Rav Hillel of Paritsch was renowned for his punctilious observance of the mitzvos, prepared to risk his life for the merest detail ordained by Chazal. The Czarist regime of his day decreed that all Jews were to shave off their peyos, and some unscrupulous informer told the local authorities that Rav Hillel’s peyos were still intact. They decided to shear them off by force, but Rav Hillel covered them tightly with his hands to protect them. The soldiers drew their swords and forcefully began hitting his hands and head, causing him to scream. His neighbor, a Jewish tailor who had a good relationship with the officers in charge, heard him and came running, and after promising them gifts, convinced them to leave. Grateful for his help, Rav Hillel blessed the man, and promised him that “after a hundred and twenty years” he would be rewarded by being buried next to him.
[Rav Hillel once explained that his dedication to maintaining his peyos and beard came from having seen a hand-written essay of the Tzaddik Rav Pinchas of Koretz, in which he wrote that adopting non-Jewish clothing styles and appearance was the fiftieth Gate of Impurity, which would have rendered the Jews unable to be redeemed from Egypt, had they fallen one more level (into it). Similarly, in the times preceding the revelation of Moshiach, there will be an endeavor to make the Jews change their clothing and appearance, and unfortunately it will succeed. Only in the merit of those individuals who refuse to change their appearance even at the risk of their lives will all the Jews be blessed with the Ge’ula. Rav Hillel concluded, “Anyone who had this manuscript would of course be willing to give up his life for the sake of traditional Jewish dress and appearance.”]
Many years passed. Rav Hillel, in the meantime, became Rav of Babruisk, and would travel every year around the provinces and to the cities of Kherson and Yekatrinoslav, teaching Torah as well to the farmers of the Jewish agricultural colonies, who greatly admired him. In the summer of 1864, at age sixty-nine, he suddenly fell ill while staying in Kherson – which is very far from Babruisk and Paritsch in White Russia – and was niftar there.
On the following day, amidst widespread mourning, he was brought to burial, and his talmidim and admirers flocked there for many years thereafter to daven at the graveside of this Tzaddik.
Sometime later, on a bitterly cold and stormy day, an unknown elderly traveler passed away in the town’s communal hostelry. The Chevra Kaddisha (Jewish Burial Society) prepared his body and took him to be buried, intending to place him in the section for unknown people. However, due to the fierce winter snow, they unknowingly buried him near Rav Hillel. A day or two later, it was noticed that the new grave had been dug right next to the resting place of the illustrious Rav Hillel. When the facts came to light, a great hubbub arose in town: was it proper that an unknown traveler whom no respectable citizen even knew, a nobody who had passed away in the communal poorhouse – that such a one should be buried next to the Tzaddik?
It was too late, though, to change things: the Torah would never allow it. At least let them find out just who this individual was. His identification papers disclosed his name and that of his father, and the fact that he came from Paritsch. The communal worthies of Kherson therefore wrote to their counterparts in Paritsch, asking to be told at least whatever they knew about this man.
The answer from Paritsch identified him clearly: he was a retired tailor, who had been traveling in order to live with one of his children. They added that this same tailor had many long years earlier been promised by Rav Hillel that “after a hundred and twenty years” he would be brought to rest next to his own resting place.
And so, the decades-old promise of Rav Hillel of Paritsch came to fruition.
Adapted by Yerachmiel Tilles from Lma’an Yishme’u #78, and from Sipurei Chassidim, as translated by Uri Kaploun in A Treasury of Chassidic Tales (Artscroll).
