The Talmid Who Returned from the Grave

Rav Meir Shapira once told his talmidim a story he said had never been published. He had found it in the records of the Lublin Jewish community and felt it should be known, for it shows what tzaddikim can accomplish.

A talmid of the Maharshal lost his wife young, and she left no children. After the seven days of mourning he stayed deeply depressed, and the Maharshal called him in to ask what was wrong. The man wept that before she died, his wife had made him promise never to remarry, but he was still young and had no children. The Maharshal assured him that he was permitted to marry, and soon he did. Shortly afterward he suddenly and inexplicably died, and all of Lublin was shaken.

The Maharshal summoned the chevra kadisha. He told them to prepare the man for burial as usual and lay him in the grave but to do nothing more, and to call him. When they did, he came to the cemetery, wrote a note and placed it in the dead man's hand. It read, "Shalom to you, heavenly hosts. How can this be? Does a positive commandment of the Torah not override a negative one? I decree in the Torah's name that you return this man to me." He signed it, told the people to leave the grave open and to go home.

About an hour later the city was abuzz. The young man, who had just been laid in the grave, was walking through the streets in his shrouds as though nothing had happened. The Maharshal's standing, already high, rose higher still.

Then a new difficulty arose. No woman would agree to marry someone who had cheated the grave. The Maharshal called on the angel of forgetfulness to wipe the whole episode from the memory of the community. Within days people stopped speaking of it and forgot it had ever happened. The young man went on as before, remarried in due time and fathered children who learned Torah and carried on the Jewish tradition.