A Person Drawn By Nature to Elevated Matters

by Rav Avraham Yitzchak Kook

There may be a person who is drawn by his nature to elevated matters. When he is sitting idle or is involved in material things, he is not so propelled to supernal yearning for supernal matters of an exalted spiritual nature. Still, when he comes to learn something of a finite nature, then immediately his mind is in turmoil.

This is because the light of his mind—which shines as well in its activity in regard to matters of a finite nature—awakens his power of consciousness. Then immediately his yearning for uplifted and universal matters is activated. He experiences great longings for elevated and universal matters, and as a result he cannot be satisfied with small and limited things.

Kibbutzim Mi’ktav Yad Kodsho II, p. 53

Continued Stories of the Neschizer Rebbe

20. The Neschizer rebbe told the following story.

Once when, as a youth, the Lubliner rebbe went to see the holy R. Elimelech of Lizhensk, a heavy, cold rain fell while he was traveling. Night fell and he got lost.

He saw a house in the forest with lights shining. He entered the house. It was warm and comfortable, and he felt refreshed, after having suffered so much from the rain and cold.

The only other person there was an attractive woman. She tried to entice him to sin, God have mercy, and he did not know what to do, because they were alone. She told him that she was unmarried and halachically pure, and he suffered a great deal from her seductiveness.

He replied to her, “I have resolved never to do anything, even if it is permissible, unless it gives pleasure to God. And what pleasure would He have from this?”

When he said these words, he immediately saw that the entire scene was an illusion meant to test him, and that there was no forest, no house and no woman. Instead, he found himself standing near the road that he had to travel on.

21. Sunday night, 22 Adar 5628.

Rabbi A. told me that he once went to the Neschizer rebbe as he was celebrating the melave malka meal.

The Neschizer rebbe said, “Great is this meal, which is first mentioned in the Talmud.”

He told that once, when the Lubliner rebbe was a young man and not yet famous, he went to the Maggid of Mezerich.

And on Friday night the holy R. Shlomo of Skahl served him and arranged 12 challahs on his table.

The Lubliner was poor and he knew that he would have nothing to eat for the melave malka meal. So he waited for everyone to leave, and then he took a slice from the twelves loaves for the melave malka meal.

When the maggid came to the table, he asked, "Who took a slice?”

And R. Shlomo answered that “it could only have been done by the man from Poland.”

The maggid sent for him, and the Lubliner was very embarrassed, and he told him what had happened.

The maggid put his hand on the Lubliner’s shoulder and blessed him, “May it be God’s will that you eat will the melave malka meal with abundance.”

22. The Neschizer rebbe told the following story.

The Lubliner rebbe told the the Neschizer’s brother, the Ostiler rebbe, “When I came to the maggid, I saw him lying in bed. I saw that this was a being who was solely a simple will, the divine will. And when I came to your father, the holy [Moharam], I saw that he is solely dedicated to Hashem.”

23. The Neschizer rebbe told the following story a few times, including once to the Sasnivitzer.

The Lubliner rebbe once heard a proclamation from heaven, “Mordechai son of Gittel is solely dedicated to Hashem.”

The Lubliner rebbe set out to seek this man. The Lubliner rebbe was informed that this man was in Neschiz, and so the Lubliner rebbe came to Neschiz.

The entire city came out to greet him and honor him.

The Moharam himself went out as one of the people to greet him. He did not make himself known but wondrously concealed himself so that the Lubliner should not have the slightest awareness of him.

The Moharam greeted the Lubliner, who responded in kind. Because the Moharam was among other people, the Lubliner did not sense anything special about him.

When the Lubliner came to the city and was close to the home of the [Moharam], he asked, “Where does the rabbi live?”

The [Moharam] replied, “I live here.”

The Lubliner rebbe was amazed and said, “This is truly something special: to ‘turn your hat backwards’ and keep me from sensing your spiritual level.”

When the Lubliner rebbe left, the Moharam sat with the Lubliner rebbe in his carriage and, said the Neschizer, “[My father] put me on his lap. And my brother, the Kavler, and our brother-in-law, R. Meir Feivel (the son-in-law of the [Moharam]), sat opposite them in the carriage.”

On the road near the village of Aratish, they left the carriage, and the Lubliner rebbe told the [Moharam], ‘Let us go alone, so that no one goes with us.” And so it was.

