Righteous and Wicked Matzos

Rav Sholom of Kaminka had a unique custom before Pesach: he inspected each matzah individually to decide whether it was fit to eat. He took each matzah in hand and turned it round and round, studying every nook and cranny, until he was either satisfied or dissatisfied. Before him stood two piles. Each matzah he rejected went onto the reject pile with the cry, "Rasha, wicked one." Somehow he had seen that it had been kneaded, rolled out and baked by someone he deemed a rasha. Matzos prepared and baked by someone Rav Sholom held in high regard were accepted and added to the pile known as Tzaddikim.

A throng of amazed chassidim watched this work. No one was more amazed than Rav Yehoshiele, Rav Sholom's son, because he knew who had in fact kneaded, rolled and baked the matzos his holy father was inspecting, and he was dumbfounded by his father's evident ruach hakodesh (divine insight). Rav Yehoshiele had marked the matzos baked by a man highly regarded in the community as a righteous figure with a small triangular indentation. This man was held in high esteem by all, a man of stature who fasted, practiced hisbodedus (seclusion), and was always taking some penance or stricture upon himself. In short, he was well known as a frummer, a highly pious and religious person. Yet his matzos were rejected, as Rav Sholom pronounced on each, "Rasha," and heaped them onto the pile of rejects.

The matzos baked by a happy-go-lucky, friendly, smiling and congenial fellow, known as light-headed and a so-called good-for-nothing, always seen befriending everyone and "wasting his time," Rav Yehoshiele had marked with a circular impression. Here his father pronounced each one a Tzaddik and sorted them onto the pile of matzos he would personally eat during Pesach. In this way Rav Yehoshiele saw his father's ruach hakodesh at work, and why his father rejected the so-called frummers, whose dark and depressed ways he disliked, in favor of the simchah of the simple Yidden whose way he approved.