A Rov in a city who had great yichus once visited the Ruzhiner Rebbe zy”a, and the Rebbe greeted him warmly and with much honor. He asked how he and his community were doing, and the Rov began to complain about misbehavior amongst his flock and saying that the younger generation had strayed far from their fathers’ ways. He concluded, “If not for the mussar I give them, nothing would be left of them!”
The Rebbe immediately turned away from him and would not say another word to him. When he noticed the puzzlement on the faces of those around him, he explained, “The dor hamidbor were great and holy people. They received the Torah on Har Sinai and ate the mann from Shomayim, which Chazal tell us (Yoma 71B) is the food that angels eat. It is hard to understand how they could complain and say that they were disgusted by the mann. We can, however, understand this by seeing that the mann looked like a ‘zera gad lavan’. Chazal explain that the mann is called ‘gad’ because it told (‘magid’) the people’s sins. And if someone tells other people’s sins, even if he is like bread from Heaven and even if he has impeccable lineage, he is someone that causes others to be disgusted!”
