Two Strangers in Lizensk

Rav Moshe of Lelov and his nephew, Rav Nosson Dovid of Shidlovitza, were close friends. Each year before Pesach they sent each other gifts. Rav Moshe sent wine and brandy, and Rav Nosson Dovid sent back shemurah matzos.

One year the messenger from Lelov arrived with the usual gift. While the gabbai counted out his fee, the man asked for more than was customary. The gabbai did not want to pay it, but Rav Nosson Dovid told him to give the messenger whatever he asked. Once he was paid, the messenger delivered the wine and brandy, and then he told Rav Nosson Dovid a story that he had heard from Rav Moshe, who had held his hand the whole time he told it. It is told that this is what the messenger related.

Rebbe Elimelech of Lizensk, the Noam Elimelech, was once sitting with his circle of chassidim when two men appeared at the entrance of the beis medrash. Guests were usually welcome in Lizensk, but this time the Rebbe looked at the two of them and said that he had never seen such a strange sight: two Jews wearing no garments at all.

The talmidim were bewildered. They studied the visitors closely, and could see only ordinary clothing, like anyone else's. The Rebbe called the two men forward and asked how it could be that they had no garments. One of the talmidim objected that the men were dressed just as everyone in the room was.

The Rebbe replied that they did not see what he saw. He was not speaking of cloth, he said. These two lacked their spiritual garments, and they stood stripped of every mitzvah.

The two men cried out in distress that it was true. If the Rebbe's holy eyes could see it, then it was so. The Rebbe pressed them to say what they could have done to strip themselves of every garment, and what shameful deed had caused it. They answered that they had committed a grave sin against Rav Michel of Zlotshuv.

"So I was right," said Rebbe Elimelech. "Now tell us what you did to Rav Michel'eh that brought such a punishment." And this is what they told him.

The two had been business partners in Zlotshuv. They were very wealthy and lived in a large house for two families, by the fortified wall in the better part of the city, and they lacked nothing. They employed a bookkeeper who kept all their accounts, held their records and handled the contracts and paperwork behind their deals. He was also their neighbor, and owned a fine house next to theirs.

One day the partners set their eyes on his house. They decided they had to have it, so that they could enlarge their living space and plant a garden for their leisure. They made him an offer, and he refused outright. He told them that the house was worth at least six hundred gold rubles, that their offer did not tempt him at all, that he was comfortable and content and fond of his home, and that they should be ashamed of their greed.

The partners were furious. Who was he to tell them to be ashamed, and to call them greedy? How dared he turn them down? They warned him that if he would not agree, they would dismiss him and end all their dealings with him. He answered that this was blackmail. He would not give in to extortion; if they fired him he would open his own business, and he did not fear their threats. And so it happened. They dismissed him, and he opened a shop in his home.

But the bookkeeper's fortunes turned, and his shop failed. Soon he was deep in debt. Creditors kept demanding payment, so he borrowed from friends and family, yet his situation only worsened until he had nothing left at all.

He asked his relatives to approach the partners and request that they take him back, as the faithful accountant he had been. The partners saw their chance, greedily. They agreed on two conditions. He would return to work for a third of his former salary, and he would sell them his house for a third of its fair value. He had no alternative, and he agreed.

He drew up the bill of sale himself, and the partners believed they had made an excellent bargain. But the bookkeeper was shrewd. The contract normally states that the sale is made willingly and without pressure. In its place he wrote that it was made against his will, under coercion and duress. The partners never read the small print. The price matched their deal, and that was enough for them. They signed, and the house passed into their hands.

Before a month had passed, the bookkeeper died of a broken heart, with no wish left to go on living. In their wickedness, the partners rejoiced, for now they could go ahead with their plans to demolish the house, expand and renovate. But a difficulty arose. Family members started coming in from distant towns, hoping to receive the great fortune they believed he had left.

The heirs lived far away, and they knew nothing of the recent events. They did not know that he had lost his position, that he had been impoverished or that he had sold his home. They still believed that his estate was worth the trip. The townspeople directed them to the partners, his former employers, and the heirs began searching for his will and the deed to the house.

The partners mocked them. Why search in vain, they said, when their father had left behind nothing but a few rubles, since everything had gone to pay his debts and creditors. They described how he had been dismissed and had failed in his new venture.

