The Floating Bed

It is told that Reb Yayvi, the Maggid of Ostra, once remarked to his son Getzel that each word and letter of Toldos Yaakov Yosef is precious, yet one passage defeated him. He went over it again at length and still could not grasp it. He told Getzel that they would travel to the author himself to ask.

The carriage ride took many hours. When they arrived at the home of Rav Yaakov Yosef, they found him in bed, only days before his passing. Reb Yayvi explained that he had bought the sefer and studied it closely from beginning to end, but that one passage was beyond him, and that he had come for an explanation. Rav Yaakov Yosef motioned toward the bookcase and told him to bring the sefer and point to the passage.

The visitor fetched it, and the moment he opened the sefer it fell open to the very paragraph. He passed it to the man in bed and read out the words, “My rebbe, the Baal Shem Tov, told me.” As Rav Yaakov Yosef started to explain, his face took on an unearthly glow and his body looked like a blazing torch. The bed rose from the floor and floated in the air, encircled by a pillar of fire.

When the explanation was over, everything returned to normal. The fire vanished, and the bed came to rest on the floor, with a worn-out old man lying in it. In later years Reb Getzel told the story again and again. He would swear by his beard that it was true, and say that he would never forget the sight as long as he lived.