Heavenly Engagements

The Tosher Rebbe told how Rav Yehoshua of Belz made a shidduch for his son with the daughter of Rav Eliyohu, the son of Rav Isaac'l Ziditchover. The two could not agree where to hold the vort to celebrate the tenno'im (engagement). Finally the Ziditchover sent word to the Belzer that he should know that each day he ascends to the sixth firmament, the Rokiya HaShishi, and that only because of his infirmity and advanced age could he no longer immerse in the mikve daily. "If I could immerse," he concluded, "I would be able to ascend even higher, to the seventh heaven, the Rokiya HaShevii."

When the Belzer heard these words, he agreed to come to Ziditchov so that the tenno'im could be held there. Afterward, the chassidim planned that the Belzer would come to one of the surrounding towns and spend the night there. His mechuton, the Ziditchover, insisted that Rav Yehoshua spend the night in Ziditchov, and he agreed.

Because of the Belzer's great holiness, piety and perishus (separation from worldly matters), he would sleep only on a brand new bed, made to order with kedusha and tahara, or on a specially prepared bed that met his spiritual requirements. The Ziditchover, however, simply gave him the bed of his newly married grandson, Rav Beirishel, the mechaber of Malbush Shabbos and Yom Tov. The Belzer Rav slept well and declared that it was a good, fine bed and that it had the fragrance of fear of Heaven: es shmekt fin yiras shomayim.

The next day, the Ziditchover told the Belzer that he would repeat the heavenly discourse he had heard that night in the heavenly academies, the one the Belzer Rav's father, the Sar Sholom, had said in the Mesivta DeRokiya. Rav Yehoshua listened and rejoiced.