The famous Chatam Sofer, Rabbi Moshe Schreiber, related the following story about Rabbi Shmuel Eliezer Halevi Edeles, best known as the Maharsha (an acronym of his name):
In the early 1600's, in the era of the Maharsha, there was a famous Jew who was known to be a sinner. When this man died, prior to his burial, one of the disciples of the Maharsha publicly shamed him. That night, the deceased came to the disciple in a dream and said to him: "I summon you to a Torah trial before the Heavenly Court, for you shamed me."
The young man woke up very disturbed and related his dream to his father. His father reassured him, telling him that "dreams are meaningless" [The last chapter in the first tractate of the Talmud, Brachot ('Blessings'), devotes several pages to dream interpretation, including "most dreams are meaningless" and how to relate to the ones that are not.] and the like, and the young man calmed down.
The dream, however, repeated itself for three nights and the young man was so terrified that he became ill from it. The family decided to go to the Maharsha and ask his advice.
When they arrived, the Maharsha instructed the young man to remain for the night at his home as a guest. He then gathered his own family and instructed them that should the young man wake up in terror, which was likely, to call for him.
This indeed happened. In the middle of the night, the young man woke up terror-stricken and the family immediately called for the Maharsha to come.
The Maharsha approached the young man's bed and began talking to the spirit of the dead man: "What do you want from this person?"
"He shamed me!" answered the dead man.
The Maharsha said to him, "But surely you deserve to be shamed?!"
The dead man replied, "No, I don't deserve it. I wasn't a completely evil person. Once I saw a Torah scholar fall into a river and almost drown. I endangered myself and saved his life. Since then, we became close friends. We made a Yissachar-Zebulun partnership [Yissachar and Zebulun were the 5th and 6th sons of Leah. The tribe of Yissachar had the most leading Torah scholars of all the tribes, while the tribe of Zebulun included a large number of successful merchants, including many that did business overseas. The merchants of Zebulun took upon themselves to support financially the scholars of Yissacher, and thereby shared in the merit of the latter's Torah study.] between us. I supported him well throughout my life.
"When I passed on and came to Heaven, they received me with great honor, as if I had been a great Torah scholar. They made no mention of my sins, for anyone who saves a soul, it is as if he has saved the entire world.
"Furthermore, I have a great portion of the Torah learned by the scholar and I am thus considered a Torah scholar myself. So, I am summoning the young man to court, to be charged with shaming a Torah scholar...."
The Maharsha minced no words in his reply to the dead man: "The truth is that despite all you have said, you carry a great burden of sins. However, the reality is that it is impossible to prosecute you; your good deeds created a strong partition between you and the main prosecuting angel and all the other heavenly prosecutors.
"But you should know that your transgressions were not erased. You are only protected from them by your two special good deeds. To bypass your protection, the prosecuting angel wants to ensnare you by convincing you to persecute this young man until he dies. Then he will prosecute you measure for measure.
"While it is true that you saved a Torah scholar, you now wish to kill a Torah scholar. If you do so, it will remove the partition of merit that is protecting you. Then you will become vulnerable and be held liable for all your sins.
"Therefore, I advise you not to take this foolish step and destroy yourself. Forgive him and all will be good for you as well."
The dead man accepted the Maharsha's advice, and the young man returned to good health.
Reprinted from an email from "Wonders," a weekly publication of inner.org.