But I, [told the Neschizer,] accompanied my father, since I was a boy. And I heard the Lubliner rebbe ask Father, “What should I do, since I am the object of controversy in my city? Perhaps this is because my way is to reveal hidden matters. Perhaps that is why I am the object of controversy.”

Father answered him, “Your intent in doing so is certainly for the sake of heaven, and you should not abandon this practice, since it is the service of the Creator, be He blessed. But please tell me: perhaps you have built some building.”

The Lubliner rebbe replied, “No. But I did shingle my roof.”

Father responded to him, “If so, do the following. Remove a certain row of shingles, and the dispute will come to an end.”

Meanwhile, the Lubliner rebbe saw that I was with them. He said, “Didn’t I ask that no one should accompany us?”

Father replied, “What of it? He is only a boy.”

But I contemplated their words deeply.

So did the Neschizer rebbe tell.

24. The Lubliner rebbe told that for a number of years he tied a [cloth] over his eyes and did not look at anything at all. And all of his life he did not look past four cubits.

25. The Neschizer rebbe told that the Maharshal at first opposed the Ari. The Ari sensed this and sent out two of his students on a Friday, who miraculously came in an instant to the Maharshal.

A mirror stood before him, and he saw the students enter behind him. He asked them, “Where are you from?”

They told him that they were students of the Ari, and that they had that day left the Holy Land. To prove that they were genuine, they told the Maharshal that they knew that during his prayers he had been thinking about such-and-such a halachah.

So he believed them.

They went with the Maharshal to a cellar in an underground cave, and they miraculously showed him something similar to the creation of heaven and earth.

The Maharshal replied, “Now I acknowledge that your way is fitting before Hashem. But I shall go on my way, which I am accustomed to.”

26. The Neschizer rebbe used to say in the name of his father, the Moharam, that he did not think highly of any stories of tzaddikim, because many are forgeries and riddled with errors.

But he made an exception for stories about the Baal Shem Tov, because even if a story was not literally true, the Baal Shem Tov had the power to do everything.

27. The holy Neschizer rebbe told the following.

Regarding all of the awesome and wondrous things that we know that my father (the brilliant Moharam) did, including bringing the dead back to life here in Neschiz (author’s note: The holy tzaddik brought back to life a member of my own family), I am not as I am impressed as by the following story.

An agunah, a woman whose husband had disappeared, begged Father at length to free her, and came to him many times.

One time he could no longer bear her troubles, and he replied, “What should I do for you?”

She said, “Is it beyond the rebbe to bring my husband back to me?”

He answered, “And is he here that I can help you? Here is a bowl of water. Maybe he is there.”

In her great faith, she believed that meaningless words would not issue forth from his holy mouth. So she looked into the bowl of water standing there, and she cried out, “Here he is! I can see him sitting in the bowl.”

The Moharam asked her, “How is he sitting?”

She said, “With a yarmulka on his head, without a hat.”

He told her, “Show me the yarmulka.”

She put her hand into the bowl and pulled out the yarmulka.

The story was that her husband was a tailor, who was sewing in a distant courtyard. As he sat before an open window, a wind suddenly lifted his yarmulka from his head and she grabbed it.

After some time passed, he understood that this episode meant something, and his heart inspired him to return home. His wife showed him the yarmulka and he recognized it, and she was freed from being an agunah.

28. The Neschizer rebbe also told the following.

Father had the custom of traveling to the city near the village of Stabichave (near Neschiz) with his servant Eliezer. Father would leave him in secret and roll in the brambles in the forest.

One time, Father told Eliezer to gather certain grasses, because through them thousands of infertile women would be healed.

The servant rejoiced and thought, “Even if each woman gives me only ten gedulim, that will be enough for me.”

When Father came home he told the servant to put the grass under his bed. And when the eve of Passover arrived, Father told him to take the grasses outside.

The servant asked him, “But the master had said that with this, infertile women would be healed.”

Father replied, “They were already helped without having to come here.”

29. The Neschizer rebbe told that R. Yitzchak Lebovner came to Neschiz to Father’s gravesite on his yahrtzeit, on the eighth day of Nissan. At that time the snow was melting. The river here had overflowed its banks and he had to sail on a boat when the river was stormy.

[The Neschizer] asked him, “Why did you risk your life to come?”

He answered him, “It was all worthwhile in order to come for the yahrtzeit of the rebbe.”

