Once, during Rav Hillel’s travels as a Maggid, a preacher who would tell tales of inspiration and rebuke the congregation to encourage their repentance and adherence to Torah and mitzvos, came to Sanz. The holy Divrei Chaim of Sanz honored him greatly, saying, “Here comes a Maggid whose sermons are truly sincere and solely said le’shem shomayim – for the sake and honor of Heaven.”
The Sanzer Rav then honored him by introducing the speaker and saying words of Torah followed by words of praise. However, a strange and shocking incident occurred. Rav Hillel sat listening with rapt attention to the Divrei Chaim’s speech and, while he focused on the words of Torah, no sooner had the Sanzer begun to praise Rav Hillel, when Rav Hillel began to strain and gesture that he could not hear well. He cupped his hands around his ears as if to hear better and paid closest attention to each word the Tzaddik said in praise of him! When the Divrei Chaim switched to a devar Torah he went back to normal, but as soon as the Divrei Chaim said words of praise, again he listened with rapt attention.
The people were beside themselves – how could the Divrei Chaim praise someone who was seemingly so full of himself as to listen to his own praise, not with shy embarrassment, but with such punctilious attention that he actually strained to hear it more than words of Torah!
Later, when they joked about this and asked the Sanzer Rebbe, the Divrei Chaim was taken aback and declared in shock, “Fools, you have no measure of the Tzaddik Rav Hillel at all! He is so holy and has trained his limbs so much that he hears Torah perfectly well, yet when I praised him, he could not hear his own praise at all! That is why he strained to listen – he thought I must be whispering.”
(Ner Yehoshua)
