Rav Yissocher Dov Ber of Radoshitz

The Shameful Celebration

Meat and wine are forbidden during the Nine Days leading up to Tishah B'Av, so only an important celebration can override the rule. The festive meal after a bris, or one marking the completion of a masechta, can qualify. Every year on the fifth of Av, the yahrzeit of the Arizal, Rav Yissocher Ber of Radoshitz finished a masechta of Gemara and held a seudas mitzvah with meat and wine. Each year he told the assembled chassidim and talmidim the same story.

In a distant town lived a man so fond of sleep that people called him the Sleeper. Elul came, and every Jew trembled and woke himself to teshuvah, but the Sleeper slept on. On Rosh Hashanah his wife went to shul early. During the morning davening she hurried home to nurse her baby and tried to rouse him, but he did not stir. She came back several times, with no result. Finally, as the Torah reading began and the shofar drew near, she ran home weeping and cried out, "They are about to blow the shofar."

He sprang from bed, threw on some torn clothes still covered in feathers, ran to shul and burst in gasping, still half asleep. The worshippers stared at the comic sight, and some, not only the children, laughed. The poor man was so mortified that his burning shame rose before the Heavenly Court, which ruled that his shame had cleansed him and all his sins were forgiven.

"So it is with us," the Sabba Kadisha would conclude. "We sit down to a festive meal in the depths of mourning for the Beis HaMikdosh. This is so shameful that, because of it, the Merciful One should forgive the sins of all Yisroel." With that heartfelt plea he wept so hard that his tears fell into the cup of wine over which he was about to say Al Naharos Bovel, the psalm of the exile, before Birkas HaMazon.

The Tefillah of the Noam Elimelech

The Sabba Kadisha recorded in his sefer Niflaos a remarkable account of how the Noam Elimelech's Prayer Before Praying came to be. As a child, he was once visiting Rebbe Reb Elimelech of Lizhensk and stood talking with the Rebbe's close chassidim in front of the house. Several unusually tall men came and hurried inside. They had to stoop to pass through the doorway, and the Rebbe closed the door behind them before anyone could see their faces.

The chassidim waited outside to see who they were. When the men left, they did so so quickly that only their backs could be seen, and they almost vanished. The chassidim sensed that something unusual had happened, and the elder chassidim asked the Rebbe to explain.

The Rebbe answered that he had seen how most people can no longer concentrate on their tefillos, weighed down by the burden of earning a living and lacking the time and understanding. He had thought to write a new, short version of the tefillos that anyone could grasp. The Anshei Knesses HaGedolah, who composed the original tefillos, had come to ask him not to change a single word. After he took counsel with them, they advised him to compose a tefillah to be said before davening, to help anyone who lacks the proper concentration. That is the Yehi Ratzon prayer printed in many siddurim in the name of Rebbe Reb Elimelech of Lizhensk.

Counting the Minutes

Rav Yissocher Dov Ber was once traveling through the Polish countryside when night fell and the roads grew unsafe. He told his driver to stop at the first Jewish inn they found. The innkeeper welcomed him warmly and prepared a room kept for traveling rabbanim and noblemen. After Maariv, tired from the journey, Rav Yissocher went to bed.

The house grew quiet and the fields were still, except for the bark of a lone farm dog. Yet the clock on the wall ticked in such a remarkable way that he could not sleep. He tossed and turned, rose and paced the room, and his mind filled with verses from the Nevi'im, songs of deliverance and hope. Every time he lay down, the ticking drew him up again, and he spent the night pacing in anxious anticipation.

In the morning, tired but uplifted, he asked the innkeeper where the clock had come from. The innkeeper said that years earlier Reb Yosef of Turchin, a son of the Chozeh of Lublin, had stayed in that room for one night. Bad weather kept him for several days, and when he could not cover his bill, he gave the clock, which he said he had inherited from his father.