[The Neschizer] asked R. Lebovner to honor him by sitting down. But he did not want to, saying, “Will I sit before the son of the rebbe?”

The Neschizer begged him, until R. Lebovner drank some liquor as a sign of respect.

Zichron Tov

The Mellow Sukkah

For Sukkot, a guitar instrumental:

The Mellow Sukkah.

Yet More Stories of the Rebbe of Neschiz

11. The Neschizer rebbe said that “after the holy R. Yaakov Shimshon of Shepitovka traveled the land of Israel, he went to see my father, the holy Moharam. When he came to Neschiz, he said, ‘I heard in the name of the Moharam that there is a strip of land that extends from the land of Israel to here, and it is true, for here I sense the atmosphere of the land of Israel.’ When people reported this to the Moharam, he said, ‘[That is the case] wherever the tzaddik of Israel [?] stays. If so, that land is called the land of Israel.’”[unclear]

Whenever the Neschizer rebbe wanted to miraculously acquire some good fish for the Sabbath or a holiday when it was otherwise unavailable, he would say, “We learn in the name of the holy author of the Ohr Hachaim that 52 years before the messiah comes, fish will leave the entire world and go to the land of Israel. And since Neschiz constitutes a strip of the land of Israel, the fish have to come here.”

And so it was.

12. The Neschizer rebbe always kept the volumes of the Kedushas Levi and Degel Machaneh Efraim on his table, and he was well-acquainted with them.

One time he was brought the holy Derech Pikudechah [by R. Tzvi Elimelech of Dinov]. He leafed through its pages quickly and said, “It contains nothing new [to me].”

We who were standing there did not understand whether this meant that he knew the holy rabbi of Dinov on the physical plane or on the spiritual plane.

Similarly, the Neschizer rebbe once said of the holy R. Elazar of Koznitz, “I love him a great deal for his simplicity.” He concluded: “even though I do not know him so well--but in regard to his simplicity, I love him. From his words “so well,” it appeared that he knew him on the spiritual plane but not “so well”—[i.e., not in the physical world].

This is similar to what the Neschizer rebbe once said about two tzaddikim who are [now] deceased: that they did not know each other in the physical dimension, but it is possible that they knew each other in the spiritual dimension.

And he said of the holy R. Moshe of Korishtshuv, “Si gefelt mir zein hisnahagus--I appreciate his way of acting--since he acts like a [simple] layman.”

We told the Neschizer rebbe at his meal that we heard that the holy R. Moshe of Korishtshuv said before he passed away, “What other neighborhood can boast, as can the neighborhood of the rabbi of Neschiz, that he protects it from the plague that was in the world, God have mercy, for he transformed the decree into inflation?”

And from the expression on the face of the Neschizer rebbe, it appeared that these words were true.

At the time of the plague, God have mercy, in the world in the year 5626 and onward, many times we heard and saw from him how he was involved on behalf of the good of the community. When he was told that the sickness had come to a certain town in the area, God have mercy, he denied it and said that it was not true. He made a motion with his fingers indicating that the sickness would circle around but it would not come to these neighborhoods. And so it was. May his merit protect us.

And when it happened that a person in our town fell ill, God have mercy, the Neschizer rebbe would refer to the illness in a joking fashion and said that it was not the [fatal] illness but rather an illness called hatzka in Yiddish, and that the man would soon get well.

And see this wonder. There was a person in the town of Brisk who was weakened by that illness, God have mercy, and people sent news dispatches by telegraph. Finally there came a dispatch reporting that he was very weak and his body was cold and his pulse was still and he was entering his death throes, God have mercy, and they paid for a reply.

The Neschizer rebbe directed to reply in the gentile language, “Be well.” And this was a wondrous thing, for he had never been heard to say anything in the gentile language. And it was even more wondrous that he would reply to a dying person dying with a confident “be well,” since he would usually reply only in the way of a prayer and blessing.

The people did not change what he directed and replied in that way. And immediately the illness was healed right before the eyes of people who had said that he had no hope unless he took much medicine. Those who stood there relied on the answer of the Neschizer rebbe and did not give him medicine.

And soon afterwards this sick person came to the Neschizer rebbe, having been healed, and he thanked God for His kindness.

13. The Neschizer rebbe told that he saw the Berditchever holding a candle and he caused himself a burn scar.

At times the Neschizer rebbe called the Berditchever “the Zelichover,” because he had initially been the rabbi of Zelichov. And at times he would call the Lubliner “the Lantziter” because he was also rabbi in Lantzit.

