At the home of the hailiger Baal Shem Tov they were getting ready for Shabbos. Friday, even before morning began, one could feel the kedushah of Shabbos coming close. The preparations were great. One Friday, the Baal Shem Tov asked that they call his two choshuver talmidim Harav Hakadosh Reb Dovid Leikes, and Harav Hakadosh Reb Dovid Mikolaiber. The two immediately came to the Baal Shem Tov.
“Prepare yourselves for a distant trip,” the Baal Shem Tov told them. “We are sending you to a certain town to spend Shabbos. Take along Shabbosdiger clothing. There will be food there. You must be back here for in time for Melaveh Malkah Motza Shabbos.”
Alexei, the Baal Shem Tov’s wagon driver, prepared the horse for the long trip, and the two tzaddikim sat themselves in the wagon, not knowing their destination, or even in which direction they would be traveling. The wagon driver turned his back to the horse, as he was used to doing, and let the horse go on its own. This was the way they traveled to where their mission was to be.
The two tzaddikim saw mountains, valleys, houses, trees, forests, as they traveled through with קפיצת הדרך, but they appeared like clouds, floating like smoke across a blue sky. The horse flew hundreds of miles, as if on wings. In a short time, perhaps two hours, the horse arrived at a small town of people the tzaddikim were unfamiliar with. The horse pulled up at the door to a house they didn’t recognize. Alexei, who had fallen asleep during the journey, suddenly awoke from his nap, and got down off the wagon, and asked, “Who lives in this house that the horse brought us to?” But no one knew the answer.
Alexei knocked on the door of the house, and a choshuver-looking Yid with a great, white beard came out. They assumed he was the Rov of the town. Alexei told him, “I have brought two choshuver guests that wish to come in and see the Rov. May I bring them in?
“Certainly!” said the Rov. And the two tzaddikim entered the house.
“Sholom Alaichem!” said the Rov to them. “Where do such choshuver Yidden come from? And how can I help you?”
“We are two Yidden from Mezhibuzh.”
“Where is the town of Mezhibuzh?” asked the Rov.
[The Brachah in Shtub says that they answered “Polesia.” Except that Mezhibuzh was not in Polesia. It was in Proskorov, which is today called Khmelnytskyi (yimach sh’moi vizichroi). And when the Rov asked where that is, they then said that Polesia is in Russia, but they couldn’t have said that because it’s not. It’s in the Ukraine, and so was Proskorov. So, despite what the Brachah in Shtub says, the Baal Shem Tov lived in the Ukraine, not in Russia. Thank you to my brother Dov for his help in this matter.]
“I don’t recognize that name either,” said the Rov.
At this point, the two tzaddikim figured out that they were indeed very far from home. In those days, before telephones and telegraphs, there were very few connections or conversations from one end of the world to any other. [And the mail was not very reliable either.] People at one end of the world knew nothing at all about people at the other end.
They also understood that they had better not tell the Rov that they had come that very day all the way from Mezhibuzh, or he would suspect them of being not right in the head. So they didn’t answer the Rov when he asked them when they had left Mezhibuzh. After all, it didn’t really make a difference when they left Mezhibuzh. Instead, when the Rov asked, they changed the subject and asked him if they could stay as his guests for Shabbos.
“My home is open to you,” answered the Rov. “You can sleep in that room there. You will find beds and all you need there, and you can make your preparations for Shabbos there. I will also find a place for the goyisher driver, and for the horses.”
The two talmidei HaBaal Shem Tov began to prepare for Shabbos with their usual bren. They went to the mikvah, and when they came out you could see their faces shining from kedushas Shabbos. The people of the village were astounded to see their faces. Yidden gave them warm greetings of Sholom Aleichem, and each wanted them as guests for Shabbos. But they had to refuse all invitations, explaining that they were guests of the Rov.
Friday, after licht tzindin, the two guests came into shul. One of them, on his own, went to the amud and led the daavening. He began with “Hodu” like the Baal Shem Tov originated. [After the incident that occurred to the Baal Shem Tov in Istanbul, the Baal Shem Tov instituted the saying of “Hodu” every Friday before Minchah.]
