The Rabbi of Sokol, the Ramraz, was the elder Belzer Rebbe’s father-in-law. He was a mitnaged [=an opponent] and a great man and the Belzer attended his lessons. The Belzer was fifteen when he got married. The preacher of the town was R. Solomon Lutzker who was not only a disciple of the Magid but his personal assistant – his scribe and secretary.
The Belzer once passed the house of R. Solomon Lutzker and he called him in: “Young man, I like you and would like to teach you Hasidism and Kabbalah” and the Belzer agreed. However, since his father-in-law, the Ramraz was a mitnaged [an opponent] it had to be in secret and it ended up that R. Solomon taught him his lessons in Hasidism at twelve o’clock at night. His father-in-law’s lesson began at five in the morning and since the Belzer got home from R. Solomon’s lesson at three or four at night he hardly slept, and it happened that he fell asleep during his father-in-law’s lesson. This bothered Ramraz very much and he was very ashamed of his son-in-law. It went so far that he told his daughter that his son-in-law was embarrassing him and that it would be proper to divorce him. The Belzer’s wife knew about his
midnight lessons but she did not wish to tell her father about them.
This went on for a while. The Belzer studied at night with R. Solomon Lutzker and would often fall asleep in exhaustion at his father-in-law’s lessons. The Ramraz was terribly embarrassed before the other students. He therefore began to strongly pester his daughter to divorce her husband. She was therefore forced to tell her father about her husband’s lessons and she also told him about his great righteousness and his worship. From then on, Ramraz let him be and allowed him to follow the path of Hasidism.
I.F.
Sanzer Rebbe
