Water From Eretz Yisroel

Rav Avrohom Dov, a talmid of Rav Levi Yitzchok of Berditchev, was once visiting Zhitomir. He went to see Rav Aharon of Zhitomir, the author of Toldos Aharon, who was also a talmid of the Berditchever, and found him lying sick in bed. Rav Aharon was very glad to see him. “I will only be cured when I drink water that came from Eretz Yisroel,” he said. “I know that you are planning to travel there. Your thoughts are already there, and wherever a person's thoughts are, there he is. Please take a mouthful of water and place it in a vessel. It will be like water from Eretz Yisroel. I will drink it and be healed.” And so it was.

The Avritcher wondered how Rav Aharon knew of his longing, since he had not told a soul. It was only an idea in his mind, and yet Rav Aharon knew it.

When Rav Mordechai of Slonim told this story, he added that the Bas Ayin discusses this very concept in his sefer. Rashi in Parshas Vayishlach says that the messengers Yaakov sent to Esav were malochim, and the Bas Ayin asks how malochim of the Holy Land could come to Yaakov when he had not yet entered Eretz Yisroel, and had not even reached Sukkos. He quotes the Ramban, who asks the same question and answers that since Yaakov was traveling to Eretz Yisroel, it was as if he had already arrived.

In the printed Ramban the question appears on Parshas Vayeitzei rather than Vayishlach, and the Bas Ayin's own answer does not appear there at all. Rav Yisroel Meir Mendelowitz, in his 2006 notes to the Bas Ayin, suggests that the idea can be found in the Ramban on Eiruvin 17, where he discusses how a person is wherever his thoughts are. See also Meor Einayim (Yismach Lev, Kesubos), Shabbos 102a and Eiruvin 99a.