Weekly Chasidic Story #766 (s5772-45 / 11 Menachem-Av 5772)

Every Moment is Precious

In his youth, Rabbi Shalom of Belz had the habit of smoking a pipe excessively, particularly while learning in the beit hamidrash.

Connection: Weekly Torah - "Guard yourself very carefully" (4:9, and again, 4:15).

Every Moment is Precious

In his youth, Rabbi Shalom of Belz had the habit of smoking a pipe excessively. In particular, he would smoke while learning in the beit hamidrash (House of Study).

One day, he witnessed something that led him to kick the habit.

While in the midst of his studies, he saw someone in the beit hamidrash preparing to smoke a pipe. The man cleaned the bowl of his pipe, then filled it carefully with tobacco. After all his preparations, he finally lit up and began to smoke. During the time that it took the man to make his preparations, Rabbi Shalom managed to learn a full page of Talmud!

At that moment, the Belzer put down his own pipe and said, "If this object is capable of causing a person to lose out on learning a page of Talmud, it is not going to enter my mouth ever again!"

And from that day on, he never smoked again.

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Source: Adapted by Yerachmiel Tilles from "Stories My Grandfather Told Me" (Mesorah) by Zev Greenwald]

Connection: Weekly Torah - "Guard yourself very carefully" (4:9, and again, 4:15).

Editor's note: For another, perhaps even more amazing, example of denying the nicotine habit, see story #659 in this series.

Biographic note:
Rabbi Shalom of Belz [1779 - 27 Elul 1855] was the first of the Belz chassidic dynasty. He became the main rebbe of Galician jewry, and had tens of thousands of chasidim. His teachings are collected in Dover Shalom.

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Yerachmiel Tilles is co-founder and associate director of Ascent-of-Safed, and chief editor of this website (and of KabbalaOnline.org). He has hundreds of published stories to his credit, and many have been translated into other languages. He tells them live at Ascent nearly every Saturday night.

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