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BAAL SHEM TOV STORY
Following the Weekly Torah Reading
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THE PASSING
VAYELECH
"The time is now approaching for you to die."
Vayelech 31:14
Following the revelation of Rabbi
Israel ben Eliezer,
the Baal Shem Tov,
as a great Jewish leader and mystic, many of the
Jewish community, especially in Poland, became his
followers, and students of the Chassidic path of
Judaism. The time arrived all too soon of the Baal
Shem Tov's passing to the next world.
For the Passover of 1760, Rabbi Pinchas of
Koretz,
came to visit his Rebbe, the Baal Shem Tov. On the
eve of the seventh day of Passover,
Rabbi Pinchas was feeling weak and decided not to
go to the Mikveh as was his custom.
The
next day
during his morning prayers, he had a premonition that
the Baal Shem Tov would soon pass away. Rabbi
Pinchas began to daven (pray) more intensely,
begging that the Heavenly decree against the Baal
Shem Tov be lifted. But he felt that he was unable to
affect the decree and started to deeply regret that he
had not gone to the mikveh that morning.
Coincidently, after morning prayers, the Baal
Shem
Tov asked Reb Pinchas if he had gone to the mikveh
on the previous day. When he answered he had not,
the Baal Shem Tov replied, "It's too late to correct that
now."
After Passover, the Baal Shem Tov fell ill. However,
he
did not tell his followers and continued to pray before
the ark. While he might have told his close followers,
who were able to effect changes with their prayers,
instead he sent them on missions to other
communities. Rabbi Pinchas, knowing of the
Heavenly decree against the Baal Shem Tov did not
return to his home but stayed with the Baal Shem
Tov.
On the evening of Shavuos, all of the
followers of the
Baal Shem Tov gathered with him to spend the night
learning Torah, as is the custom. The Baal Shem Tov
expounded on the Torah portion of the week and the
meaning of Shavuos. In the morning, he sent for his
closest followers to gather in his room. He told Rabbi
Leib Kessler and several others to arrange for his
burial. Because they were members of the funeral
society and were knowledgeable in signs of illness,
he showed them the signs on his body and explained
how the soul emanates from each part.
Then, he told them to gather a minyan to pray with
him.
Before they
began, he said, "Soon I shall be with the Holy One,
blessed be He."
After the prayers, Rabbi Nachman of
Horodenka went
to the Beis Medrash to pray for the Baal Shem Tov.
Later, the Baal Shem Tov said, "He petitions in vain.
Maybe if he could have entered in the Heavenly gate
where I was accustomed to enter, his prayers would
have helped."
At that moment the soul of a dead man came
to the
Baal Shem Tov asking for redemption. The Baal
Shem Tov rebuked him, saying: "For eighty years you
have wandered, and you have not bothered to come
until the day of my parting from this world. Go away
you rasha (wicked person)."
Then the Baal
Shem
then told his gabbai (custodian of the shule) what had
just happened. He told him, "Go quickly and tell
everyone to stay away from the road because I
angered that soul and he may hurt someone."
Before
the gabbai had a chance to warn everyone, the soul
had already injured a girl, the daughter of the
shammash.
When the gabbai returned to report what
happened,
he heard the Baal Shem Tov saying, "I grant you these
two hours. Do not torture me."
The gabbai asked, "Rebbe, who are you
talking to?"
The Baal Shem Tov answered, "Don't you
see the
Angel of Death? Before, he always ran from me. As
people said, 'I banished him to where black peppers
grow.' Now that he has been given control over me,
he stands straighter and laughs at me."
In the afternoon, after morning prayers, the
town's
people who did not know of the Baal Shem Tov's
condition, came to see him. As always, he delivered a
discourse of Torah to them.
Later, during the
Yom Tov
meal, he asked his gabbai to put mead in a large
glass. Instead, the gabbai put it in a small glass. The
Baal Shem Tov quipped, "Man has no power on the
day of death, even the gabbai does not obey me."
Then he said, "Until now I have done favors for you.
Now you will do a favor for me."
All of the close disciples were sitting in the
room of
the
Baal Shem Tov while he lay in his bed. He gave them
a sign. "My friends, when I leave this world, both
clocks in this room will stop."
His followers
saw the
hands of the big clock stop while he washed his
hands. They stood in front of the clock so that the
Baal
Shem wouldn't see that the clock had stopped.
He
said to them, "My friends, I am not concerned for
myself because l know that when I leave through the
door of this world, I'll immediately enter into the door
of the next world."
The Baal Shem Tov then sat up in his bed and told
them to gather around him. He spoke Torah
explaining about the column on which one ascends
from lower paradise to upper paradise, and how this
was so in each of the four worlds. Then he described
the world of the souls, and expounded the order of
worship. He instructed them to say with him, "Let the
pleasantness of the Lord our God be upon us."