The heirs asked, anxiously, where the deed to the house was. The partners shook their heads in feigned sorrow and said that there was no deed, only a bill of sale. He had sold them the house for two hundred rubles, they said, and virtually nothing was left of that after his heavy debts were covered.

The heirs were stunned. They began to shout and to accuse, and soon the partners found themselves seated opposite them as defendants. The case was tried in the beis din of Rav Yechiel Michel, the Rav of Zlotshuv, who presided over it. Rav Michel was a holy man, a tzaddik who performed miracles.

At first the hearing seemed routine. The bookkeeper's sons and daughters presented their case: the partners, they claimed, had taken the house for a third of its worth by some trick. The Rav asked the partners how they answered. The partners confidently proposed that the matter be ended quickly, and produced the bill of sale, signed and dated. The house was theirs, they said, since the dead man had sold it to them fairly.

The Rav took the contract and studied its wording. When he reached the small print, he stopped at the words stating that it was made against the seller's will under coercion and duress. Indignant at the injustice, he cried out that the document was a sham, and that he had never seen such falsehood. Falsehood, he said, has no legs to stand on.

The Rav fixed his holy gaze on the offending clause, and the partners sat stunned at what happened next. The holy Hebrew letters, written falsely in the service of deceit, loosened from the page under the tzaddik's gaze. They floated upward, leaving the page empty and white. The tzaddik smiled.

Then, in righteous anger, he turned to the partners. Did they think they could fool him, and turn this court into a joke with the conduct of Lavan the trickster and fraud? He stressed the name Lavan, which also means white, and held the blank sheet before their eyes and before everyone in the courtroom. What contract is empty, he demanded, and what bill of sale is a plain blank page? Then he tore it up before their eyes.

The heirs rejoiced and took possession of the house. When the partners recovered from their shock, they were enraged. They could have taken the miracle as evidence of the Rav's saintliness, but they hardened their hearts and plotted revenge. Rav Michel would pay for embarrassing them in public and robbing them of their ill-gotten property. And so, filled with thoughts of vengeance, they went to the duke with their plan.

They introduced themselves to the duke as wealthy merchants from Zlotshuv. The duke burst out in anger against the Jews. They were all thieves and liars, he said, always stealing from him and forever claiming they could not pay their rent, yet renewing their leases year after year and asking every year for the rent to be lowered.

This was the opening the partners had been waiting for, since it gave them their chance to slander Rav Michel. They told the duke that they knew the cause and source of all his troubles, and had come to help him regain his wealth. The duke said that he was listening.

They told him about the Rav of Zlotshuv, Rav Yechiel Michel, who ran the affairs of the Jewish community. It was he, they said, who ruled that no Jew may compete with a fellow Jew in business. By choking off all competition among Jews, he damaged free trade and left the duke with no leverage, for no Jew dared to bid against another. That was why nobody bid for the lease of an estate when another Jew already held the contract. The tenants kept the same contract and paid less each year, and with no threat of competition to make them turn a profit or meet the duke's demands, they were secure.

The duke was enraged. His tavern, inn, flour mill and all his farms and holdings were going to ruin because of one rabbi, he asked? Yes, the partners said, and the same ban applied throughout the district. This enraged the duke still more.

The duke summoned all the Polish noblemen, squires and poritzim (landowners) from across the region to an extravagant feast two months away. The invitation promised a spectacle, the execution of the local rabbi, the root of all their financial losses. The partners were overjoyed. Soon they would be rid of the nuisance of the rabbi.

Meanwhile, two Jewish peddlers arrived at the duke's estate to sell their wares. A pair of earrings caught the cook's eye. One peddler, thinking that the kitchen maids must have heard some news that could help his business, decided to trade the earrings for news. It was quite possible that he would learn something about the duke's dealings that would bring him a profit.

He was stunned by what he heard. The cook began to tell him, with a great air of importance, that the rabbi's life was in danger. The duke's men were in a flurry of preparation for a great banquet, she said, and she had been cooking day and night to feed a hundred hungry nobles. What was more, the entertainment for the evening was to be the execution of the Jews' rabbi.

The peddler was horrified, and he did not know what to believe. Perhaps this was a fantastic tale invented by someone with a vivid imagination in the duke's service. But what if it was true? He rushed off to warn the Rav at once.

But when he arrived, the faithful gabbai blocked his way to the Rav's study. The Rav had just lain down for a well-earned rest, the gabbai said, and he would not allow him to be disturbed by some silly story. How could anyone believe that the duke would concern himself with the Rav? He had never heard such nonsense.

