Rav Yechezkel Shraga Halberstam

A Match Approved From Afar

A match was proposed for a daughter of Rav Yisroel Yosef Kluger of Tchebin, known as the Charif, who had been one of the most ardent chassidim of the Shinover Rav. By then Rav Yisroel Yosef was no longer alive, and it was his widow who went to the tzaddik, Rav Yechezkel of Shinova, to ask whether she should agree to the match.

The Shinover told her to go ahead. “Although I do not know the young man personally,” he explained, “I know his brother, Rav Nachum, Av Beis Din of Dombrova, and surely he is similar. If so, the shidduch will bring satisfaction and nachas ruach to your late husband, Rav Yisroel Yosef, in the world of emes.”

Saved by Melave Malka

Rav Yaakov Leiser of Peshervorsk wrote that his father-in-law told him this story on a Motzei Shabbos, about the Divrei Simchah of Cheshnov, son of the Shinover Rav.

On a cold winter night, the Divrei Simchah's two brothers-in-law, the Maharam of Pristik and the Maharan of Vizhnitz, came to him with a request. “Please make an exception to your strict schedule. We need your rooms. We have nowhere else to hold melave malka, because the stove has broken and the rooms are bitterly cold. How can you turn away all the disappointed chassidim?”

At that time the Divrei Simchah was only a young bochur, but he had his own room with a warm stove. He stood firm for a while, but in the end he relented, to his brothers-in-law's delight.

Every Motzei Shabbos that winter, the melave malka took place in his room. One night he had a dream. His holy mother appeared to him and said, “My son, my precious child, you have been saved. A decree of a terrible disease is descending on the world, but by agreeing to host your brothers-in-law and the chassidim for melave malka, you earned a merit that has cancelled the decree and kept you alive.”

The next morning he told the dream to his father, the Divrei Yechezkel. That summer one of the chassidim fell sick, and the power of the dream became clear. As soon as the Divrei Yechezkel turned his gaze toward his son, the Cheshnover, the sickness left and the chassid recovered fully.

The Peshervorsker Rebbe would end the story by saying, “It seems that in Heaven they consider melave malka to be something quite important.”

The Ropshitzer's Miracle Oil

The Shinover Rav did not omit Tachanun on the yahrzeits of tzaddikim, and he was not accustomed to visit their graves. He made one exception. He observed the yahrzeit of the holy Ropshitzer Rav, author of Zera Kodesh, and visited his tziyun, because he felt he owed him his very life. This is why.

When Rav Yechezkel Shraga was seven years old, his uncle, Rav Avigdor of Dukla, came to Rudnik to visit his brother, Rav Chaim of Sanz. At the end of the visit Rav Avigdor entered his carriage to leave, and realized that he had forgotten something in the house. He sent young Yechezkel Shraga to fetch it. In his eagerness to help his uncle, the boy dashed across the street, and a wagon loaded with heavy lumber came careening down the road and ran him over. The wheels crushed his body. The doctors shook their heads and despaired of his life, for the surgeon found that the wheel had cut his liver in half.

Hearing the diagnosis, Rav Avigdor raised his hands toward Heaven and cried, “Ribbono Shel Olam, if I am destined to have a son, I would gladly give him up so that this boy's life be spared.” And so it was that Rav Avigdor never had sons, only daughters.

The Divrei Chaim examined his son's broken body, and wherever he touched, the bones grew back together and straightened. Even in his old age, people, especially physicians, would remark on how straight and stately the Shinover Rav stood.

Still the Divrei Chaim feared for the child's life, for his inner organs had been damaged beyond natural repair. He sent word with one of the chassidim to his own rebbe, Rav Naftali of Ropshitz, asking him to daven for his son. The Ropshitzer did that and more. He sent back a flask of pure olive oil, with instructions to anoint and massage the child's body. In a short while the boy was well again.

In his old age, when he was weak, the Shinover Rav would tell of his salvation. He would recall how, as the oil from the Ropshitzer was rubbed into him, he could feel his bones mend and his organs restore themselves until his body was whole again. Then he would sigh and say longingly, “Where could we get such pure, holy oil today if we needed it?”

The Journey to Eretz Hakodesh

In the summer of 5629 the Shinover Rav went into a self-imposed exile. He set out on the long and difficult journey to the Holy Land, to warn the kohanim not to defile themselves with ritual impurity by visiting the kivrei tzaddikim, a mission he saw as his responsibility as a master of halacha. The journey took some twelve months.

Before he boarded the ship in Constantinople, a letter arrived from his father, the Divrei Chaim. He knew that his father had misgivings about the journey, and he feared the letter might contain a command that kibbud av would oblige him to obey, forcing him to give up the trip. So he put the letter away unopened, to be read later.

