The Nusach of the Kloiz

Rav Yisroel, son of Rav Dovid Moshe of Tshortkov, once related that Rav Levi Yitzchok of Berditchev came to Tshortkov several years after Rav Hirshele had passed away. During his visit he davened in Rav Hirshele's kloiz, and as a chassid he davened nusach Sefard, against the established custom of the shul.

No sooner had the Kedushas Levi, famous for his fiery tefillos, begun to daven nusach Sefard than he was seized by a deep sleep. In a vision, the Rav of the kloiz himself, Rav Hirshele, appeared to him and rebuked him for switching from nusach Ashkenaz to Sefard. "How dare you?" he said. "What gives you the right to change from nusach Ashkenaz in this place? I toiled and struggled greatly until I succeeded in forging a path ascending heavenward through nusach Ashkenaz." With that the vision ended, the Berditchever awoke, and he promptly switched back to nusach Ashkenaz.

"Do you see?" Rav Yisroel of Tshortkov concluded. "We all know how passionate and moving the holy Berditchever's tefillos were. Yet Rav Hirshele was so great that he could bring a sleep-like trance even upon the Kedushas Levi, to make him return to the right nusach."

On another occasion, years after Rav Hirshele's passing, someone tried to replace Bameh Madlikin on Friday night with Kegavna, as in nusach Sefard. That night a fire broke out. It consumed the amud where the chazzan davened and the floor he had stood on, up to the aron hakodesh, where it stopped. Needless to say, they went back to Bameh Madlikin. Even many years later, when the worshippers did daven nusach Sefard, they kept saying Bameh Madlikin, so that there would not be another fire.