galachim to, to, to, to do terrible things to the Jews, he decided that he's going to daven that Hashem should kill them. Normally, the Baal Shem Tov would

06:58 never do such a thing. Even a Jew who doesn't do mitzvahs and does averot, the Baal Shem Tov loved him. But in this case, because they were a danger to the Jewish people, the Baal Shem Tov felt there's no choice. We need to save the Jewish people, so we need to daven that Hashem should take them away and have them die. Now, this story was told by Reuven Margolis, he was a big Goan. He writes it in his Sefer. He heard it from a great Hasid. His name Reb David Malach, who heard the story from Reb Meir Premishlaner. Reb Meir Premishlaner said that this happened with his grandfather, Reb Meir Hagadol, that the Baal Shem Tov came to Reb Meir Hagadol. He said to him, "We need to do something about this. We need to go and daven to Hashem, but we need a few tzadikim together to daven very hard, so that Hashem will agree to kill the Frankisten, so they couldn't hurt the Jewish people." Baal Shem Tov went to Premishlan and visited Reb Meir Hagadol. As I told you before, Reb Meir Hagadol was the grandfather of the reb- the famous tzadik, Reb Meir of Premishlan. Reb Meir Hagadol was not home at the time because he was a melamed, a teacher in the house of a great Mekubal, a tzadik, very holy person. His name was Reb Shabtai of Rashkov. Reb Shabtai of Rashkov became famous because he wrote a famous siddur with a commentary in Kabbalah. Very, very famous. It's,

08:38 it's known as the Siddur of Reb Shabtai from Rashkov. And Reb Shabtai of Rashkov, he hired Reb Meir Hagadol of Premishlan to be the melamed, the teacher of his children. So he went to Rashkov to teach the children, where Reb Shabtai would pay him something, and then he would come home to Premishlan to feed his wife and children. So the Baal Shem Tov heard that Reb Meir of Premishlan, Reb Meir Hagadol, is not home. He's in Rashkov. He traveled to the city of Rashkov. He found Reb Meir Hagadol in Rashkov and told Reb Meir and also Reb Shabtai, the great Mekubal and tzadik, told them the tzoros, the terrible things the Frankisten are planning to do for the Jewish people, and we have no choice. We have to make sure that we daven that Hashem will destroy them. Destroy them once and for all, so they couldn't cause any dangerous things for the Jews. But they decided that we can't do this alone. We need the help of two great tzadikim, two greatest tzadikim of this generation. One was Reb Hirsch Pataker. He was from Patak. Reb Hirsch Pataker was the brother of Reb Meir Hagadol. And the second tzadik they need is the hidden tzadik, the tzadik Nistar, Reb Moshe Pashtichek. Moshe Pashtichek was a shepherd. He was a hidden tzadik. People thought he was just a farmer, a simple man. He was a shepherd of animals. He would make for a living in Rashkov. He would take animals. People would give them their

10:21 animals, and they didn't have time to take care of the animals, so he would do it for them. And he would take the sh- the animals to the field and let them sh- you know, feed from the grass. He would take care of them, and then he would bring them back to their owner, and they would pay him something for doing this. But Reb Moshe was really not just a shepherd, he was a really big tzadik. So they needed these two tzadikim, Reb Hirsch Pataker, the brother of Reb Meir Hagadol, and they needed also Reb Moshe Pashtichek, who was the shepherd of animals. He was a hidden tzadik. The Baal Shem Tov realized that if he has these two tzadikim also, then he and Reb Hirsch and Reb Moshe, the shepherd, together with Reb Meir Hagadol and Reb Shabtai of Rashkov, they could daven together. And because this-- they're a group of such great tzadikim, their tefillah, their davening, would cause that Hashem would kill these, these Frankisten. But we needed to find Reb Hirsch Pataker. He was in a city called Patak. So Reb Meir Hagadol went to find his brother in Patak and, and bring him to Rashkov, where the Baal Shem Tov was waiting. He went to Patak, and he saw that his brother was already waiting with a wagon and, uh, uh, outside the city of Patak for his brother. He saw Baruch HaKodesh, that his brother, Reb Meir Hagadol, was coming to pick him up. He stood there with his

11:54 bag and with his cane, ready to go. So he came to Rashkov. So then they went and called the tzadik Nistar, the hidden tzadik, Reb Moshe, from the field where he was a shepherd, that he should also join them. So Rabbi Moshe left the sheep for a while. There were sheep and cows. He left them on the field, and he went to see the Baal Shem Tov. Baal Shem Tov now was with Rabbi Hirsch and Rabbi Moshe, the Tzadik in Uster, and Rab- Rab- Rabbi Meir Hagadol and Rabbi Shapsa of Rashkov together. They went and decided, "Where can we meet in a place where we won't be disturbed, and we can daven to Hashem?" They decided to have a, a rafter. A rafter is like you put boards together and make it, like, float on the water by the river, and they would stand on that float away from people. People won't, won't see them and bother them, and they would da- get together all five of them and daven there. They went there. Now, in the town of Rashkov, there was a galach. A galach was a big mechashaf. That means a magician. He had special powers of tumah, bad powers. He was, had kishuf, and he felt the great tzadikim had gathered together. He didn't know where, but he felt because he was a mechashaf. He could feel the great tzadikim gathered together to destroy the forces of tumah. You know, Frankisten had a lot of tumah to them, a lot of bad,

13:33 bad kochas, bad energy. And, and, and he s- felt that there were these Jewish tzadikim that were getting together to, to fight against the, the, the, the, the ta- the tamidika, um, people, and he wanted to destroy their plans. How was he gonna do this? Um, he went and lit a fire and made sure the fire went near where the Baal Shem Tov and his group of tzadikim were gathered, and the fire spread into the fields. And Rabbi Moshe the shepherd was very afraid because he left the animals in the field pasturing for themselves, eating the grass and so on, but they have- were not supervised. He was afraid that they're going to get burned and die. So he immediately jumped off the rafter and went to the side of the river and ran to the field to save the, the, the sheep. But when he did this, the Baal Shem Tov felt, "Oi, we're missing one tzadik." 'Cause they realized the only way they could succeed, if all those tzadikim were together. And since Rabbi Moshe had to run a- or run quickly to save the sheep, um, they couldn't daven. So now the Baal Shem Tov realized that, um, Hashem doesn't want them to daven such a tefillah to destroy the Frankisten. Because even though they were bad people, they were doing such terrible things against the Jewish people, but a Jew is still a Jew. And, um, we don't daven like this. Or maybe that Hashem didn't want them to die because

15:16 there was other reasons which we don't know. But one thing we can see how great these tzadikim were, and here you have Moshe, a shepherd. Everybody thought he was just a shepherd, a simple man, but he really was one of the greatest tzadikim of the generation.