Rav Menachem Nachum Twersky

The Talmid Who Heard From Afar

The Chassidim sat spellbound at the table of the Rebbe of Chernobyl, the Meor Einayim, while he spoke Torah. When he finished his Divrei Torah and began to speak of ordinary matters, all stayed seated, except one chassid, who slowly worked his way down the table from the far end, inching closer to hear the Rebbe's words.

This was Rav Avrohom Dov of Avritch, the Bas Ayin. Most of the Chassidim did not notice, but one man was annoyed and loudly objected. The whole time the Rebbe said Torah, he said, this one sat contentedly at the far end, and now that the Rebbe turned to mundane matters he pushed his way up to the head of the table.

The Rebbe turned, upset, not to the Bas Ayin but to the man who spoke, and defended his talmid. His talmid's ears were pure, he said. He had refined them so that they were tuned to the Torah he needed to hear and less to the ordinary talk he did not need. When the Rebbe spoke Torah, the Bas Ayin could sit calmly at the end of the table and still hear every word. But with sichas chullin, mundane conversation, even though there is something to learn from it too, he had to make an effort and sit close in order to hear.

Forty Days Without a Visit

When Rav Dovid of Lelov passed away, his son Rav Moshe and his talmid Rav Yisroel Yitzchok of Vurka did not know which Rebbe they should travel to from then on. They decided to visit Rav Mordechai of Chernobyl, who asked where they came from. Rav Yisroel Yitzchok, who was then a chassan, said, “I come from Zarik.”

“Hmm,” said the Chernobyler Maggid, “I cannot say I have ever heard of that place.” Zarik was a small town, and in those days before railroads travel was limited, so not every town was known beyond its area. Then he turned to the other guest. “I come from Lelov,” said Rav Moshe. “Ah, Lelov, that is a place I have heard of,” said the Maggid, “and I will tell you both how.”

“After my father, Rav Menachem Nachum, the author of the Meor Einayim, passed away, he used to come down from on high every night and we would learn Torah together.” The two guests listened spellbound to this casual description of visits from the other world. “Then, suddenly, forty days and nights passed and my holy father did not come. I had no idea what had happened, and I wondered if I had done something wrong. After forty days and nights he came again and we resumed learning together as before. I asked him why he had been away.”

He answered that when a great tzaddik leaves this world, he is honored in Heaven with giving a derasha. From the day Rav Dovid of Lelov passed away, for forty days and nights, he gave his heavenly discourse. Every tzaddik in Heaven had to attend, as did the whole heavenly host, the pamalia shel maalah, and so the Meor Einayim could not come to learn with his son until it was over.

“This is how I have heard of Lelov,” concluded the Maggid. Rav Yisroel Yitzchok could not hold back. He steered Rav Moshe toward the Maggid and said, “Rebbe, this is the son of Rav Dovid of Lelov.” Rav Moshe was very poor and his clothes were torn. When the Chernobyler Maggid understood who his guest was, he had him dressed in new clothes and showered both guests with honor and respect.

Learning What a Prisoner Feels

Rav Menachem Nachum was a master of pidyon shevuyim. He traveled from town to town collecting money to redeem Jews who had landed, through some misfortune, in the deep, damp dungeons of the local landowner.

Once, when he was in Zhitomir, local gentiles found a way to slander the Rebbe and had him thrown into jail. While he was held there, one of the local rabbis came to cheer him up and offered him words of encouragement.

“Rav Nuchem,” the rabbi said, “we know that Avrohom Avinu excelled in hachnosas orchim, welcoming guests. That is exactly why Hashem told him, ‘Go from your land,’ so that he himself would become a traveler. This way he could learn firsthand what a guest needs from his host, and so he could fulfill the mitzvah of hachnosas orchim to the fullest.

“Hashem knows that you excel at pidyon shevuyim. But He wanted you to succeed even more. So He arranged that you be jailed, so that through your own experience you would know what a prisoner feels and understand how great a mitzvah you do.”

His True Torah

It is said that when one of the Rebbe's talmidim collected his teachings and wrote them down, he brought them to the tzaddik. The manuscript was as large as a tractate of Gemara, and the Rebbe reviewed all of it. He permitted to be printed only the Divrei Torah that he had no recollection of having said, because those, he explained, were true Torah, in which the Shechinah had spoken through his mouth.

Three Hundred Rubles

The Meor Einayim was very poor, and there was often no money to pay his large debts and no food for his hungry household. His gabbai was therefore glad and relieved when a visitor handed the Rebbe a generous sum of three hundred rubles. After a few more visitors had come for blessings, the gabbai took the opportunity to ask the Rebbe for money to pay some outstanding debts and loans. The Rebbe opened the drawer of his rickety old desk and handed him a few small copper and silver coins.

The gabbai had been expecting three hundred rubles and could not hold himself back. “Rebbe,” he cried out in despair, “where are the three hundred rubles?”

