Rav Meir Hagodol (Av 21)
RAV MEIR PREMISHLANER'S GLASS OF TEA
The Tosher Rebbe told the following account:
When Rav Shlomo was to marry the daughter of Rav Yekusiel Shmelka of Sassov, who was the son of Rav Moshe Leib Sassover, he traveled to Sassov for the chasunah and stopped on the way in Premishlan to receive Rav Meir Premishlaner’s berachah.
The Rebbe Reb Meir’l handed him a piping hot glass of tea and ordered him to drink it all up while it was still boiling hot. Rav Shlomo heeded the tzaddik’s instructions and downed the blistering brew with mesirus nefesh. As a reward for his unquestioning obedience, Rav Meir indeed gave him a berachah that he should be healthy and strong his entire life. (Avodas Avoda Sichos Kodesh Vol. II Behaaloscha p. 316)
TIED UP ABOVE
Rav Meir of Premishlan’s trek to immerse in the mikve attracted much attention. The mikve was situated at a point in a river on the slope of a tall mountain. When the road was icy, the people had to detour around the mountain so as not to slip. Rav Meir, however, would march straight up the mountain and would never falter. When asked by some youngsters the secret to his success he responded, “Az mir zenen tzi gebinden oyven falt min nisht arup hinten – When one is connected Above, one does not fall down!”
Toras Menachem 5711, volume 2, page 105
NEVER DEMOLISH A SUKKA
By Yerachmiel Tilles
An epidemic raged through the town of Nadvorna as Sukkos was approaching, and the physicians warned the townsfolk to take all possible hygienic precautions, for fear of contagion. The local judge, an unusually evil man, was told that Rav Mordechai of Nadvorna had just built a sukka. He at once dispatched a messenger with a court order to demolish it forthwith, because it supposedly contravened the municipal health regulations. The Nadvorner Rebbe ignored the message.
Within minutes, a police squad arrived at his doorstep to warn him of the consequences of his defiance. He replied: “I built my sukka in order that it should stand, not in order that it should be demolished.” Man is a tree of the field . . .
This time, the judge sent the Tzaddik a summons. When this, too, was ignored, the judge decided to descend on his victim himself. He ordered the Tzaddik in harsh terms to dismantle the sukka immediately, and warned him of the severe punishment which any further disobedience would earn him. These threats and warnings did not shake the Tzaddik’s equanimity in the slightest. He simply answered coolly in the same words that he had told the policemen: that he had built his sukka in order that it should stand, not in order that it should be demolished.
The judge was incensed and was about to pour more vituperation upon the Tzaddik, when the latter remarked, “I would like you to know that Rav Meir’l of Premishlan was my great-uncle.”
The judge flew into a rage. “Who cares who your great-uncle was? Just demolish that thing, and that’s all!”
The Nadvorner now repeated what he had just told the judge, and then asked him calmly to wait a moment; he wanted to tell him an interesting story.
The judge, taken by surprise, signified his assent with a brief nod, and Rav Mordechai began:
“Once there lived a priest who had ten sons, all of them as robust and strong as cedars. He owned a beautiful big park, full of trees that delighted Hashem and man alike. One day he decided that he would add grace to this grove by planting a little flower garden next to it. So he uprooted some of his trees, and in their place he planted fragrant flowers. But no sooner had he finished this work than his sons fell ill, one after the other. First the oldest weakened and died, then the second, and so on, until the very youngest fell ill.
The priest was at his wits’ end. He summoned the most expert doctors, and even consulted sorcerers, but to no avail. At this point several people advised him to make the journey to visit Rav Meir of Premishlan. Perhaps salvation might come through him, for he was reputed to be a holy man; there was no alternative open to him, and he was desperately eager to save the life of his last surviving son. So, with a heavy heart, he traveled to Premishlan.
Arriving there, he told the holy man of all the trials that had befallen him, and that now even his last son was mortally ill, and no physician could cure him. Heaven alone could help him now.
‘You had a beautiful garden full of goodly trees,’ Rav Meir told him, ‘but because you wanted a flower garden as well, you chopped down the trees of Hashem. And that is why He has now chopped down your trees, as the pasuk states: “Man is a tree of the field”. But since you have already come here, and your time has not yet run out completely, I promise you now that your youngest son will be helped from Above, and will soon be cured.’
The holy man then prayed that the Almighty heal the priest’s son, in order that His Name be sanctified wherever people would hear of his story. This prayer was accepted, and the son grew to manhood.
“I want you to know,” Rav Mordechai concluded his story to the judge, “that you are the ...
