The Secret Tzaddik of Krakow

A well-known story is told that in Krakow, where the Bach was chief Rav, there lived a great and wealthy man who fed the poor in secret. Every week the poor of Krakow came to the local butcher and baker and received free meat, bread and challos. No one in Krakow knew that the rich man was secretly funding this charity. To the outside world he seemed stingy and tight-fisted. When the charity collectors came around, he ignored them, having already given all his charity money to feed the poor.

He continued in this way for many years, and no one knew his secret. The townsfolk assumed he was a wicked, stingy old man. The wealthy man preferred it this way, since he knew that any honor he received in this world would detract from his heavenly reward for charity.

One day the old wealthy man passed away. The chevra kaddisha, knowing him only as a miser, dug his grave outside the cemetery gates, in a place reserved for the wicked. Even the shammas of the gravediggers gave the body a good slap and chuckled, saying, "Well, in your lifetime you never gave any charity, so let us see you be charitable in the grave." The townsfolk jeered, booed and hissed, and he was buried amid insults and dishonor.

In Heaven, meanwhile, his judgment was to go straight to Gan Eden, bypassing the Soton's accusations. Charity given in secret covers over all sins and iniquities, and furthermore, he had shunned honor and suffered dishonor in death.

The poor, meanwhile, came in droves to the butcher and baker, begging for food. The butcher and baker turned them away empty-handed, explaining that they had been giving them food from a secret donor who was no longer there. Only then did they realize who their true benefactor had been, all too late.

The Soton was given free rein to punish the townsfolk of Krakow for the dishonor done to the truly righteous rich man. A great plague struck the city, and the death toll mounted daily. The city elders sent a representative to Rav Yoel Sirkis, the author of the Bach on the Tur. "Holy tzaddik, please save us and all of Krakow," he cried, "before we have no choice but to remove you from your position as chief Rav and choose someone who can save us."

The Bach asked for three days. He prayed and asked Heaven to reveal the reason for the decree. When the Soton revealed to him the entire story, how the rich man had sustained the poor in secret and how he had been buried in shame, the Bach quickly called together the elders and the city council and explained it to them. Then he and the elders went at once to the bais hachaim.

When they arrived at the cemetery to disinter the rich man and rebury him with honor, the shammas who had disparaged and ridiculed the body died on the spot. They buried the shammas instead in the place reserved for the wicked outside the cemetery gates. They then reburied the rich man in his proper place, with the honor due a tzaddik.