The Cathedral Bells

In Ostrog, where the Maharsha was Rav, a cathedral stood directly on the only road the Chevra Kaddisha could take to bury the Jewish dead. Its bells had a strange power. Whoever passed them was seized by madness, renounced his faith and converted.

Before the Maharsha passed away, he instructed the Chevra Kaddisha to lay the sefer he had written on his coffin and to carry him past the cathedral. They did as he said. As the funeral procession passed, the priests gathered and began to toll the bells.

Those carrying the bier fled and watched from a distance. The Maharsha sat up and began to leaf through the pages of his sefer. With each page he turned, the cathedral and the priests inside it sank deeper into the ground, until only the steeple remained above the earth.

To this very day a marker stands at the spot where the cathedral sank, and the Maharsha is buried not far from there.