Sefer Kisvei Ri Shub quotes Rav Mordechai Chaim of Slonim zy”a as relating that a distinguished man once visited Rav Zushe. That night, he slept near the house’s entrance. He saw a man enter the house whose face shone like the sun. His countenance was so bright that it lit up the entire house.
The man went to Rav Zusha’s room and stayed there for several hours. He then walked back through the house, and it was again filled entirely with his light. Rav Zusha accompanied him to the entrance. On his way back, Rav Zusha bowed to his guest and asked him, “Are you asleep?” He replied, “No.” Rav Zusha said to him, “Do you know who was here?” He answered that he saw the man but did not know who he was. Rav Zusha told him, “That was my brother, Rav Elimelech, who came from the World of Truth!” He added, “It is a chiddush! I guided him toward the tzadikim, and now he is greater than me!”
Rav Zushe then related that at first, he had been a simple young man, and he asked Torah scholars what he could do to improve his performance of mitzvos in order to bring pleasure to Hashem. They told him that he should fulfill the mitzvah of visiting the sick, so he went to the hospital to serve the sick people there. Afterwards, they told him that he should take on to do the mitzvah of saying Tikkun Chatzos. So, he would rise at midnight to do this.
Later, he asked what he could do to subdue the power of the desire for material pleasures and to strengthen the power of the neshama. He began to afflict himself by going into the forest and allowing vicious fire ants to bite him. He suffered from this for a long time, and when he completed this work, he reached a very high level. From that point on, whenever he looked at a person, he immediately perceived what they were thinking and what their essence was.
He then decided to go see his brother, Rav Elimelech, and to help him rectify his soul. He found him engaging in learned discussions with other lomdim on the Rambam and Tosafos. Rav Elimelech then davened Minchah. Afterwards, Rav Zushe said to him, “It is disgraceful that during the entire Shemonah Esrei, my brother was thinking about how to understand the Rambam and Tosafos!” He then told him exactly what he concluded as p’shat in the Rambam and Tosafos while he was davening.
Rav Elimelech asked him how he knew all this, and Rav Zushe told him, “Let me show you!” He took him to the forest, where Rav Elimelech saw that the ants did not bite Rav Zushe, although they bit him. Rav Zushe davened to Hashem that the ants should bite him too, so as not to shame his brother, and they did.
Rav Zushe concluded, “I got him started, but now he is greater than me!”
