Lashes and a Chassid's Tehillim

In one of the cities of Ukraine a terrible plague broke out. As the death toll rose, the community leaders decided to seek out sinners and transgressors, feeling that if they could root them out they might stop the plague from spreading.

In the town lived a couple who were known not to live together, because the husband was a simpleton and his wife was sophisticated. Since their family matters were so well publicized, the council decided that the wife must be at fault, and that her infidelity had brought the plague upon them. They gave her lashes. Afterwards, the woman could not contain her shame. She declared boldly that she was pure and blameless and that their suspicions were false. She asked them to travel with her to the tzaddik, the Viledniker Rebbe, to whom all secrets were revealed, so that he too would reveal her righteousness and clear her name.

When they arrived, she immediately began to scream at the community leaders. But the tzaddik turned to her and said, “My dear woman, hold your tongue. You are blameless of the sin they accused you of, and still you are worthy of lashes, for it was decreed in Heaven that you be punished. What if your husband is no wise man? Is that a reason to mistreat him? You ignore him and his love, and his soul is so pained by your treatment that he has sat and sobbed through many chapters of Tehillim. He has true yiras shomayim. In Heaven they heard his cries and his anguish, and they judged you guilty and sentenced you to lashes, which you have rightfully received. Now go home and act like a good Jewish wife, and all will be well.”

The woman turned to the tzaddik and said, “If the Rebbe will promise me a son as righteous as he is himself, then I will listen to everything the Rebbe tells me to do.”

“You wish to merit a son such as I am?” he answered. “If you wish to have a son like me, you must be as my mother was. If you will be like my mother, you will merit such a son.”

The woman asked, “How was the Rebbe’s mother?”

“Let me tell you of my mother,” answered the Viledniker. “When I was very young I was orphaned of my father. My mother raised me, but when I was nine or ten years old she became deathly ill. As she lay in bed, wasting away, she called me over and asked me for a sefer.

“I knew that she could not read Hebrew, so I was amazed, but I asked her which sefer I should bring. ‘Whichever sefer you wish,’ my mother answered. ‘It does not matter.’

“I brought her a large volume, the Rif on the Gemara. My mother took the Rif in her hands and said, ‘Heilige Osios. Bet dem obishter das mein Yisrael Ber zol zein ein erlicher Yid. (Holy letters, please approach and beseech Hashem that my son Yisrael Ber should be a holy and upright Jew.)’ She foresaw that she would pass away soon and would not live to raise me.

“Now do you understand,” the Viledniker concluded, “what kind of mother I had? When you are like her, your son will be like me.”