The Neschizer was married to the grand daughter [nechdo] of the Berditchever, and the Berditchever supported them for four years. Before the marriage, the Berditchever had stated that he could not promise to support the couple for more than four years, by any means. And this was very unusual. In the end the Berditchever supported him until the [last] day [of the four years] and then he passed away. May his merit protect us and all Israel .

The Neschizer rebbe told that the Berditchever asked him if he knows the Kotzinitzer, and he said “No.” And he asked him again, and he replied “No.” And he told him, “I would very, very much want that you should meet him.”

The Neschizer rebbe decided to travel to him, but then he heard that the Kozinitzer had passed away— may his merit protect us and all of the congregation of Israel.

And the Neschizer rebbe concluded telling this story to the holy rabbi of Sasnivitz, “From the words of the Berditchever I understood that I have a connection in the root of the soul with the Kozinitzer.”

(Author’s note: Israel are “the children of prophets,” for I heard people praise the Neschizer rebbe by saying that “he is like the Kozinitzer in his generation.”)

14. The Neschizer rebbe told that the Berditchever used to go to sleep and then get up at midnight. But the Neschizer had the custom of staying awake until after midnight.

(Author’s note: indeed, that was how I saw him act.)

The Berditchever tried to persuade the Neschizer rebbe also to first go to sleep and then get up at midnight.

One time, the Neschizer rebbe saw the Berditchever get up at midnight, awaken his servant, take liquor and go to the bathhouse, where all the travelers who had no lodging were asleep. He went to a Jew and woke him, saying, “Drink some schnapps.” The Jew agreed, but when he remembered that he had no water to wash his hands and no place to make a blessing, he refused and did not want to drink. The Berditchever then went over to a gentile and woke him, and the gentile drank the schnapps where he was without reciting a blessing to the Creator, blessed be He. And the Berditchever returned with great joy to the house and fervently proclaimed, “Master of the world, see the difference between these and those!”

15. The Neschizer was not accustomed to tell people to fast. Even in regard to rectifying a flaw in the sexual covenant, when a person asked him [for advice], he would only tell him fast some rosh chodesh eves. And he said that a person who wants to fast on the eve of the new month should not be strict in regard to the molad, [the precise astronomical time].

One time the Neschizer rebbe said to two members of his household who did not want to eat in the evening, “Why fast? That is not the main thing.”

And he told that the Berditchever did not think highly of fasting to afflict oneself.

He said that [the desire to fast] comes from the urging of the evil inclination to weaken the mind so as to prevent it from serving God.

And he said in [the Berditchever’s] name that this may be compared to two people who were fighting. One was clever and said, “If I hit the other person in one of his limbs I will only destroy one of his limbs. It is better to strike him in his head, because in that way I will gain victory over his whole body.” Similarly, at times the evil inclination advises a person to fast in order to weaken his brain, and automatically [the evil inclination] attacks him.

17. (there is no #16) The Neschizer rebbe told that in the year before he passed away, the Berditchever rebbe summoned him to teach him the mystical intentions of the lulav and esrog.

And the Berditchever’s children envied him. Why did he teach him and not them?

The Berditchever replied to them, “When the Moharam will ask me in the world of truth, ‘What did you teach my children?’ I will have to reply to him. Therefore, I am teaching him these intentions of the lulav and etrog.”

And they closed the door and he taught him these intentions.

(Author’s note: the Neschizer rebbe used to shake lulav and etrog in his succah by himself.)

18. The Neschizer rebbe told in the name of a certain earlier holy tzaddik that now divine inspiration is not common among us, except for the rabbi of Berditchever at the time that his soul is expiring at the time of the [Musaf] keter kedushah prayer. Then he attains it a bit.

19. I heard from the men of his household that the Berditchever told the Neschizer rebbe not to smoke Turkish tutin [?].

(Author’s note: In his youth, the Neschizer rebbe smoked tutin. At the end of his days, he only did so on very rare occasions. And he quickly drew in and blew out the smoke with great rapidity. For about ten years before he passed away he ceased entirely smoking. One time he was in the town of Stabekhve in the year 5617 at the marriage of his relative with [the family of] the holy R. Yaakov of Apta. The Neschizer rebbe did not have his pipe and he asked for a clean pipe. But before they brought it to him he changed his mind and did not want to smoke.)

Zichron Tov