The Young Czernowitzer Rebbe

A young Jewish woman was married to a merchant just outside Czernowitz. It was her custom to hire a non-Jewish wagon driver to take her to and from town, where she bought goods for her husband to sell. One day the driver she hired was too inexperienced to handle the horses properly, and they began to tear down the main road in Czernowitz, bearing down on all the passersby. The horses' hooves thundered as people ran screaming for their lives. One unlucky young non-Jewish boy failed to escape and was killed.

The boy's father realized that he was now in a position to frighten the Jews and squeeze them for their money. Day after day and week after week he demanded compensation for the loss of his child, and his threat was always the same: if they did not pay, he would go to the authorities and press charges for manslaughter. It was the fault of the merchant's wife, he reasoned, since she had hired the driver. The extortion never let up, yet the Jewish couple refused to pay, lest they become destitute.

The father kept his threat and went to the authorities, who drew up a case and set the court date for several weeks later. The merchant and his wife went from lawyer to lawyer, but each one said there was no point, since the case would surely be decided in the father's favor. They predicted that the merchant's wife would be imprisoned for a long time. The merchant went to his rebbe, who could not offer help either.

Finally the wife's sister mentioned that a young man, a rebbe, had just moved into her apartment building and appeared to be a tzaddik. Perhaps they should go to him. Rav Isamar was then only seventeen and had only recently become a rebbe. He had just moved to Czernowitz and had not yet built a beis medrash or a home, and he was renting an apartment in the same building as this sister.

The merchant's wife took her sister's advice. To her amazement, the young rebbe asked her to retell the entire story in far more detail than any lawyer had. He then nodded and said, "You have absolutely nothing to fear. This man will be dead and buried before you go to trial. Go home with a light heart."

She could hardly believe the good news. The following week she came back to Czernowitz to search for one more lawyer, in case the young Rebbe's berocha was too good to be true. But her sister told her, "Why are you here looking for a lawyer? Haven't you heard that the goy died and was buried yesterday? He suddenly came down with a high fever, and before the doctor even arrived he was dead. The doctor had no choice but to establish his death."