At first, the oilam looked at this with astonishment and dislike. They believed it to be a chutzpah for a guest to go to the amud on his own authority, without being asked to by the gabbai. But when he brought such a pleasantness into the daavening, such a warmth and sweetness, all the mispallelim came to him after daavening and asked him to daaven before the amud again the next day.
The entire Shabbos was an uplifting, elevated, Shabbos, and the Rov heard from his guests an entire new world—that of chassidus—a whole new derech of avoidah. They told him a great deal about their Rebbe, the hailiger Baal Shem Tov, zechusoi yagain Alainu, and about his hailiger derech. The Rov listened with fascination and admiration. This took place by each of the three סעודות of Shabbos.
As soon as Shabbos was over, the two talmidim of the Baal Shem Tov started to prepare to travel back to Mezhibuzh, as the Baal Shem Tov had instructed them. He had instructed them to return for Melaveh Malkah, and they were ready to do so.
When the rov saw that they were getting ready to leave, he asked them why they were hurrying. “What’s the rush?” he asked them. “Where can you go at night, especially when you have to travel for months to get home? What difference can one night make?”
“No!” they answered. “We hope to be tonight at Melaveh Malkah with the Rebbe in Mezhibuzh.”
The Rov was surprised. He didn’t know if he should laugh at them or not, and he asked them, “Are you making fun of me?”
“No! Chas v’sholom!” came the answer from the two tzaddikim. “We are serious. Friday we also arrived here with קפיצת הדרך.” And they told him about the wondrous deeds that their Rebbe performed, how he sends them with his wagon to accomplish certain tasks, and how they arrive at the most distant places in such short times.
“If that’s so,” said the Rov, “I want to visit this great tzaddik and see him with my own eyes. I am coming with you.”
“Emes!” said the two talmidim. “We can take you to our Rebbe, and at tonight’s seudas Melaveh Malkah you can see him. But the question is, how will you come home afterwards? You have to consider that your way home can take you several weeks, and you will have to travel through dangerous ways, deserts and forests. It is a big סכנה.”
“The excitement and desire I have to be zoicheh to see your Rebbe is great!” said the Rov. “At this moment, my intention and my entire thought is to see him, and I’m not thinking about my way home right now. I hope that the tzaddik will arrange for me to come home quickly.”
The Rov took his tallis and tefillin, and said goodbye to his family. He told them he was traveling to see a tzaddik, and he didn’t know when he would be back.
Alexei brought the horse and wagon to the door of the house, and in the light of the moon all three people got settled in the wagon. Then the driver sat down with his back to the horse, and the horse began to run. It ran over mountains and valleys. In the darkness, they could see the moon and stars flying through the sky like sparks from a fire.
In a few hours, they had come to the hailiger Baal Shem Tov, as he was getting ready to wash his hands for Melaveh Malkah. He stood and waited for his talmidim as they returned from their mission.
The talmidim and the Rov came in, and the two tzaddikim presented the Rov of the town to the Baal Shem Tov. The Baal Shem Hakadosh thanked them warmly, and the talmidim then understood that the entire purpose of their journey had been to bring the Rov to the Baal Shem Tov, and they were very happy they had fulfilled their mission.
During the entire seudah of Melaveh Malkah the Baal Shem Tov spoke about, and told stories about, Emunah P’shutah, emunah without deep thought into it. אמונה פשוטה is knowing that Hashem is running everything in the universe, even without seeing it or feeling it. The Baal Shem Tov spoke about how we must believe in the Bashefer Yisborach Shmoi and in His ways, in שכר and עונש, in תחיית המתים, in ביאת המשיח, all through Emunah P’shutah, without thinking into it, without “investigating,” simply “believing because I believe.” ויאמינו בה' ובמשה עבדו, “and they believed in Hashem and in Moshe His servant.”
