Studying With Eliyahu HaNavi

Adas Tzaddikim relates that when the Rema became Av Beis Din of Cracow, he took Rav Chaim as his segan (assistant rav). Whenever the Rema traveled, Rav Chaim acted in his place as Av Beis Din.

It happened that Rav Chaim's wife passed away. The Rema depended so heavily on Rav Chaim, and the communal responsibilities were so great, that every shidduch suggestion for Rav Chaim was set aside. Everyone expected the Rema to approve some match. Seeing how things were going, Rav Chaim took matters into his own hands. Tradition has it that through a shadchan he arranged a secret match with a local baker. The baker was a simple but pious man, and he supplied his distinguished son-in-law with all the seforim he would need, along with a hidden room where he could learn undisturbed.

One day the Rema returned and found Rav Chaim melancholy. He assumed it was for lack of a suitable match and proposed that he would find Rav Chaim a new wife. Rav Chaim pretended that he wished to visit his family and left with deliberate fanfare. The Rema and the townspeople escorted him to the edge of the city. There he put on simple clothes, gathered a minyan at the baker's home and married the baker's daughter under a secret chuppah. After the wedding he settled into the room his father-in-law had prepared and learned happily and undisturbed for some two years, until he was discovered.

A plague had struck Cracow, and someone reasoned that the secretive baker's son-in-law, whom no one knew, must be behind some crime that had brought guilt upon the city. Such was the desperate logic of people searching for a reason why the plague had come. Rav Chaim was summoned before the Rema, and it was found that he had simply been in hiding all this time. He was cleared of all charges.

"Why did you hide? What was your sin? And why are you laughing?" asked the Rema when he saw Rav Chaim laugh.

"I hid because the communal responsibilities were too much for me and disturbed my Torah study," Rav Chaim explained. "I laughed because these simple people were so quick to judge me. I can see they would gladly have punished me the moment you gave the word. Apparently my sin was that my Torah study was so good that I almost grew arrogant. So Hashem placed me in a situation where I would be shamed."

The Rema went to visit him to understand what he meant, and he overheard Rav Chaim learning with someone else. But when he came inside, Rav Chaim was alone.

"I command you to reveal who was here," said the Rema.

Rav Chaim admitted that he had been learning with Eliyahu HaNavi. "And he is still here with us," he said.

Eliyahu then told the Rema that he had learned with Rav Chaim not because Rav Chaim was greater than the Rema, but because the Rema's greatness and strength in Torah were too much for him, Eliyahu HaNavi.