Regarding The Service Of Tzaddikim
1. The holy Sabbath, parashah of Eikev 5627 (1867).
The Neschizer rebbe told that the rabbi of Berditchev was always filled in joy, and with that energy he would toil in his prayers and in all of his deeds (as his holy way is known).
The Neschizer rebbe said, “One time I saw him on the eve of Yom Kippur, as he was at the meal. Beautiful melodies poured forth from his mouth, and afterwards his eyes brimmed with just two tears and no more. Afterwards, he was brought a stuffed fish intestines (aksn), and he said, ‘May all of our requests (ask) be filled for good.’ Then he was brought a soup called yakhil and he began to call out loudly, ‘Israel, hope (yachel) in Hashem!’ And he was extremely joyous. And similarly all of his service was filled with tremendous extreme joy.”
2. The parashah of Pinchas 5627 (1867).
The Neschizer rebbe told that in Berditchev there lived a fine man named R. Liba. One winter’s night after the market a person came to his house, seeing that a lamp was still burning in his house.
R. Liba received him and hosted him, and he himself made the bed for him to sleep on. The guest said to him, “Why do you yourself trouble yourself to make place for me to lie down?”
R. Liba replied, “You think that I am making a place for you to lie down. But I am making a place for me to lie down”—meaning that he was preparing himself for the world to come.
3. The Neschizer rebbe also told at that time that when his father the Moharam was learning from the maggid and the rebbe, R. Michel of Zlotshov, an upstanding man came to R. Michel and requested a charitable donation.
R. Michel told the Moharam to give the man the money, and he did so.
Afterwards, a simple man came for a donation. This time, R. Michel himself stood up himself and gave him.
The Moharam asked him about that, and R. Michel answered him that giving charity brings about a holy unification. Therefore, when giving to a worthy person, it is relatively easy to make the unification. But when giving a simple person, it is more difficult to make a unification. And therefore he had to do it himself.
4. The evening of the holy Sabbath in the month of Menachem 5627 (1867).
The Neschizer rebbe told that the holy R. Arele of Zitamir was at first one of the students of the gaon of Vilna, but he did not accept him in his heart.
He heard that R. Levi Yitzchak (later the Berditchever rebbe) had a yeshiva in Zelikhov.
The rebbe R. Arele also came to his yeshiva, and the Berditchever placed him in the fifth place from him and did not acknowledge him. Even when R. Arele asked proper questions, he would not answer him.
R. Levi Yitzchak said that as long as R. Arele had [editor: some 2 or 3 words are at this point erased in the book], he did not want to draw him close.
Afterwards, when R. Levi Yitzchak felt that R. Arele had been properly purified, he drew him close to him, because he was worthy of that. And he learned with him the Gemara, “If a person finds a writ of debt, under what circumstances does he not return it?” And R. Levi Yitzchak explained it to R. Arele as follows: “If a person’s debt or sin has been found out, why doesn’t he return to God in repentance?”
Zichron Tov
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