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Rabbi Avraham of
Trisk _____________________________________________ Before he passed away, Rabbi Mordechai of Chernobyl divided his kingdom among his children and put the Trisker Maggid in charge of the people from the Other Side. R' Avraham lived like this. Eight o'clock in the morning he'd get up, go to the mikveh, pray. Two o'clock in the afternoon, he wuld start to yawn. "I'm so tired, I've got to lie down a little bit." He'd go to his room until three, then pray both afternoon and evening prayers. Ten o'clock at night he might start yawning again. "I'm so tired. I've got to go back to my room." The fact of the matter is that the Trisker Maggid never ate and never slept. He also never kept any books in his room, because - as everybody knows - when he closed the door to his room he was dealing with souls from the Other World who needed fixing. People from the Other Side are not able to read Torah. In order to avoid making them feel bad, the Trisker Maggid never permitted books in his room. If he found one, he put it out. The
Trisker Maggid once came to a village where only one Jew had enough room in his
house to accommodate the rebbe and his chasidim. But this man was a mitnaged (opposed
to the chassidic movement). He had heard many stories from his fellow mitnagdim
and was suspicious of the rumor that the Trisker Maggid never slept and never
ate. At
ten o'clock, the Trisker Maggid said to his chassidim, "I have to go back
to my room." The rich Jew heard R' Avraham come into the chamber and felt
him sit down on the bed. No sooner had the chasidim closed the door to give the
rebbe a little privacy when it seemed to open again. A crowd pushed their way
into the room. During the day, people would complain: "Rabbi! I'm sick. Please cure my back." "I need money for my business." "Would you find a wife for my son?" But by night, the people were saying, "Rebbe! I'm so broken! They won't let me into Paradise. They won't let me into Hell. All I can do is wander. Rebbe, please fix my soul." The worst was that the mitnaged heard so many voices in the room. But when he peeked out from underneath the bed, he couldn't see any feet. The Jew was so frightened that he was shaking and had to do his best to keep his teeth from chattering. Suddenly, he heard another, different voice cry out: "Rebbe! Have compassion on my tormented neshamah. Fix me! Fix my soul!" "What can I do for you?" the Trisker Maggid asked. "While you were alive, you never bothered to come to me. You didn't even give me one penny tzedakah, one penny for charity, to connect yourself to me. So how can I help you now?" "There must be a way!" The poor soul pleaded with the rebbe, from a place of deep anguish. "Actually, there is one way. Your neighbor, Shmuelik, was one of my top chasids. Shmuelik gave me a great deal of charity during his lifetime. If he were to tell me now that one penny of the riches he gave as tzedakah was for you, then I could find a way to help you." "Shmuelik would do that for me, I'm sure." "Fine! Then I want you to go and ask him!" "How can I do that? He won't believe that I come from you "Then I'll send somebody along to act as your witness." At this point, the Trisker Maggid gave a strong, swift kick under the bed and said to the Jew: "Come out!" When the Jew realized that the Trisker Maggid was about to send him into the Other World as witness to an exchange between two souls, he began pleading from under the bed. "Please, Rebbe! Don't do this to me! I promise I won't tell anybody what I saw!" "Come out!" The Jew came out, crawling on his stomach. He was crying, screaming, clinging to the rebbe's feet. "Please, Rebbe! You've seen! I have a wife and three children. I don't want to die yet. I'm not ready to die!" "God forbid you should die. But if you're going to spy on me, you must go as my witness. Take my stick and walk with the soul of this man to the cemetery." The Jew looked around. The greatest nightmare of all was that there was absolutely no one else in the room, only himself and the Trisker Maggid. "Knock on the first grave in the second row and say that Avraham ben Channah orders Shmuel ben Rivkah to give one penny to fix the neshamah of this Jew - Yosele, his neighbor."
May
the merit of the tzaddik Rabbi
Avraham of Trisk
protect
us all, Amen. |