The Melaveh Malkah took a long time. When it was over, the Rov went over to the hailiger Baal Shem Tov and said to him, “Boruch Hashem that He was mezakeh me to see what I saw tonight and hear what I heard tonight. My eyes have been lit up tonight. I saw a whole new world, and I heard new things, and all that will serve me well. But now the question comes up: how will I get home? I knew when I came here that it was far away from where I live, and that I came here only through קפיצת הדרך, which comes from Emunas Hashem and Emunah in His tzaddikim, and also strengthens these types of Emunah. But how do I get back?”
The two tzaddikim also asked the Baal Shem Tov, “How do we bring the Rov back home?”
The Baal Shem Tov said to his talmidim, “Don’t worry. He will be home tomorrow.”
The Baal Shem Tov then asked the Rov to see him privately, in יחידות. He instructed the Rov to write a צוואה, a will, to give to his family and to the people of his town. He told the Rov to prepare because soon he will be leaving this world.
The Baal Shem Tov designated a room for the Rov, where the Rov went to sleep.
In the morning, at Shacharis, the Rov did not appear. The two tzaddikim who brought him there felt an obligation to wake him up. They assumed he was tired, and therefore overslept. They went to his room and knocked on the door. When they got no answer, they opened the door. They discovered the Rov was sleeping his eternal sleep. He had, the previous night, sent his neshomoh back to himmel, and returned it to the Bashefer.
“Oy, gevald!” they cried out. “What happened here?” And crying out, they ran to their Rebbe, the Baal Shem Hakadosh, and told him what had occurred.
The Baal Shem Tov took the news without getting upset, as if he expected it, and instructed them to prepare to make a levayah after daavening.
The Talmidim couldn’t understand. They expected the Baal Shem Tov to get scared and to run to the body and see for himself, and maybe be מחיה מתים, especially when he had guaranteed the Rov that tomorrow he would be home.
But that was not the time to ask questions. That was the time to obey the Rebbe and prepare a big, mechubadiger levayah for the choshuver niftar.
After daavening, there was a big levayah in Mezhibuzh. The Baal Shem Tov and his talmidim all came to the levayah. Seeing that, who in town would stay at home and not also come to the levayah?
The hailiger Baal Shem Tov buried the Rov, and on his way back home after the levayah spoke to his talmidim about this strange and wondrous matter.
“The choshuver Rov has come down to this world three times already. The first two times he was, as it happens, an erlicher Yid, and he lived a Yiddisher life and went in the right path. Except for one thing: his emunah was through investigation and deep thought. He did not have Emunah P’shutah, which is the way of Chassidus. Because of that, the בעל דבר, the yetzer hara, was able to get a hold of him and brought him to כפירה, apikorsus, in the last few minutes of his life. That way, he lost all the work of his life, like it says in the Gemara (Kiddushin 40b):
ר"ש בן יוחי אומר: אפילו צדיק גמור כל ימיו ומרד באחרונה ־ איבד את הראשונות, שנאמר: (יחזקאל לג:י"ב) צדקת הצדיק לא תצילנו ביום פשעוֹ, “Rebbi Shimon ben Yochai says, Even if a man was a tzaddik gamor all his life, but he rebels at the end of his life, he loses all the good he did earlier, as it says (Yechezkel 33:12) ‘The righteousness of the righteous will not save him on the day he sins.’”
“Because of that, he had to come down to this world a second time, and later a third time.
“We saw,” continued the hailiger Baal Shem Tov, “that the Rov was at the end of his life, he was at his last days, and he still had not come to the madreigah of Emunah P’shutah. We were afraid the בעל דבר would grab him again at the last minutes of his life. So we sent out our two talmidim on a mission to bring him here, so that he could see and hear about Emunah P’shutah without “investigations” and “deep thought.” He heard about this at the last minutes of his life, and he accepted and embraced it seriously and wholeheartedly. So it was that he sent up his neshomoh to himmel with a complete and clear emunah in Hashem and in His servant Moshe, and so he came to a complete tikun (repairing). Happy is he, that all his actions are now complete and pure!
