The Garment That Rejected Him

The Melizter Rebbe had a unique stringency. He would not wear any article of clothing before it had been toiveled (immersed in the mikveh). Only after it was toiveled did he wear it. Not only did he keep this custom strictly, he could detect when any clothing offered to him had not yet been toiveled. If he was handed a new beketshe or challatel (the satin house robe worn at meals, as opposed to the silk robe called a kaftan or beketshe, worn for prayer) that had not been purified in this way, he was simply unable to put it on. How could he tell?

It once happened that the Melizter traveled to Zavna for Shabbos. The family was hurrying to leave, and in the rush the gabbai forgot to take the Rebbe's new challatel to the mikveh. The gabbai reasoned that there was no time now, and he tossed the robe in with the rest of the clothes onto the wagon.

On Friday night, when the Leil Shabbos tisch began, the Rebbe finished Kiddush and removed his beketshe. As was his custom, he prepared to put on his challatel, wash, say haMotzi and begin the meal. But as the gabbai handed him the new challatel, a strange thing happened. Try as he might, the Rebbe failed again and again to get his arm into the robe. After several attempts, he turned to the gabbai and asked, "Was this challatel toiveled in the mikveh?"

The embarrassed gabbai admitted that it had not been immersed. "So sorry, Rebbe, but there just wasn't any time to toivel it," he said. The Rebbe only chuckled and put his kaftan back on, and that meal he sat in a kaftan instead of the challatel that had never been in the mikveh.

The incident should have ended there, but the sons of Rav Mordechai Dovid of Dombrova were in attendance. "Do you mean to tell us that the Rebbe doesn't wear clothing that hasn't been toiveled?" they challenged. "Do you expect us to believe he can actually tell? What does he have, ruach hakodesh?" The gabbai explained that the Rebbe not only knew that the clothes had not been immersed, but could not wear them. It was as if he were repelled by them. "We have to see this for ourselves," they concluded, and they devised a test.

They secretly took the new challatel and hid it beneath the cushion of the Rebbe's chair in his room at the hotel. When the tzaddik concluded his tisch, they asked to accompany him, and he gladly agreed. When he entered the room and tried to sit down to conduct the second tisch, where he distributed fruit for dessert, he could not do so. He kept getting up, as if the chair rejected him.

"Why can't I sit in this chair?" the Rebbe wondered aloud. He moved the chair around and searched among the cushions and pillows until his hand touched a length of folded material. He pulled it out and snapped his fingers. "Aha, I have you now. Here is the culprit. This challatel was not yet in the mikveh. So strange. How did it get mixed in among the cushions of the chair?" He removed the offending garment and sat down with a sigh, and he conducted the tisch to the astonishment of the Dombrover's sons.

Still not entirely convinced, the brothers thought up a second test. "Let us see one more time whether he discovers it," they reasoned. This time they hid the untoiveled challatel in the straw of the Melizter's bed. When the tzaddik tried to lie down to rest, he could not. Again the bed seemed to repel him. Repeatedly he tried to lie down, and with each attempt he sprang up as if rebuffed.

The Rebbe began to search the straw beneath the mattress and found the challatel buried in it. "Aha, here is the problem," he said, snapping his fingers victoriously. "Out with you. This explains why I could not rest. The challatel that did not make it into the mikveh is here." He removed it and said, "Now I can rest."

The tzaddik lay comfortably on his bed, while the sons of the Dombrover finally admitted that they had witnessed the impossible. "The Melizter Rebbe really could not wear or bear any garment that had not been immersed in the mikveh," said one. "He must be a holy tzaddik," agreed the others. "Hashem watches over His chassidim," they concluded fervently.