During the sea voyage, one of the wealthy seamen recognized the tzaddik's holiness and realized that he was a Jew of great stature. He wrote the Shinover a letter of recommendation, which would be useful when he landed as a newcomer in the Holy Land, since he could present it to people able to support him and his cause. Secure in this thought, the Rav went on with comfortable anticipation. Soon, however, he felt that his tefillos were compromised by the letter and the false security it brought. He attributed his lack of devotion and concentration to having relied on human help instead of trusting in Hashem alone, and the thought troubled him until he threw the seaman's letter overboard.

A similar thing happened when one of his wealthy supporters gave him a valuable promissory note, which could be cashed for a large sum. This too he discarded when he felt that reliance on the material world interrupted his spiritual devotion.

On arrival the tzaddik traveled to the Avos in Chevron. While he was there a letter arrived from Rav Elozor Mendel of Lelov. The messenger who brought it was astonished to see that it seemed to have no order at all, containing only random letters of the alef-bais. But the Shinover read it and said that if a tzaddik can compose such a wondrous letter, he must meet him in Yerushalayim without delay. The very next day he left Chevron for Yerushalayim.

That year a plague was devastating the population, but as soon as the Shinover Rav entered the city's holy gates, the plague stopped. He stayed in the home of Rav Elozor Mendel of Lelov, and together they visited the great mekubalim and tzaddikim of Yerushalayim, especially the tzaddik who wrote Shemen Sasson on the Zohar.

He greatly wished to daven at Meoras HaMachpelah in Chevron, but the Muslims prevented it. To get around them, he and Rav Elozor Mendel of Lelov disguised themselves as Arab Muslims and tried to blend in with the local crowd. It almost worked. They entered the Meorah unhindered, but as they drew near to the place of the Avos, they were seized with overwhelming fear and awe, and they fled.

The Hill of the Red Heifer

From Yerushalayim the Shinover Rav made his way to Tzfas, where the tzaddik and chassid Rav Shmuel Heller, a descendant of the Tosafos Yom Tov, served as chief Rav. He slept near Teveria and then continued toward Tzfas. The whole city came out to greet him, but they waited for many hours, because the caravan he traveled with arrived long after it was expected.

When it finally arrived, they asked the guide what had delayed them. He told them that the Shinover Rav had stopped to daven at one of the hills, and had been in such a state of dveikus that he stayed in tefillah on the spot for many hours. Rav Shmuel Heller then explained what drew the Shinover Rav to that hill.

It is told that on that hill is hidden the efer parah, the ashes of the red heifer used to purify the kohanim for the avodah in the Beis HaMikdosh. The story goes that an Arab once dug there and found a golden pot filled with ashes. He coveted the treasure and took it home. That night a tall, fearsome-looking Jew appeared to him in a dream and ordered him to return the vessel to its place. “This golden pot is full of the holy ashes of the parah adumah. You must rebury it.”

The Arab paid no attention, even when the dream came back several times. Finally the Jew warned him that his children would die one by one as long as the pot remained in his possession. Still the Arab ignored him, until the last of his children had mysteriously died. Then the Arab himself fell ill, and with his last strength he reburied the ashes, but he tried to keep the gold pot. Only when he felt death close did he bury the golden pot there on the hill, together with the ashes. That, the Rav of Tzfas said, was the spot that drew the tzaddik. He felt its vibrations, and that is where he davened.

A Hidden Tzaddik and a Letter From His Father

Another tradition tells that in Tzfas the Shinover met one of the thirty-six hidden tzaddikim. On erev Shabbos, in the mikvah, he noticed a man immersing in an unusual manner and tried to follow him, but the man moved quickly and was gone before he could speak with him. When the Shinover asked where the man lived, he learned that this lamed-vovnik could not be found. That very day he had packed up his family and belongings and moved to nearby Biriya. On Motzei Shabbos the Shinover tried to follow him to Biriya as well, but the hidden tzaddik had run away again, and the Shinover never found him or learned who he was.

The Shinover had wanted to travel from Tzfas to Meron for Lag BaOmer. Before the trip, he opened the letter from his father and found that it contained a command not to visit Meron. This turned out to be great hashgacha pratis, for it was discovered that bandits were lying in wait to capture him on that journey and hold him for ransom.

In the summer of 5630 he traveled again to Yerushalayim and stayed there until the yahrzeit of the Ohr HaChaim HaKodosh, in order to daven at his tziyun. When he returned to Tzfas he sensed that Heaven wished him to return to Europe, and he traveled to the port of Yaffo to board a ship home.

On his return he found a group of chassidim sitting together. When he asked what they were discussing, they admitted that they were talking about why the Shinover had worked so hard to have the sefer Ohr HaChama printed. He had found it in manuscript in Yerushalayim, and it was written by the mekubal Rav Avrohom Azulai, chief rav of Chevron.

