250. The Shochet The Tzadik Nisrar

00:16 Shalom Aleichem, kindele. Here's a gevaldig story with the famous Aptener Rav. Rav Avraham Yeshurun Heshel was the Rav of Apt, one of the great tzadikim, eh, the time of the Alter Rebbe. Rav Avraham Yeshurun Heshel from Apt was first, in his younger years, a Rav in a place called Kalvasov. When he was a Rav in Kalvasov, the Rav of Kalvasov usually was also in charge of all the towns and villages around the city. He was the Rav of everyone. So not only of the city Kalvasov itself, but the surrounding little towns, he also was the Rav of them. So one of the towns outside Kalvasov, the people came to him and complained that they have a shochet who does all the shechitas, he shechted all the animals and make sure they have kosher meat, but they're very, very doubtful. They have questions about him, whether he's really a yerei shamayim, he's really, um, proper to be a shochet. The shochet has to be a yerei shamayim, a very, very, um, special person that has a lot of yiras Hashem. But he sings a lot of goyische songs and he drinks, he gets drunk every night. That's not a shochet, that's not-- You can't trust a shechita like this. So the, the, the, the, the Aptener Rav said, "Listen, before we make a decision whether to remove him from the shechita and fire him and tell him he can no longer be a shochet, I need to go meet him to see for myself, to see

02:02 what he's like. Then I can make a proper decision." So one day he rented a wagon and decided to travel that little town and to meet the shochet to see what he's like. While he was traveling in the wagon on the way, he sees an old man walking this, um... down the road. So he stopped the wagon and says, "Okay, come up to my wagon. I'll give you a ride." "Okay." So the, the, the old man sits in the back and, uh, they continue to travel. The Aptener Rav suddenly hears a voice in the back that says, "A shochet who even the malachim and the serafim in Shamayim cannot understand what he's saying because he says such deep binyanim haftora, and the Rav of Kalvasov is going to check him out and remove him from his position?" When the Aptener Rav heard this, he turned around and then suddenly saw that the old man is gone. He disappeared. Then he traveled on and he sees a young man also walking. So he stops the wagon, asks him if he wants to come, and g- give him a ride. The young man gets on and sits in the back. And then he-- the, the Aptener Rav hears again a voice in the back. And what does the boy-- the voice say? A- a shochet that the-- even the malachim don't understand what he's speaking about because he's so deep. He says such deep binyanim haftora, and the Kalvasov Rav goes and tries to remove him from

03:46 his position? And so the Aptener Rav looked back, who's speaking? And he sees that the young man is gone. He's suddenly disappeared. He's not there anymore. When he came to the town, uh, so he met the people. People told him, "Yeah, yeah, he-- We can't have him as a shochet because he sings goyische nigunim, uh, goyische songs, and he, he, he drinks the whole time." So the Aptener Rav said, "Okay, let's, um, wait till tomorrow morning. Tomorrow morning I will, um, I will, um, we'll, we'll look into this. Now let's go to... it's late at night." So people left and they went to their homes, and they waited for the next day. Suddenly, uh, in middle of the night, the Aptener Rav decided to go and visit the shochet. Comes to the house of the shochet. It's late at night. His wife opens up the door, and the, the Rav says, "I wanna me-- see your husband. Can I see your husband?" She said to him, "Oi, you don't know my husband. You know that he drinks every night. He's out there in the backyard. There's a little, little bit of a, like, kind of a shed and like a little warehouse or shed. He's drinking all night." So the Aptener Rav decided to go and check. He went secretly, quietly in the back and saw the, the shed, the, the, the, the warehouse. And he sees through, through the window that the shochet is sitting with that old man that he gave a ride

05:34 earlier and disappeared. The old man that he saw before is sitting there with the shochet. And who also is sitting there? A third person. That young man also that he took and gave him a ride and then disappeared is also sitting there with the shochet, and they're learning. They're learning Kabbalah, deep binyanim in the Zohar, in Kabbalah. So the Aptener Rav realized this is a tzadik nis, there is a hidden tzadik. Everybody thinks he's a, a nothing and a terrible person. He drinks all the time, but it's all just a pretend. He's pretending this because he wants people to think that he's not what he really is. So the Apter Rav decided to go knock on the door. Knocks on the door, and they don't wanna open it. So then he yelled from behind the door and said, "I'm a Rav, and I'm in charge of... I'm, I'm, I'm the Rav of this whole city and all the cities around, so I'm your Rav too, and I give... And, um, and I say that you must open the door because as the Rav, I can ask this, because, uh, you have to listen to your Rav." So they had to... They had no choice. They opened the door. When the Apter Rav came in, he saw that the old man and the young man that were sitting there before are no longer there. They disappeared, and the only one is the Shochet. So the Apter Rav says to the Shochet, "You have to tell me

