Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev

The Porter's Seder

After a Seder he felt was well done, Rav Levi Yitzchak learned that a simple porter's Seder had been dearer in Heaven.

It is told that one year, when the Seder in Berditchev had ended, Rav Levi Yitzchak sat back with quiet satisfaction. Every step had been performed with care, every kavanah (inner intention) aimed with precision. Then a voice from Heaven spoke to him: Do not take pride in your Seder. In this very town lives a porter named Chaim, and his Seder rose higher than yours.

The Rebbe asked his chassidim whether anyone knew this Chaim. They searched the poorer streets until they found his cottage, where his wife told them he was fast asleep, and not altogether sober. They woke him and brought him, bewildered, before the Rebbe.

Gently, Rav Levi Yitzchak asked how he had prepared for Pesach and how he had conducted his Seder. Chaim answered honestly. He had heard that no whiskey could be drunk for eight days, so he had drunk enough beforehand to last the week, and had fallen asleep. When his wife woke him and asked why he was not sitting at a Seder like every other Jew, he told her the truth. I am a simple man, he said. I do not know the halachos. But I know that our fathers were slaves in Egypt and Hashem brought them out, and I know He will bring us out of this exile too. Then he ate the matzah on the table and drank the wine.

The Rebbe had him escorted home. Then he turned to his chassidim and explained that Heaven had delighted in Chaim's Seder because every word of it came from a simple, whole heart.

Source: Sipurei Chassidim (Rabbi S. Y. Zevin), Moadim – Pesach; in English in A Treasury of Chassidic Tales on the Festivals (tr. Uri Kaploun). A version also appears in Martin Buber, Tales of the Hasidim: Early Masters.

A Din Torah with Heaven

Standing before his congregation, Rav Levi Yitzchak turned the Kaddish into a loving lawsuit on behalf of the Jewish people.

Chassidim relate that once, standing before the amud, Rav Levi Yitzchak began the Kaddish in a way no one had heard before. Instead of the familiar words, he turned to Hashem directly, in plain Yiddish, the way an advocate turns to a judge.

Good morning to You, Master of the world, he began. I, Levi Yitzchak son of Sarah of Berditchev, have come to You with a din Torah (a case at law) on behalf of Your people Israel. What do You want of Your people? Everywhere it is: command the children of Israel, speak to the children of Israel. Dear Father, how many nations there are in the world.

Then he named them one by one, and said that each proclaims only its own king and its own kingdom. And I, Levi Yitzchak son of Sarah of Berditchev, say: Yisgadal v'yiskadash shmei rabba, may Your great Name be magnified and sanctified. Of all the peoples of the earth, he was saying, it is Israel that lifts its voice to declare the greatness of Hashem's Name.

Then came the words that brought the congregation to tears. I will not move from my place, he declared, until there is an end, until this exile is over. The Kaddish closed as every Kaddish does, with a prayer that Hashem's Name be glorified. But for those who heard it, it had become something more: a son standing before his Father, refusing to let go until his people were answered.

His chassidim preserved the words, and the prayer, known as the Kaddish of Reb Levi Yitzchak or A Din Toyre mit Gott, is still sung today.

Source: Sefer HaChasidus, ed. Avraham Kahana (Warsaw, 1922), pp. 257–258; preserved in Yiddish in Chassidic oral and musical tradition as 'A Din Toyre mit Gott' (the Kaddish of Reb Levi Yitzchak).

The Note in the Siddur

A merchant who once paid to clear a servant girl's name carried the Rebbe's sealed promise with him for the rest of his life.

It is told that an elderly, respected Jew of Uman sold all he had and set out for Eretz Yisroel, hoping to end his days there and be buried in its holy earth. Within days of arriving he was back, and he would not say why.

Soon afterward he fell ill and asked the men of the chevra kadisha (burial society) to visit him. Twice they came, and twice he spoke only of small matters. The third time, he told them his story.

As a young merchant he had passed through Berditchev on his way to the fairs, always stopping at the Rebbe's door. Once, as he waited, a commotion burst into the Rebbe's room. A poor money-changer had lost three hundred borrowed rubles. He had accused his servant girl, cursed her and beaten her, and now her family had come for justice. The Rebbe found the girl innocent, but the money was gone and the poor man was ruined.

Pained for both, the Rebbe declared that whoever supplied the sum would have a share in the World to Come. The young merchant stepped forward, asking only that the promise be put in writing. The Rebbe gave the money to the money-changer, blessed the girl with a good match, and handed the merchant a folded note. Never open it, he said. When you sense your end is near, have it placed with you in your grave.

The merchant had hidden the note inside the cover of his siddur, and he had left that siddur behind in Uman. That was why he had come home. After his passing, the men of the chevra kadisha opened it. It held a single line: a promise that the gates of Gan Eden would open for him, signed Levi Yitzchak son of Sarah.

Source: Sipurei Chassidim (Rabbi S. Y. Zevin); in English in A Treasury of Chassidic Tales (ArtScroll/Mesorah, tr. Uri Kaploun).

A True Leader Always Finds Merit

When Moshe Rabbeinu asked Hashem to appoint a leader after him, he called upon Him as the G-d of the spirits of all flesh. The Kedushas Levi explains his choice of words. When a Jew falls short in serving Hashem, we must search for a fair reason to judge him favorably, and one is usually close at hand: he must toil for his bread, and the weight of this world presses on him. The angels serve without distraction because they carry no such burden. A human being lives with both. Moshe was asking for a leader who understands this, who, like Hashem Himself, knows what is in each person's heart, and therefore always finds the good in Israel. A judge and leader of the Jewish people, the Rebbe teaches, must be one who 'always pleads in favor of Israel.'

Kedushas Levi, Bamidbar, Pinchas (on Bamidbar 27:16)

Rebuke That Lifts

At Mei Merivah, Hashem told Moshe to speak to the rock, yet Moshe called the people rebels and struck it. Some explain that his mistake was the harsh word, others that it was striking instead of speaking. The Kedushas Levi teaches that the two are really one. There are two ways to correct the Jewish people. One reminds them of the greatness of their souls and of how much the Creator delights in their mitzvos, and this awakens them to rise. The other shames them by dwelling on how far they have fallen. In that painful moment Moshe spoke the second way, and striking the rock mirrored his words, as though the people were as unfeeling as stone. Hashem wanted the first way. The one who corrects Israel with goodness, the Rebbe writes, 'raises the soul of Israel higher and higher,' and he is truly fit to lead them.

Kedushas Levi, Bamidbar, Chukas (on Bamidbar 20:8)

Pesach and Chag HaMatzos: Each Praises the Other

In the Torah, the Yom Tov is called Chag HaMatzos, the festival of matzos, yet Jews everywhere call it Pesach. The Kedushas Levi explains that each side is praising the other. Hashem names it after the matzos to praise His people, who followed Him out of Egypt in perfect faith, carrying their dough with them before it could rise and setting out into the wilderness without provisions for the road. We call it Pesach, recalling how Hashem passed over our homes, to praise His kindness. Like two who love each other, each speaks of the other's goodness. This, he teaches, is the meaning of the verse in Shir HaShirim, 'I am my Beloved's, and my Beloved is mine.'

Kedushas Levi, Shemos, Bo (on Shemos 12:27)