“Yes,” the tzaddik said, “printing that sefer was one achievement of mine on that journey. But my real reasons for going will be revealed only with the arrival of Moshiach.”

No One Immerses Before Me

The Imrei Chaim of Vizhnitz once met the shamash of the Sadigura shul in Teveria, where the Divrei Yechezkel davened during his visits to Eretz Yisroel. The shamash told him that his father had been shamash before him.

The Divrei Yechezkel had asked to immerse in the shul's mikvah, on condition that it first be drained and cleaned and then refilled with fresh water. “No one must immerse before me,” he had ordered. The shamash's father did as he was told, but he wondered at the strange request, thinking, “How would he even know?” He decided to test the Rebbe. He drained and refilled the mikvah, and took a quick dip himself. After drying off, he invited the Rebbe to use the clean mikvah.

A few moments later he heard the Rebbe's loud voice demanding, “Who dipped in this mikvah before me?” Shaking with embarrassment and shame, the shamash admitted what he had done. “Do you have any children?” the tzaddik thundered. “No,” the shamash stammered. “Then I bless you that by next year you should have a baby boy.”

“I am that son,” the shamash told the Imrei Chaim of Vizhnitz, who was delighted by the tale of the Divrei Yechezkel and his middos.

The Tailor's Kindness

It is told that Rav Yechezkel Shraga was waiting at a train station beside a tailor named Berel when the sound of weeping reached them. The Rebbe asked who it was, and Berel went to see. A little girl had lost her purse and could not pay for her ride home. Looking at Berel in an unusual way, the Rebbe suggested that he cover her fare, because someday the favor might return to him. Berel bought the ticket, and the girl thanked him, her cheeks still wet.

Some time later an army general visited Berel's workshop and ordered uniforms for his whole unit. It was a big job, and Berel was overjoyed. Wanting a larger profit, he trimmed the cloth and made every uniform shorter than the standard length, expecting that nobody would check. The general checked. Furious, he dispatched a squad of soldiers to seize the tailor.

Berel spotted them approaching and fled through the rear door, straight to the Shinover Rav, and poured out the whole affair. The Rebbe told him to travel to Vienna and present himself to the officer handling his case. Finding out who that was took effort. A stranger finally copied down a name and address for him, but cautioned that the man was cruel and had no love for Jews. Berel went regardless.

A small girl answered his knock. She was the very child from the station. She dashed back into the house, shouting for her father to come and meet the man who had helped her when her purse was gone. The officer clasped Berel's hand and said he had long wished to express his thanks but had never learned who the man was. Berel described his predicament. The officer forgave him, assured him that his payment would be made in full, and remarked that he had always found the old uniforms overlong, since the men stumbled over them while running.

Riding home, Berel recalled the Rebbe's odd glance at the station. The Rebbe, he realized, had seen all of it in advance, including the road Berel would need to take when danger came.

The Mitzvah of Sukkah

Rav Yechezkel Shraga taught that the mitzvah of sukkah is an especially exalted mitzvah. Every other mitzvah is performed with only one part of the body, whereas sitting in the sukkah involves the whole body.

Divrei Yechezkel (Sukkos)

Giving Charity

On the verse “each shall give an atonement offering for himself” (Shemos 30:12), Rav Yechezkel Shraga pointed out that the Hebrew word for “each shall give,” venasnu, spelled vav, nun, tav, nun, vav, is a palindrome, spelled the same forward and backward. This teaches that whatever a person gives to charity will be returned to him. He will not lack anything for the charity he donates, and the more he gives, the more he will receive.

Divrei Yechezkel, Ki Sisa (on Shemos 30:12)

Trust Grows With the Need

The Shinover Rav once told his talmidim that people in this world seem to have things backward. When someone needs only a small sum of money, he is at peace, trusting that somehow he will find it. When he needs a large sum, he grows nervous and anxious about how he will ever collect such an amount. The Shinover taught that the opposite attitude is the right one. A person who needs a large sum, which he knows he has no way to raise, must place all of his emunah and bitachon in Hashem alone, and then surely Hashem will take care of him. But someone who needs only a small sum and believes he can gather it or borrow it by himself should worry, for if he is not relying on Hashem, from where will his salvation come? (The anecdote was shared by Rav Elimelech Biderman.)

Sayings of the Shinover Rav, as shared by Rav Elimelech Biderman

The Third of Nissan

The Minchas Elazar of Munkatch said that he heard from Rav Yechezkel Shraga of Shinova that the third of Nissan, the day on which the Nasi of Zevulun is read, is a day of segulah (special merit) for parnassah and wealth. It is recorded in Chaim V'Sholom.

Chaim V'Sholom, Vayeitzei (citing the Minchas Elazar, who heard it from the Shinover Rav)