Besht (1)
When the Besht came to Medzibuz the town was full of opponents but they were great scholars.
The chief of the opponents was a wealthy Jew who had a daughter. The daughter became very ill and nothing the doctors tried to do helped.
Women came to his wife and advised her that they should go to the Besht – perhaps he would be able to help.
The wife convinced her husband to go to the Besht – but since he was ashamed before his friends – the opponents, he went to the Besht late at night.
He told the Besht about his daughter’s illness and the Besht did not say anything to him – except that he should go home and that he – the Besht will come to him tomorrow.
The Jew was in turmoil – on the one hand, he was ashamed before the group of opponents of which he was the chief – but at the same time he was afraid to tell the Besht not to come to his house. In the morning the Besht came to his home, went over to the sickbed, and blessed the daughter: “I bless you with a full recovery from heaven [gan eden]” and he went home. Since he was a wealthy man, the Jew always had at night two guards – when one went to sleep the other was awake, and every few hours the guards changed. The night after the day when the Besht had visited their home – the door opened in the middle of the night (even though the door was bolted) and a Jew entered – he looked like a wagon driver and in one hand he had a whip and in the other hand a flower. The Jew went over to the patient and said to her: “Smell this flower.” She obeyed him and the wagon driver promised her that tomorrow night he would come again.
The Jew became very afraid – he woke up the other guard and told him what had happened. But they immediately saw that there was a change for the better in the girl. In the morning they told the father what had happened – he no longer cared what the town’s opponents would say and he ran to the Besht and told him the story.
The Besht told him that ‘when the Jew comes again tonight tell him to come to me.’
That night was the same. The Jew came again – gave the girl the flower to smell and they saw that there was a change for the better. The father of the girl told the Jew what the Besht had asked and he left. In the morning the father went to the Besht and the Besht told him to sit and he told him who that Jew was: ‘The Jew was a wagon driver all his life –
Besht (2)
but a great sinner – he committed every sin in the world. He was once traveling in a forest with his wagon – and he saw a Jew hanging from a tree. He brought his wagon under the tree – cut the Jew down and fell into the hay wagon – he brought him to a village and they saved the Jew and he remained alive.
When the wagon driver died and came to the heavenly court all the maleficent angels came and showed that they were each created from this sin – another from that one.
But then the angel Gabriel himself came and told the story of how the wagon driver saved the Jew from certain death. They decided to place all the sins on one scale and the horse and wagon with which he had saved the Jew on the other scale – and it was even.
They did not know what to do – they couldn’t send him to hell – he did save a Jewish soul but neither [could they send him] to heaven – his sins cannot simply be dismissed. So they decided to make him a servant of Heaven – and when they need to send healing from heaven they send the wagon driver.’
The Besht concluded: ‘This was the Jew who visited your daughter.’
I.F.
Abraham Lipa Popik
Heard from R. Elazar Zohn
A Mezibuzer