The gabbai's skepticism convinced the peddler, and having told his story, he was relieved that the gabbai had not believed a word of it. He only regretted giving up the earrings. The gabbai was satisfied that he had turned the man away. But from his study the Rav had caught the noise outside, and had listened to every word. Now, at least, he would be ready.

Two months later, all the local noblemen, squires and poritzim arrived at the duke's palace with their wives and entourages. The two partners came too, to see the Rav's downfall with their own eyes. The feast was a raucous binge of wild music, gluttony and debauchery. The revelers jeered and called for the Rav's death while they gorged themselves and drained one mug of beer and ale after another.

At the same time, the Jews of the town sat in grief and shock. Armed soldiers had been sent to bring their beloved Rav to the palace for a trial, which was a death warrant in all but name. They knew that not only was the Rav's life at stake, but that afterward the local peasant mob would attack Jewish homes. The community shrank in fear at what awaited them if the duke carried out his evil plan. The Rav walked calmly, comforting his flock. He told them to keep faith and hold strong, to have emunah and bitachon and to trust in Hashem's salvation.

The duke withdrew to his inner chamber, with fifteen halls, rooms and corridors separating him from the noisy guests. It was the rule of the realm that the one who condemned a man could not be present at the execution. The executioner honed his blade, and the duke's daughter took her place, eager to watch. She had heard about the Rav's handsome features, and she wanted to slap his face before his head was cut off.

But all their wicked plans failed at once. The Rav arrived and climbed the platform. The executioner lifted his axe, the duke's daughter stretched out her hand, and every eye in the crowd was on the victim. Suddenly all of them froze as if turned to stone. The axe hung above the Rav's head, the daughter's hand stopped in the middle of its swing, and the sneering faces of the guests stayed fixed in their twisted expressions, like gargoyles.

While this was happening outside, the Rav walked calmly through one room after another, down hall after hall and along each corridor, finally arriving at the duke's inner chamber, where he pushed open the door.

The duke asked why it was so silent out there, and who dared to enter unannounced and unwelcome. "Your guest," the Rav answered. "Yechiel Michel of Zlotshuv."

The duke cried out that it could not be. He raced through the rooms and halls, screaming louder as he met each frozen figure among the great gathering. When he reached his daughter, a wail tore from his tight throat. His beloved daughter, his only child, what had happened to her? What had the Rav done to her and to all of them? He begged the holy rabbi to undo his spell and free them from their enchantment, and promised him anything, gold, silver, riches, honor and glory. He would even reveal the identity of the Rav's accusers and have them hanged in his place.

The Rav told him to stop. He ordered the duke to release his accusers. Further, the duke must swear an oath to Hashem that from now on he would harm no Jew in his lands, that he would let them rent his property on fair terms and tax them fairly. If he promised that no Jew would come to harm, the Rav would pray that the duke's daughter and guests be restored to their former state. It was no spell, said the Rav, but the wrath of Hashem Himself that had turned these people to stone, and only He could release them. The duke swore that he would, and begged the Rav to pray.

Rav Michel prayed, and the frozen people came back to life. The partners were released, and they fled in humiliation. The Rav had answered their evil with compassion, and they were reduced to the state in which they now stood in Lizensk. Their punishment from Above was that Heaven stripped them of all their merit, leaving them without spiritual clothing, for all their mitzvos had been taken from them.

"Now do you understand, my talmidim," asked Rebbe Elimelech, "why these two stand before me without any garments of mitzvos?" Then he turned to the two men. They had now confessed their crimes, he said, admitted their guilt and expressed remorse, and this is the formula of teshuvah. He declared that their path of return had begun. They would no longer wander naked, without garments of mitzvos. From now on their tikkun would begin, and they would once again earn mitzvos and good deeds and dress themselves anew. Their shame and repentance had been accepted by the beis din shel maalah (the Heavenly court) through this confession, and he would guide their way back to teshuvah and tikkun.

When the messenger had finished the story, he told Rav Nosson Dovid that Rav Moshe of Lelov had then released his hand. Rav Nosson Dovid said to the gabbai, "Didn't I tell you the extra payment was worth it for a story like this? That is why Rav Moshe held his hand for so long. He must have imbued him with every detail of the tale, the life of its lesson flowing through his hand into the messenger's, so that he could retell it all to us faithfully, word for word."