Chasing the Carriage to Lizhensk

It is told that the Apta Rav once described how he came to Chassidus. He was a young Rav in Kolbosov then, living in only one wing of the large rabbinic house and learning Torah for its own sake, and he looked at Chassidim with some disdain.

One day two travelers asked for lodging, and he gave them the second wing. Their conversation sounded holy, but he was too busy with his learning to listen. On the third day, as they were leaving, one of them told him a story, then another, then the second guest told a third. He suffered through each, thinking of the learning he was missing.

Three months later he realized that he needed the first story. Three months after that, he needed the second, and then the third. They had been telling him what he would face that year. He understood that this was Ruach HaKodesh and hoped to meet them again.

Two years later he looked out of his window and saw their carriage passing. Forgetting that he was the town Rav, he ran after it in his shirtsleeves, with no coat and no hat. They were traveling to the Rebbe Reb Elimelech of Lizhensk, and they agreed to take him if he first bought rolls and butter for the road while they davened. He did so, ran home for his tallis and tefillin, and climbed in.

The travelers, it turned out, were the Berditchever and the Sassover themselves. Rav Elimelech became his Rebbe that day. Afterward, Rav Moshe Leib would joke that he deserved a matchmaker's fee for the match, and Rav Levi Yitzchok answered that his own fee should be double.