There was once a Jewish mother who came to the great Maggid on Erev Shabbos, bitterly crying over her son who had decided to forsake his people and his faith and to convert to Christianity. “He was always such a good student, so smart and learned,” she sobbed. Too smart for his own good it seems. At that point the priests, having decided to ensure their young charge had no chance to have a change of heart, had already taken the necessary precautions to keep the lad away from anyone such as meddling relatives who might try to rescue him from their clutches. In order to further their nefarious goals, they simply locked him up in one of their church complexes, and held him captive until his actual conversion ceremony, which they were planning for the very next Sunday.
The Maggid gathered his talmidim and sent the grieving mother home to rest and await the happy reunion with her son. When the talmidim arrived, the Maggid surprised them by beginning to expound before them a derosha (discourse) explaining the pasuk, nefesh ki sechta – “if a soul shall sin”. The talmidim wondered as to the reason for this sudden derush, but no explanation was forthcoming from their Rebbe. In fact, the Tzaddik reconvened their gathering four times that Erev Shabbos, each time offering new insights on the same pasuk. Finally, on Shabbos itself, the Maggid offered yet another derush on this pasuk before his talmidim, again and again, a total of three more times. When the Maggid concluded his seventh derosha, his Divrei Torah were followed by a strong gust of wind. The wind grew to hurricane- and tornado-like proportions, strong enough to break mountains and smash rocks and boulders. Following the aftermath of the wind came the young lad, who, until just recently, had been a prisoner under lock and key awaiting conversion.
The confused lad began his story to explain how he had escaped:
“For some reason, all of a sudden I was seized with doubts about my resolve to leave Yiddishkeit. My conscience began to bother me until my doubts grew and my decision to convert out of the Jewish faith was shaken to its very core! I came to my senses and decided to remain a Jew, but how to escape? The priests had locked me up to ensure against just such a possibility. I tried the door but it was locked. I tried to pick the lock with no success. I attempted to break the door down but it was too solid, and so I simply resigned myself to sit and wait until morning; when they opened my door I planned to run away and escape. However, my thoughts constantly tortured me – what had I done? What had I been thinking? How could I ever have wanted to convert and desert my faith? These thoughts gave me no respite and I began to despise myself and my life. I tried desperately to break down the door but it was simply impossible, and I wept and sobbed in misery at my predicament and at my wretched life.
“I made up my mind to end it all and so I climbed up onto the window ledge and squeezed myself out between the iron bars – and jumped. As I fell, a strong gust of wind blew and miraculously saved me and brought me here.”
When the young boy concluded his tale, the talmidim understood just how far-seeing and far-reaching their Rebbe was, and how, with his Torah, the Maggid had saved this boy. (Eser Oros 1:9)
