*****The Apta Rav causes many Yidden to do Teshuva with a powerful story*****
The saintly Torah-giant Rabbi Shmuel Shmelke Halevi Horovitz (1726-1778), spread his light to the world from the town of Nikolshburg and also served as the Chief Rabbi of Moravia.
Reb Shmelke zt"l was born in Chortikov, Galicia in 1726 to his father Reb Tzvi Hirsh zt"l, a close friend of the holy Baal Shem Tov. In their early years, Shmelke and his brother Reb Pinchas from Frankfurt (author of the Haflaah, Hamakneh, and the famous Panim Yafos on the Torah) studied Torah together for a long time. After traveling to Mezritch and meeting the great Chasidic master Rabbi Dov Ber the Maggid, they became his ardent Chasiddim.
The Apta Rav, Reb Avraham Yehoshua Heshel, and the Ohev Yisrael used to travel around and bring Yidden to do Teshuva. One of his trips brought him to the city of Mohilev, and a large crowd came to greet the Apta Rav. The Apta Rav told the group that his purpose in coming there was to meet Miriam, the sister of the holy brothers, and hear some stories from her brother Reb Shmelke. He urged the crowd to come along and listen. They went to the home of Miriam, where the crowd was welcomed. The Apta Rav sat at the table and asked Miriam to relate a story about Reb Shmelke’s toil in Torah.
Miriam began: “Reb Shmelke would not sleep much, as his love of Torah was phenomenal. He would learn for many hours and if he felt at some point he could not continue, he had an iron kettle prepared with ice-cold water in it. He would lay his head on the kettle and sleep for a few minutes. The cold of the kettle would cause him to wake up and he continued learning.
One time, he was learning a very complex and difficult passage from the Gemara discussing a specific issue and it kept him up for a few days. Late one night, he fought with himself not to sleep until he finished. This went on and he became very tired, and he placed the kettle under his head and hoped that he would sleep for a short while, and continue learning.
However, he was so tired and fell into a deep sleep, that the cold kettle, didn’t awaken him and he slept for a few hours. When he woke up, he saw that his candle was burnt out, and he would usually notice that the wick was getting low, and he would replace it. Now that he overslept and the candle burnt, it was dark and he could not continue to learn. This caused great heartache for my brother and being desperate for some fire to kindle the candle, he decided to go outside and search if someone would be walking in the street in the middle of the night.
Reb Shmelke lived on the top floor and in his agony decided to go onto the roof and look around, and to his delight, he saw a Yid walking, and my brother called to him to ask if he had fire, and the person answered that he indeed had fire. The Yid stretched out his hand and lit the candle for my brother, who was ecstatic and went back to his learning.
When my brother composed himself, he began to realize that something unusual had happened here. This Yid was on the ground and I was on the roof of the building, yet he stretched out his hand to the roof! This did not make sense! My brother began to think and prayed to Hashem to reveal to him what had happened there. He received the answer to the mystery: In heaven his Torah learning was so sweet to the angels, and when he overslept and the angels began to worry about what happened to his learning, and Hashem sent Eliyahu Hanavi with fire to light the candle so that the sweet Torah of Reb Shmelke should continue! When my brother learned that Hashem had to bother and send Eliyahu Hanavi to him, he became upset and decided he must do teshuva and began to fast for a few days! This was my brother Reb Shmelke!
The Apta Rav turned to the crowd and said: if this was considered a sin for Reb Shmelke and he did Teshuva on it, we cannot imagine, what he did if Chalila did a bigger sin. Now what should we say, when we transgress on big sins and it doesn’t even bother us, let alone to fast over it? The crowd understood the deep lession of the Apta Rav and began to cry and they all said that they will do Teshuva and rectify their lives.
The Apta Rav thanked Miriam for this inspirational story and he said farewell to the crowd and went on his way. The crowd now understood why the Apta Rav wanted them to come along, was to do Teshuva, and to learn a lession how a Rav toiled in his Torah learning.
