Rav Meilich Biderman related a story. Every year, on the seventh of Adar, which is the Yartzeit of Moshe Rebbeinu, the members of the Chevrah Kadishah have a custom to fast, and at nighttime they would gather for a special Seudah. The purpose of this fast is to atone for their Aveiros, in case they didn’t treat a person with the appropriate respect while preparing him or her for burial.
At this Seudah, speeches are given to encourage each other to be even more careful in the future with the Mitzvah of honoring the deceased. At one of these dinners in Yerushalayim, a speaker related the following story:
One Friday afternoon, a woman called the Chevrah Kadishah’s office and told the secretary that her husband had just passed away. The secretary told her that it was too close to Shabbos, and so the funeral will be held on Motza’ei Shabbos, immediately after Shabbos ended.
She said to the secretary, “My husband left a request. Immediately following his burial, he wants people to sing Bar Yochai over his fresh grave. The secretary said, “We will do that. If this is what your husband wanted, we will fulfill his wishes.”
During that Shabbos, a leading Torah scholar of the generation passed away. Thousands of people attended his Levayah, so the Levayah of the widow’s husband was deferred until after the Levayah of the Gadol. The Chevrah Kadishah wasn’t able to begin the Taharah for the body until late that night, and when they finally finished and were ready for the Levayah, it was already one o’clock in the morning.
By that time, there were only nine men still present to attend the second funeral. This couple never had any children, and they didn’t have much family either, and now, there wasn’t even a Minyan to escort this Yid on his final journey. One member of the Chevrah Kadishah went to a certain Bais Medresh where people learn around the clock, and searched for someone who was willing to join the Levayah. No one was available, other than a Maggid Shiur.
At first he said, “I came here to prepare a Shiur for tomorrow morning. Try to find someone else.” The Chevrah Kadishah man tried, but he soon returned saying that he couldn’t find anyone else at such an hour. So, the Maggid Shiur climbed into the Chevrah Kadishah’s van, to join them for this Mitzvah. After all, as he himself pointed out, the purpose of learning Torah is to learn in order to fulfill the Mitzvos.
The Levayah was completed at two o’clock in the morning, when the secretary remembered the deceased’s final request. “Does anyone have a Siddur with the Bar Yochai song, because the deceased asked that it should be sung over his fresh grave.” No one had a Siddur that had it.
“Does anyone know the song by heart?” No one did. One person commented, “Maybe I know it by heart, but at two o’clock in the morning, in the cold, on Har HaZeisim, I don’t know anything anymore.”
It seemed that the man’s final request could not be fulfilled. Just then, the Maggid Shiur remembered that he had the text with him. He took out a piece of paper from his pocket. It had Bar Yochai on it, and they all sang together.
On the way back, the Maggid Shiur told the Chevrah Kadishah the incredible Hashgachah Pratis, Divine Providence, that had just occurred. He said, “On Shabbos, I usually Daven Minchah early, in a Shul near my home. This week, I missed the early Minyan, so I went to Daven at a different Shul, which is further away from my house. As I was walking to that Shul with my son, he noticed a page of Sheimos on the ground, and pointed it out to me. I picked it up, intending to put it into a Sheimos box in the Shul, but I forgot to do that, so that page has been in my pocket until now. This is the page that has Bar Yochai on it!”
The other nine men in the van were all astonished at this wonderful demonstration of Hashgachah Pratis. Seeing their amazement, the Maggid Shiur added another detail. “That’s not all. I also usually learn in my house on Motza’ei Shabbos. Tonight, I needed to prepare a Shiur, but there was too much commotion in my house, and I couldn’t concentrate. That’s why I went to the Bais Medresh. If I had been at home as usual, you wouldn’t have found me to be the tenth man to make the Minyan.”
One man remarked, “If such a story would have happened to a Chassidic Rebbe, people would speak about it for generations.”
Another man wondered, “Well, perhaps this man was a hidden Tzadik.”
The secretary said, “I’ll check into exactly who he was tomorrow.” After several inquiries, he discovered that the deceased was a regular Yid. However, he would go to Meron on Erev Rosh Chodesh to Daven by Rav Shimon bar Yochai, and he also sang Bar Yochai before reciting Kiddush every Shabbos.”
The speaker concluded, “We learn from this episode to treat every deceased Jew with the utmost respect, because every Yid, even a simple one, is precious to Hashem. This is a story of an otherwise simple person, but Hashem performed miracles for him so that his final requests should be fulfilled, because every Yid is special to Hashem!”
Reprinted from the Parshas Mattos-Masei 5785 email of Rabbi Yehuda Winzelberg’s Torah U’Tefilah.
