The Tailor's Son

It is told that a young man named Asher Yeshaya was immersed in learning in a Warsaw beis medrash when the Ropshitzer came to the city. The Rebbe sat down with him, traded Torah thoughts, and warmed to him at once. He inquired after the young man's father and learned that the man was a tailor. Wanting to know where the tailor worked, the Rebbe explained that his bekeshe was ripped and needed mending.

While the tailor sewed, the Ropshitzer raised the idea of a shidduch between Asher Yeshaya and his own daughter. The tailor glanced at the Rebbe's tattered garment, concluded he had no means, and brushed the idea off with a laugh. His townspeople had already brought him fine proposals, some promising dowries of thousands of rubles, he said, and he had accepted none. “Go and tell the Rav of the town, the Chemdas Shlomo, that the Ropshitzer Rav is proposing this match,” said Rav Naftoli. Learning that his visitor was a Rav changed the tailor's attitude, and he hurried to the Chemdas Shlomo, who urged him to take the opportunity.

Chassidim relate that the followers of the Chozeh of Lublin, the Ropshitzer among them, used to submit shidduch ideas to him written on a kvittel, and he would tell them whether it was a good match. The Ropshitzer was weighing two young men for his only daughter, Ratzchi, one of them Asher Yeshaya. He traveled to Lublin to ask the Chozeh, who favored the other candidate. The Ropshitzer saw it differently. He hastened to Warsaw and finalized the match with Asher Yeshaya, then returned to Lublin to receive his Rebbe's mazel tov. On seeing a different name on the kvittel, the Chozeh said, “A sage is greater than a prophet,” and added, “A sheina Korban Pesach'el, a lovely Pesach offering.” Nobody grasped his meaning until, many years later, Rav Asher Yeshaya Rubin passed away on Erev Pesach. Then it was clear: his soul had been taken up on high as that year's Korban Pesach.

A different tradition holds that the Ropshitzer arranged the match first and traveled to Lublin only after the tenaim, and that the Chozeh was displeased. Later, once the young man had lost both his parents, the Ropshitzer took him to Lublin. This time the Chozeh was delighted and repeated, “A sage is greater than a prophet.” After the chasuna, on the Shabbos of Sheva Berachos, the Chozeh gave the young man the honor of leading Birkas HaMazon, and did so again at the Shabbos day meal. The Ropshitzer said he feared the ayin hora, and the Chozeh remarked of Rav Asher Yeshaya, “A kosher Korban Pesach'el.”