Rav Sholom of Kaminka had a unique custom before Pesach: he would inspect each matza individually to decide if it was fit for consumption. He accomplished this wondrous feat by taking each matza in hand and turning it round and round, inspecting every nook and cranny until he was either satisfied or dissatisfied. Before him stood two piles of matzos; onto the reject pile went each matza that Rav Sholom rejected with a cry of, “Rosha! – Wicked one!” and he would discard those matzos he had found unfit. Somehow, he had seen how it had been kneaded, rolled out and baked by someone whom he deemed a Rosha. Those matzos prepared and baked by someone whom Rav Sholom held in high regard were accepted and added to the pile of matzos known as Tzaddikim.
This wondrous work was watched by a throng of amazed Chassidim. But no one was as amazed as Rav Yehoshiele, Rav Sholom Kaminker’s son. This was because he knew who had in fact kneaded, rolled and baked the matzos that his holy father was even now inspecting, rejecting or accepting, and he was dumbfounded by his father’s obvious Ruach HaKodesh (divine insight). For he, Rav Yehoshiele, had marked those matzos that were baked by someone highly regarded in the community as a righteous figure, with a small triangular indentation. This man was held in high esteem by all and was known to be a man of stature who engaged in fasts, hisbodedus (seclusion and isolation) and was always taking upon himself some penance or stricture – in short he was well known as a frummer, a highly pious and religious individual, yet his matzos were summarily rejected as Rav Sholom pronounced on each of them, “Rosha!” and heaped them onto the pile of rejects.
Those matzos, however, baked by some happy-go-lucky friendly, smiling, congenial guy, who well known as a light-headed individual and a so-called good-for-nothing, always seen befriending everyone and “wasting his time” – those matzos Rav Yehoshiele had marked with a circular impression, and here his father pronounced each one a Tzaddik, and sorted them onto the pile of matzos he would personally eat during Pesach! This is how he saw his father’s true Ruach HaKodesh manifest and why his father rejected the so-called frummers, whose dark, depressed ways he despised over the simcha of the poshut Yidden whose derech he approved of. (Ohev Sholom p. 114)