"Now I understand why I could not sleep," said Rav Yissocher. "Most clocks only bring sadness, since they count the hours that have passed, another day lost and another chance gone. The clock of the holy Chozeh counts the time that is coming, another minute closer to the final redemption and another second nearer to the age of universal peace."

A Holy Argument Between In-Laws

One of the sons of Rav Yissocher Dov Ber was getting married. The chuppah stood ready and everyone was about to go to it, when the Rebbe realized that he and his mechutan, another holy Rav, had not yet carried out the teaching of Chazal that no match is made without an argument. It is commonly believed that such an argument carries mystical power to help the new couple.

So the Rebbe began to argue with his mechutan, but not as people usually do, by raising himself up and putting the other down. He argued the opposite way. He asked how a righteous man who knew the Torah so thoroughly could have thought to join in marriage with a lowly ignoramus like himself. He went on to say so many harsh things about himself that the one who recorded the story said they are not fit to print.

When the mechutan heard this and saw how far the Rebbe had lowered himself, he argued back. "How can you say these things about yourself? Are you not a truthful man? All these faults you name are true of me, and I am far lower than you, to my shame." This went on until both had humbled themselves to the dust. Finally Rav Yissocher Dov Ber said, "Now we can go to the chuppah."

The Shepherd's Blessing

A chassid, himself a rabbi, came to Rav Yissocher Dov Ber. He and his wife had been childless for many years, and he said he would not leave until the Rebbe promised to help. The Rebbe answered, "I am not the one to help you, but in your own village there is someone who can: Chananele the shepherd. Go to him and ask his blessing. If he makes excuses, tell him I sent you and that he must help you."

The rabbi went home trusting the Rebbe's word. To his dismay he found Chananele drunk, staggering down the street while village boys threw stones and dirt at him, until he collapsed in a doorway to sleep it off. Someone explained that it happened every time he was paid, since he spent the money on drink and ended up senseless on a street corner. The rabbi, who had full faith in the Rebbe, kept his vigil.

When the shepherd lifted his head, he asked why the rabbi stood watching him. "I want you to bless me," the rabbi said. "I am childless." The shepherd burst out laughing. "The rabbi wants a drunken shepherd to bless him? Who sent you?" When he heard it was the Radoshitzer Rebbe, he grew serious. He agreed on two conditions: the rabbi must tell no one, and he must never come to the shepherd's defense when the village youths threw dirt or insulted him.

The shepherd gave his blessing, and a year later the rabbi's wife gave birth to a son. When the boy grew up and went to school, he joined the village boys who threw stones at the shepherd. His father was deeply pained but could not scold him because of his promise. When the shepherd, later known as Rav Elchanan, passed away, Rav Yissocher Dov Ber gave a great hesped (eulogy) for him. He revealed to the villagers the hidden deeds he had done far from people's eyes and that he had been a great tzaddik nistar (hidden tzaddik).

Stops Along the Way

The Sabba Kadisha once took his sons-in-law to Mezibuz to visit the Ohev Yisroel, so they would benefit from seeing the tzaddik and from the many stops he made on the way. At each stop Rav Yissocher would look for some recluse whom even the townspeople did not know, and spend time with him in private.

The journey stretched on for several wearying weeks. Once the young sons-in-law chose not to join him on one of these visits. When he came back he told them, "What a pity you did not come with me this time. The man I just visited has the power to atone for all your sins from childhood, even sins from earlier gilgulim (transmigrations)."

"Why did you not tell us?" they cried, jumping up to stop the coach. "Let us go back." "I am sorry," he said, "but it is too late. If you were not with me then, you cannot visit him now."

A Segulah in Times of Trouble

A segulah is attributed to the Sabba Kadisha for a person in a time of trouble. He should give no less than nineteen perutos to tzedakah, light a candle for his neshomah, and say the pasuk "Ki goy oved eitzos heimah v'ein bahem tevunah" (Devarim 32:28), and he will be saved from all trouble. It may be done at any time, not only on the yahrzeit, which falls on 18 Sivan.

Segulah of the Sabba Kadisha of Radoshitz (Devarim 32:28)