The Ship That Outran Its Pursuers

It is told that during the massacres and pogroms of Tach (5408, 1648), many Jews fled on ships, and their attackers chased after them in small fishing boats and nearly caught them. The mekubal Rav Yoel Baal Shem had a tablet bearing a segulah from the Ramban, inscribed with various Divine Names. When he hung it on the ship, the vessel began to move with miraculous speed, outran the pursuers and vanished from their sight.

This account was related clearly by the famed Rav Aharon Tzvi Hirsch Katz of the Council of the Four Lands of Poland. The narrator also heard the story from Rav Uri of Zamość, the Chacham HaKollel and son of Rav Yoel Baal Shem, who told it about his father.