The Rebbe explained that just before, a poor Jew had come in. He could not pay a melamed to learn Torah with his children, he was behind on his rent to the poritz, and he had no dowry for his daughter, who was waiting at home to marry. When the Rebbe asked how much he needed, he said three hundred rubles, and the Rebbe gave it to him.

“But Rebbe, how can the Rebbe give such a large sum to one Jew?” asked the gabbai.

“You know,” said the tzaddik, “for a moment the same thought crossed my mind. It said, why give the whole sum to one man when you could divide it among many families? I realized that such a thought could only come from the yetzer hara. Since that was my first thought, I made sure to give him the entire sum.”

Mamme Rochel

It was Rosh Hashanah, and the Minchas Elozor of Munkatch approached the lectern to give the sermon before the blowing of the shofar. Among his words he told this story.

The holy Meor Einayim was slandered by Misnagdim, and the government threw him into prison. He sat in prison for two weeks. Then, in his cell, our Matriarch Rochel came to him and promised that he would go free, and so it was.

Then the Munkatcher Rav turned his face to Heaven, spread out his arms and cried out in tears of longing, “Mamme, Mamme, Mother, Rav Nachum of Chernobyl sat only two weeks in prison and you freed him. Mother, what about us? For two thousand bitter years we have been exiled and imprisoned. Why do you not free us? Let us out.” His cry stirred such an awakening that the Chassidim said even the walls of the Bais Medrash wept.

Splitting the Heavens at Mincha

Rav Mordechai of Slonim once told how the holy Baal Shem Tov confronted his talmid Rav Nachum of Chernobyl and asked why he had split the very heavens that day during Mincha. In his defense, the Meor Einayim told how he had been traveling by wagon in freezing cold. As they neared the next village, the old gentile wagon driver passed out in the snow and died. When the wagon reached the village, the villagers attacked Rav Nachum and shouted that he had murdered the driver, and they threatened to lynch him.

“I begged them to let me say my last prayers,” he said. “As I davened Mincha and pleaded before Heaven, the driver's body came back to life. He rose, and before the frightened and astonished villagers he declared that he had died of the freezing cold and not by my hand. After he said this, he fell down dead again, and I was saved. Perhaps that is what you heard from Heaven?”

Light for Failing Eyes

Rav Moshe Weinberger, the Rav of Aish Kodesh in Woodmere, New York, heard this account from the man it happened to, and Rav Tal Zwecker heard it from him. The man was a learned Jew, but not a chassid, and his eyesight was slowly failing, rachmana litzlan. His family begged him to seek a blessing from Rav Yoel of Satmar, whose brachos were known for bringing wondrous help and healing. He refused. He was no chassid, he said, and he would not approach a Chassidic Rebbe.

Later, when his vision had dimmed so far that he could no longer learn Torah, the family persuaded him to go after all. They did not ask him to go because the Rebbe was a famed wonder worker. They reminded him that Rav Yoel was a great talmid chacham, and the Gemara teaches that a sick person should seek the prayers and blessing of such a man.

Rav Yoel advised him to learn the Chassidic sefer Meor Einayim, a title that means Light of the Eyes, and promised that it would help his failing sight. With each page he studied, more of his vision came back, until, Baruch Hashem, he could see normally again. A tzaddik decrees, and Hashem fulfills.

Tikkun Chatzos at the Inn

Rav Chaim Meir Hager of Vizhnitz, the author of Imrei Chaim, once told his chassidim on the Chernobyler's yahrzeit that the Meor Einayim, as the Yiddish saying goes, brightens the eyes. He told this story.

On one of his many journeys the Meor Einayim stayed the night at a Jewish inn. The innkeeper and his wife were simple people, and when the Rebbe began Tikkun Chatzos and his loud sighs, groans and weeping reached their ears, they were alarmed. “Our guest must be unwell,” said the innkeeper's wife. “Go and see.” The innkeeper took a candle and went down, and the moaning and crying continued from the guest room. He knocked and opened the door and apologized for disturbing the Rebbe, but he had overheard his pain, and could he help?

The Rebbe explained that, thank Hashem, he was well. He had been reciting Tikkun Chatzos. “What is that?” asked the innkeeper. “It is the prayer said over the destruction of the Beis HaMikdash,” the Rebbe answered patiently. “What is the Beis HaMikdash?” The Rebbe explained that all the Jews once lived in the Holy Land, Hashem commanded them to build a Temple, they served Him there until it was destroyed because of our sins, and we were scattered in exile. “And soon,” he said with longing, “Moshiach will come and gather us in from the exile and bring us back to Eretz Yisroel. Surely you await him any day, as we all do.”

The simple innkeeper was even more puzzled. “I am not sure. Let me ask my wife.” He went up and told her, and asked her opinion. She sent him back with a message: Baruch Hashem, we have saved some money, we own a flock of geese and some property, and we have a livelihood. Why should we give it all up and move to Eretz Yisroel when Moshiach comes?

