Funerals at Midnight

After Rav Nachman moved to Eretz Yisroel, he was often awakened after chatzos by someone knocking at his window. Each time, he dressed and went out. When people asked where he was going, he explained that he was being called to a levaya, to accompany one of the great tzaddikim who had passed away in Chutz LaAretz and was now being buried in Eretz Yisroel. Sometimes he took another person with him.

One of his companions on these wondrous occasions opened the shutters one night, after especially loud and persistent knocking. Although it was well past midnight, he saw that the sky was bright as if it were midday. A throng of many thousands of people, dressed in their finest and wearing fur hats known as spodiks, was hurrying to the levaya of a great tzaddik who had just passed away in Chutz LaAretz.