07:03 who you are, who you really are, because everybody thinks that you're just a lowlife, a terrible person that drinks the whole night. But obviously, this is all just a front. You're just pretending. So I want you to tell me the truth about who you are." When the Apter Rav said that, he said, "Listen, okay, you know who I am now. You saw. But now I want you to do me a favor, make sure that my family has what to eat and drink. There's an income coming to them." And he was alluding to the Apter Rav that he's going to die by the next morning. In other words, as long as he wasn't discovered, he was able to live. But now he was discovered by the Apter Rav, um, that is the time has come for him to leave the world. The next morning, the, the, the Shochet was nostalgic, and that's it. He wasn't-- He wasn't alive anymore. So the Apter Rav decided to stay there and take care of the levaya and bury him, and he made sure he stayed there for a longer time to make sure that the wife and the kids have what to eat and so that the community would support them and give them money every month so they could live. But then the Apter Rav felt bad because he thought that he caused, that this tzadik nishtane has to die because he revealed his identity, he revealed what he's really-- who he really is, and that mean-- meant

08:37 that this tzadik nishtane could no longer be alive. So he caused him to die. It's quite a terrible thing. So he went to his... two of his great friends, great tzadikim, the Shpala Zayde and Reb Mordche of Neschez. These are two great tzadikim, and he went and asked them what to do. And they told him, "Listen, yeah, it sounds like you, you're guilty. You, you caused the death of a tzadik nishtane." It's like Bishogeg, you know, when in the Torah it says if somebody kills somebody by mistake, there we're talking about he's killing him with his hand, but by mistake, like he fell on him or something. So then the halacha is you have to go in galus. You have to go to certain cities. They call cities of Miklat, Arei Miklat, where you have to go and, and spend time there. Until the Kohen Gadol dies, he has to spend-- He has to stay there in that city, in that... It's called going into galus. So they said, "Okay, you have to go into galus, um, to, to, to forgive for your, for your terrible thing that you caused the tzadik nishtane to die." And the Reb Mordche of Neschez and the Shpala Zayde, his friends, told him, "We'll also go with you to keep you company. We'll also go together." And they also made up when they're going to galus, they can't tell anybody who they really are. They have to pretend that they're just simple, ignorant people traveling. They can't tell them

10:12 that who they are. They, they're these great tzadikim, you know, the Talmidim of the Maggid. No. They, they can't tell, they can't tell anyone. People should think that they're just simple people. And so they traveled from town to town like in galus, and people thought they were just ordinary people, simple people, poor schlepers, beggars. Till one day, Reb Mordche of Neschez became famous. Suddenly, people discovered who he is. So the other two friends, that is the, the Apter Rav and the Shpala Zayde asked Reb Mordche, "Why did you do this? Didn't we agree? Didn't we agree that you, you should f- you should hide who you are and nobody should know who you are?" So he said, "Listen, what can I do? They, they tricked me." And he explained. "I was going... You know, I was traveling in galus like you guys. I came to a little settlement, a little town, and I stayed in somebody's house. Now, the host who I stayed with recognized me that I was one of the Talmidim of the Maggid. Apparently, he would travel to the Maggid, and he remembers me there. So he recognized my face. So he treated me so nicely with a lot of kavod. Um, and for a whole week, he didn't let me leave. He told me, 'You stay in my house. I'll take care of you.' He wouldn't let me go. So finally, um, when I finally left, I wanted to walk on foot because that's when you go in galus, you go

11:43 on foot from town to town. He insisted to buy me-- get me a wagon and to hire a wagon to take me to the next place because he said, 'I'm not... You know, I know who you are.' Then the host says to me, 'Before, Rebbe, before you leave, I want you to give a bracha to my daughter, my oldest daughter.'" And so I said to him, "So bring your... Tell your daughter to come here, I'll give her a bracha." And she came. And then I was told that she didn't walk for twenty years. Her, she-- her feet were paralyzed. She couldn't walk. She had a very serious illness in her legs. She couldn't walk. She was sitting in a wheelchair all day. And after twenty years, when I said, "Tell your daughter to come," she started walking normal. And it was, it was a big nes. So the, the, the Reb Mordechai ben Ezri said, "I wasn't gonna be revealing myself. I, I knew I were in galus, you gotta hide who you really are. But they tricked me. They told me that the daughter wants to have a bracha, and I told the daughter to come. I didn't know that the daughter couldn't walk for twenty years. Right? I, I, I just told her to come because I thought she can walk, and she should come, I'll give her a bracha. But it turns out that she actually couldn't walk because I told the parents to tell her that Reb Mordechai says you have

13:14 to walk, a nes happened. So now everybody talks about me, and now everybody knows who I am. So what can I do? I mean, they tricked me into this. They didn't tell me that she didn't walk for so long." So this is the story, and sometimes this-- it teaches us very important. On Rosh Hashana, we, we start trying to make-- trying to get better for the next year. That we should never judge people, right? Sometimes it can be a tzadik in Israel that's pretending to be, uh, like a very bad, drinking all time, singing goyische songs. You know, we never know what's this all... We should always, always try to judge people favorably, right? Not to always think that we know what's really going on. Hag sameach, a gut Yontif.