story #487 (s5767-26) 2 Nissan 5767

Fatal Whitewash

He told the Divrei Chaim that the doctor said whitewashing his house for Pesach would hasten his tenant's death.

Fatal Whitewash

 

A young man, who was afflicted with a severe case of tuberculosis, was housed with a poor householder in the town of Sanz. Before Pesach, the householder wished to whitewash his house, as he did each year. The problem was that the doctor had warned him that although the young man did not have much time to live as it was, since his lungs were badly eaten away, the smell of the whitewash would hasten his death.

The landlord ran to the Divrei Chaim of Sanz and told him, in anguished tones, that he could not forgo whitewashing his house for Pesach, so he felt he had no choice and must turn the sick young man out.

The Rebbe was shaken by the tale. He pondered briefly and then asked the man to wait a short while, until the illness would pass, and then he would be able to whitewash the house without worry.

The doctor heard about what the Rebbe had said and laughed scornfully. But after a few days had passed, he was forced to admit that the patient had improved. And, shortly thereafter, the sick man was found to be completely cured.

The Divrei Chaim dismissed with the wave of his hand the talk of miracles that was on everyone's lips, but his grandson Shlomo, the future rebbe of Bobov, pursued the doctor and asked him, "Nu, what do you have to say now?"

"It would seem that I was mistaken when I said the lungs were eaten away and disintegrated," replied the doctor.

"Why don't you admit, rather, that you were wrong in mocking the words of my grandfather, the Rebbe of Sanz?" insisted the Bobover.

"If your grandfather can create new lungs, why doesn't he make the blind see and give speech to the dumb?" countered the doctor.

"If my grandfather were to give sight to the blind, you would have no choice but to repent," said the Bobover. "However, G-d wants man to have free choice and choose the good from his own will. That is why the tzadik only performs miracles of this sort which allow the doctor to say, 'I was mistaken in my diagnosis.'"

~~~~~~~~~
[Adapted by Yerachmiel Tilles from Haggadah of the Chassidic Masters by Rabbi Shalom Meir Wallach, who cites as his source, Mekor Chaim 197.]

Biographical notes:
Rabbi Chaim Halberstam of Sanz [1793 - 25 Nissan 1876] was the first Rebbe of the Sanz-Klausenberg dynasty. He is famous for his extraordinary dedication to the mitzvah of tzedaka and also as a renowned Torah scholar; his voluminous and wide-ranging writings were all published under the title Divrei Chaim.

Rabbi Shlomo of Bobov [1848 - 1 Tammuz 1906] was the first rebbe of the Bobover dynasty, which he became shortly following the death of his renowned grandfather, the Divrei Chaim of Sanz. He was noted for strengthening the Judaism of the younger generation and founding numerous yeshivas. His chasidim numbered in the thousands.


Yrachmiel Tilles is co-founder and associate director of Ascent-of-Safed, and editor of Ascent Quarterly and the AscentOfSafed.com and KabbalaOnline.org websites. He has hundreds of published stories to his credit.


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