The Violin

Rav Mordechai'leh of Nadvorna played the violin. He taught his descendants that they too should try to learn the secrets of the instrument, explaining, "When Moshiach comes, who will play in his honor and add music to his welcoming ceremony? Chaim'el Klezemer? Or a tzaddik from among us, if we should merit it?"

His son, Rav Meir of Kretchnif, said before his passing that his son Rav Isamar would be the best successor to inherit the violin. Yet he would not change the family custom of drawing lots. When Rav Meir passed away and a lottery was drawn among his sons for his possessions, the violin did indeed fall to Rav Isamar.

Rav Isamar played the violin only a few times a year, at auspicious times such as Lag BaOmer, Chanukah and family simchas. On these occasions he played the well-known Nadvorna niggunim for Echad Yachid u'Meyuchad, as well as Yedid Nefesh, and Bar Yochai on Lag BaOmer. Once he was asked how he knew how to play if he played only a few times a year and never practiced. He answered that his father, Rav Meir of Kretchnif, had once played those niggunim for him and said, "See, that is how you play the violin." At that moment he acquired the knowledge on the spot and never needed to practice again.

After he moved to Czernowitz, when the Nazis began their rampage, his home was miraculously spared from searching and pillaging. One day the precious violin vanished. A few days later, family members looking out of the window spied it, hidden by an unknown thief beneath the haystack in his wagon. As soon as he heard this, Rav Isamar went outside, walked up to the thief's wagon, lifted the haystack, pointed at the instrument and said in a thundering voice, "That is my violin." He took it and walked back into his home. The thief was too stunned to utter a word.