Early one Thursday morning, the Baal Shem Tov (Besht) and one of his pupils set off for the city of Leipzig where they would be spending the Sabbath. As they boarded the wagon, the Besht turned to his driver Alexi, and told him that after they left the city he could let the reigns drop and go to sleep. The wagon moved swiftly but after fifteen hours of travel they still had not reached their destination. They hitched the wagon to a tree by the road and the chasid fell asleep. He awoke the next morning when the wagon began moving.
After several hours a house appeared in the distance. As they got closer, the chasid was overjoyed to see a mezuza on the door. At least they would have a Jewish home in which to celebrate the Sabbath.
The wagon stopped before the house, the door opened and an old man with a radiant face warmly embraced the Besht before escorting him into the house. "Just wait in the wagon, I'll return shortly," the Besht said to his pupil. Fifteen minutes later he returned and they were on their way. When the hut was out of sight, the Besht told the driver to let the reigns drop. In no time the horses strayed into a field, then into a forest and stopped. The Besht got out, took a silver cup from his bag, motioned to his bewildered pupil to follow and after several minutes suddenly stopped and said, "Look, water!"
Sure enough from within a thicket he heard a bubbling brook. The Besht dipped his cup into the water and made a blessing. It seemed as though the entire forest reverberated with each word he uttered. The Besht finished drinking, made an after-blessing with the same deliberate intensity and then motioned for his pupil to return to the wagon.
The chasid wondered where they were and where they would spend the Sabbath. He looked up and was surprised to see that they were in Leipzig! Suddenly he heard the Besht say to the driver, "Turn down this street!"
The pupil blurted out, "This is Shillergass, the street where all the university taverns are. If we turn here it will be our end!"
The Besht paid no attention. After a few moments he told the driver to stop. "Here is where we are staying! But hurry! It's almost Shabbat."
The Besht knocked at a door and it opened, revealing an elderly Jew dressed for the Sabbath and several young men standing behind him. "Come in," he whispered fearfully. "Who are you? Come in quickly!" As the old man closed the door he said, "You are really lucky no one was in the street. They are nothing but bloodthirsty animals. I am a shoemaker. If they didn't need me here they would kill me too. Who are you?"
The Besht promised he would explain but because it was very late he wanted to begin the afternoon prayers. The shoemaker had seven sons and together with the Besht and his pupil they made a minyan (quorum). The Besht began to pray aloud at the top of his voice.
The old shoemaker was astounded; he suddenly felt as though his heart was exploding with love for G-d. He had never heard such prayer before.
When the prayers finished the sound of bottles crashing brought them back to reality. The Besht walked to the door, opened it and stepped outside to the bloodthirsty crowd. "Kill the Jew!" Someone yelled and threw a rock.
One student ran toward the Besht with an iron bar. Suddenly he froze, hand paralyzed in midair, screaming with pain. Then another student drew a large knife, with the same results. The two of them stood screaming until the crowd dropped their rocks and begged the Besht to take away the spell. The Besht said something, the paralyzed students fell to the ground and everyone ran away.
The Besht went inside and began the Sabbath prayers. Shortly, a tall man entered the house. He looked around the room then stared at the Besht. After the prayers they sat down to eat the Shabbat meal amidst song and wondrous words of Torah. The entire time the stranger stood and stared and the Besht paid him no attention. Only when they finished the meal did the man approach the shoemaker and ask him if when they would be praying in the morning. Then he left.
"That man," said the shoemaker to the chasid, "is Professor Shlanger, one of the most anti-Semitic intellects in Germany."
The next morning, the professor returned and repeated the same performance and then left after the meal not to return again.
Shabbat ended and the Besht and his pupil bade farewell, boarded their wagon and in less than five hours were back at home. The chasid was burning with curiosity. "Who was the old man whose house we stopped at? Why did you drink a cup of water in the forest and what did we accomplish by spending Shabbat at the shoemaker's house?" he asked.
The Besht answered, "The old man is one of the hidden Tzadikim upon whom the world stands. He will be the first to know when Moshiach arrives and that is what we spoke about. We went into the forest because I saw that since the beginning of creation no one had ever made a blessing on the water in that brook. What we accomplished in the shoemaker's house you will know one day."
Twenty years later the chasid was in Minsk when a Jew stopped him. He asked if he was a pupil of the Besht and if he had ever visited Leipzig.
When the chasid answered affirmatively, the Jew said, "I was the professor who visited that Sabbath. At the time I was at a turning point in life and when I heard of how your teacher paralyzed those students I knew I had to see him.
He made such a profound effect on me that after a few months I disappeared from the university, moved to another country and converted to Judaism. I don't know how your master could possibly have known that a Jew-hater like me had the potential to become a Rabbi, but he did."
Adapted from www.orhtmimim.org/torah