He
lay
down and sat up several times. Meanwhile he
concentrated on mystical kavanos (intentions) until
they could not distinguish the syllables of his speech.
Finally he lay down and told them to cover him with a
sheet. Then he began to tremble as when he said the
eighteen benedictions. Slowly he became quiet and
they saw that the small clock had stopped. They
waited for a long time but he didn't move. Then they
put a feather under his nose to detect his breathing,
and then realized that he had passed away.
Rabbi Jacob, of the holy community of
Medzibush,
reported that Rabbi Leib Kessler saw the departure of
his soul as a blue flame.
And so it was.
Freely adapted by Tzvi Meir HaCohane (Howard M.
Cohn. Patent Attorney) from a story in SHIVCHEI
HABESHT and translated IN PRAISE OF THE BAAL
SHEM TOV by Mintz and Ben Amos.
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TORAH BAAL SHEM TOV
Selection from Sefer Baal Shem Tov on the Torah
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Then My anger shall bun against them on
that
day,
and I will forsake them, and I will hide My face from
them, and they shall be devoured . . . .(Deuteronomy
31:17)
The Baal Shem Tov told the following parable:
A king once
ordered [his servant] to strike and punish his son, the
prince, for sinning. However, as long as the king was
watching, the servant was too scared to do anything -
despite the fact that the king had commanded him.
What did the king do? He hid his face so as not to
look. Then the servant was able to strike the son, until
he repented and cried out to his father.
So too, as long as G·d looks over
His
children Israel, the Forces of Judgment cannot affect
them. For we are called children of Hashem. Thus it
says: "I will hide My face from them, and they shall be
devoured."
Rav Yibei, Tehilim
17
Translation and Commentary by Rabbi Dr. Eliezer
Shore
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THE PILLAR OF PRAYER
The Baal Shem Tov's Teachings on Prayer
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Section 84
When you pray, imagine that G·d is enclothed
in the
letters. Meaning, we do not know what a person thinks
until he speaks. It comes out that speech is a
garment for thought.1
You should say in your heart: "If I am making a
garment for such an exalted King, it is only proper that
I do so joyfully." Then speak with all of your might, for
through this, you enter into union with Him. Because
your strength is in the letter, and G·d dwells
within the
letter. It turns out that you are united with Him, may
His Name be blessed.
Tzava'as HaRivash, p.13a
1Just as it is impossible to know what
is in a person's
thoughts until he expresses them in words, so we
cannot perceive G·d except through the
Hebrew letters
that are the underlying building-blocks of reality.
Translation and Commentary by Rabbi Dr.
Eliezer Shore
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THE LIGHT OF THE EYES
On the Greatness of the Baal Shem Tov
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Section 21
The Baal Shem Tov had one
disciple [who was so great] that anyone who came
within four feet of him when he prayed would die,
because of the great holiness of the Shechinah that
rested upon him.
From the personal manuscripts of Rabbi Yitzchok
Isaac of Komarna
Translation and Commentary by Rabbi Dr.
Eliezer Shore
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KESER SHEM TOV
Anthology of the Teachings of the Baal Shem Tov
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Section 111
The Baal Shem Tov taught:1
One should know the secret of G·d's
Oneness. That by, in any way in which one holds on to
a portion of the
Oneness, one is holding on to the entire Oneness.
Therefore, being that the Torah and its
commandments
emerged from G·d's essence, which is the
Ultimate Oneness, when one observes a single
commandment properly, i.e., with love - which
is "becoming one" with G·d - one is holding
on by way
of this commandment to a "portion" of the Oneness.
And the entire Oneness is in his hands as if
he
had observed all the commandments, which
represent the totality of G·d's
Oneness.2
Similarly, when one is overtaken with joy, one
should "become one" with G·d's joy, which is
the
source of all joy.
1Toldoth Yaakov Yoseph, Yithro
55b.
2Maimonides makes a
similar statement in his Commentary on the Mishnah
(end of Tractate Makkoth), saying, "It is one of the
fundamental tenets of the Torah that if a person fulfills
one single commandment properly, without having
any ulterior motive at all involved, but rather
performing
it simply out of love, that person thereby earns eternal
life. Therefore, Rabbi Chananiah taught, 'G·d
wanted
to provide the Jewish people with opportunity for merit,
therefore, he gave them a lot of Torah and many
commandments,' for due to the abundance of
commandments, it is impossible that a person would
not perform throughout his lifetime at least one
commandment properly, thereby earning his eternity
through that act." And perhaps the Maimonides and
the Baal Shem Tov are speaking about one and the
same concept, and the love about which the
Maimonides speaks is the Oneness about which the
Baal Shem Tov speaks.
Translation and Commentary by Rabbi
Yehoshua
Starrett
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