Shaketz Tishkatzenu:
Sefer Bais Shmuel (page 70) relates the following story in the name of Rav Dovid of Chernobyl’s grandson, Rav Boruch Bentzion of Yozipof zt”l, who heard it from Rav Dovid’s shamash of 40 years, R’ Levik:
Rav Dovid used to spend three weeks every year with his chasidim in Zhitomir. One year, one of the chasidim, who worked as a silversmith, brought him a valuable silver cup as a gift. The shamash put the cup amongst the other gifts that had been brought for the Rebbe.
The first night after returning to Chernobyl, the Rebbe woke up the shamash in the middle of the night and said, “Levik, I can’t sleep!” He ordered him to bring him the silver cup he had received in Zhitomir. Although he was very tired. Levik ran to do as the Rebbe asked.
The Rebbe took the cup in his hands and asked the shamash to bring him an ax. He then smashed the cup into tiny pieces and walked with the shamash to the Dnieper River, which was located right outside Chernobyl. He said, “Shaketz tishaketzenu ki cherem hu”, and threw the pieces of silver into the river. He then went home and went to sleep.
A few days later, the silversmith came to Chernobyl in a hurry. He told the shamash that the local priest had brought him a cup from his church to repair. He had accidentally given that cup to the Rebbe. He now was bringing a different beautiful cup to switch it with, and he asked for the other cup back so that he could return it to the priest. The two of them went in to the Rebbe, who told him that the priest’s cup was at the bottom of the river and he should pay him back some other way and tell him that he had lost it.