“Tell your wife,” said the Rebbe, “that here in galus the nations torment us and make our lives difficult and bitter, and in Eretz Yisroel that will end.” The innkeeper told his wife, and added, “Don't you remember last week, when our neighbor Ivan got drunk and smashed all our windows? In Eretz Yisroel the Rebbe promises we will not have such trouble.” She thought for a moment, and then understanding lit her face. “I have it. Tell the Rebbe that I have a solution. Here we are comfortable and settled, and our only problem is the gentiles. When Moshiach comes he will solve all our problems by taking the gentiles with him to Eretz Yisroel.”

When the Rebbe heard her answer, he said, “Now I understand the verse in Parshas Vaera, Shemos 6:6, where Hashem says, ‘I will take you out from the burdens of Mitzrayim.’ He will make it so that we can no longer bear the exile, and then we will want to leave. That is our sin. We have grown so settled in exile, so comfortable, that we think nothing could be better. How wrong we are.”

The Aliyah of the Tochachah

It is told that Rav Nachum once spent Shabbos with the Baal Shem Tov. It was Shabbos Parshas Bechukosai, when the curses of the Tochachah are read. To Rav Nachum's surprise, he was called up for the aliyah that contains the Tochachah, and the Baal Shem Tov himself was the baal koreh.

As the Baal Shem Tov began to read, Rav Nachum felt terrible pain and sickness through his whole body. But with each verse the pain left another part of his body, and by the end of the aliyah he was completely healed. His acceptance of the great rebuke had brought him healing of both soul and body, refuas hanefesh and refuas haguf.

Before the Heavenly Court

Rav Mordechai of Chernobyl was once sitting at his holy table with his chassidim. Suddenly the Rebbe closed his eyes and lowered his head as if he had fallen asleep. After a few moments he opened his eyes with a dazed look, as if returning from another world, and said, “I was just in Heaven, where my father was being judged.”

The charge concerned a barren woman who had come to Rav Nachum for a blessing. He had told her that if Hashem chose not to give her children, he had to accept it. The bitter woman kept coming back, and he refused her each time. At last she decided to force his hand. She waited until the members of his household had gone out and he was alone in his study, tapped on his window and demanded, “Rebbe, you must bless me with children.” He was annoyed at her commanding tone and at her persistence. “Why must I promise you children, when I have refused you many times for the same reason?” “Because if you refuse me this time,” she said, “I will walk into your room and cause you to transgress the prohibition of yichud, being alone with a woman.” The Rebbe looked around and saw that nothing could stop her from entering. “Stay where you are,” he said reluctantly. “I will do what you ask.” He prayed for her until he split the heavens with his pleas. The woman went home, and within a year she had a child.

This caused an uproar in Heaven. The heavenly court could not accept that the Rebbe had forced it, through his prayers, to cancel its decree of barrenness. When he passed away he was summoned to the court, which wished to review the case. To do what he had done he would need a very large store of merit, and the judges wanted to see whether he had enough. They searched his record and found at the head of the list one outstanding deed.

Of all the mitzvos he did, the dearest to him was hachnosas orchim. He was so happy to host people that he served his guests and attended to their needs himself. A man posing as a maggid once came to enjoy the Rebbe's hospitality. Rav Nachum did everything he could to please him, serving him himself with choice dishes and a fresh and comfortable bed. Nothing satisfied the man. He turned up his nose at the food and asked for more bedding, and he caused the family much inconvenience, which they bore without complaint. When Shabbos came he even asked to borrow Rav Nachum's special silk caftan, and Rav Nachum gave it willingly and took no offense. After Shabbos he asked Rav Nachum to go with him on his fundraising rounds.

One night, when the household slept and only Rav Nachum was awake, busy with Tikkun Chatzos, the guest crept out of bed. Rav Mordechai was awake too, and saw him fill a large sack with the family's silver and valuables. As soon as the man slipped out of the house, he hurried to his father's study. “Quickly, father, pursue him before he is out of sight and make him return our valuables.” His father looked at him in surprise. “Why do you suspect that he stole? Our guest only took what is his.” His son did not understand. “He took all our family treasures.” But his father said, “Whatever he took is his own, because from the moment he set his eyes and heart on those things, I gave them to him as a gift, so that he would not commit the sin of stealing. So whatever is in his sack really belongs to him. Now, my son, lie down and pretend you saw nothing, so that the guest will not be embarrassed.”

“It was this deed,” Rav Mordechai concluded, “that so deeply impressed the whole heavenly host that they all agreed that this tzaddik was worthy of overturning a heavenly decree. And so my father was acquitted.”

Mitzvos, Our Link to Hashem

The main significance of the mitzvos lies in the fact that Hashem Himself gave them. They are therefore the only means through which we can approach the Creator, and we draw spiritual nourishment from performing them. If we keep the mitzvos with the intention of drawing close to Hashem, they have life and a soul. Otherwise they are empty rituals, bodies without spirit.

Meor Einayim, Parshas Vayeira