Torrents of rain beat down on his face, but
the tempest did not prevent chassidic master Rabbi Leib Sarah's from reaching
the village. It was only several hours before the beginning of Yom Kippur.
He was some distance from his intended destination, but he was relieved
to learn that in this village too there would be a minyan (quorum of ten) with
which to pray--eight local villagers would be joined by two men who
lived in the nearby forest.
Rabbi Leib immersed himself in the purifying waters
of a river which ran by the village in preparation for the holy day, ate the meal which precedes
the fast, and hastened to be the first in the little wooden synagogue.
There he settled down to recite the various private devotions with
which he was accustomed to inaugurate the Day of Atonement.
For a few long, long moments they stood in silence face to face, the tzaddik and the apostate...
One by one the eight local villagers arrived in time to hear the
words of Kol Nidrei. Together with Rabbi Leib there were now nine.
But there was no minyan, for it
transpired that the two Jewish foresters had been imprisoned on some
malicious libel.
"Perhaps we could find just one more Jew living around these
parts?" asked Rabbi Leib.
"No." the villagers all assured him, "there's only
us."
"Perhaps," he persisted, "there lives here some Jew
who converted out of the faith of his fathers?"
The villagers were shocked to hear such an odd question from the
stranger. They looked upon him quizzically.
"The doors of repentance are not locked even in the face of
an apostate," Rabbi Leib continued. "I have heard from my
teachers that even when one poles about in the ashes one can light
upon a spark of fire..."
One of the villagers now spoke up.
"There is one apostate here," he ventured. "He is
our paritz, the squire who owns this whole village. But he
has been sunk in sin for forty years now. You see, the gentile daughter
of the previous squire fell in love with him. So her father promised
him that if he converted and married the girl, he would make him his
sole heir. He didn't withstand the temptation, so he did exactly that.... They
had no children, and his wife died many years ago; he now lives alone in his
great big house. He is a cruel master, and deals especially harshly with the
Jews on his land."
"Show me his mansion," said Rabbi Leib.
He removed his tallit in a flash, and ran as fast as he could
in the direction of the mansion, with his white skullcap on his head
and his white kittel billowing in the wind. He knocked on the
heavy door, opened it without waiting for a response, and found himself
confronting the squire. For a few long, long moments they stood in
silence face to face, the tzaddik and the apostate. The latter's
first thought was to summon one of his henchmen to seize the uninvited
intruder and hurl him into the dungeon in the back yard. But the luminous
countenance and the penetrating eyes of the tzaddik softened
his heart.
"My name is Leib Sarah's," began the visitor. "It
was my privilege to know Rabbi Israel, the Baal Shem Tov, who was admired
also by the gentile noblemen. From his mouth I once heard that every
Jew should utter the sort of prayer that was first said by King David:
'Save me, O Lord, from blood-guilt.' But the word used for 'blood'
(damim) can also be translated as 'money.' So my teacher expounded the verse
as follows: 'Save me, so that I should never regard money as
my Lord...'
"Now my mother, whose name was Sarah, was a holy woman. One
day the son of one of the local gentry took it into his head to marry
her, and promised her wealth and status if she would agree, but she
sanctified the name of Israel. In order to save herself from that
villain she quickly got married to an old Jewish pauper who was a
schoolteacher. You did not have the good fortune to withstand the
test, and for silver and gold you were willing to betray your faith. Realize,
though, that there is nothing that can stand in the way of repentance.
Moreover, there are those who in one hour earn their portion in the
world to Come. Now is that hour! Today is the eve of Yom Kippur.
The sun will soon set. The Jews who live in your village are short
one man to make up a minyan. Come along now with me, and be
the tenth man. For the Torah tells us: 'The tenth shall be holy unto
G-d.'"
"By the sanction of the Almighty, and by the sanction of the congregation, we declare it permissible to pray together with those who have sinned..."
The squire paled at the words spoken by this white-clothed man with the singular
face. And meanwhile, down the road, the
eight local villagers waited in shul, huddled together in frozen
dread. Who could tell what calamity this odd stranger was about to
bring down upon their heads?
The door burst open, and in rushed Rabbi Leib, followed closely by
the paritz. The latter's gaze was downcast, and his eyelashes
were heavy with tears. At a sign from Rabbi Leib, one of the villagers
handed the apostate a tallit. He enveloped himself in it, covering
his head and face entirely. Rabbi Leib now stepped forward to the Holy
Ark, and took out two scrolls of the Torah. One he gave to the oldest
villager present, and the other--to the paritz. Between them
at the bimah stood Rabbi Leib, and he began to solemnly chant
the traditional opening lines of the Kol Nidrei
prayer: "By the sanction of the Almighty, and by
the sanction of the congregation, ...we declare it permissible to
pray together with those who have sinned...."
A deep sigh broke forth from the depths of the broken man's heart.
No man there could stand unmoved, and they all wept with him. Throughout
all the prayers of the evening, and from dawn of the next day right
until nightfall, the paritz stood in prayer, humbled and contrite.
And as his sobs shook his whole body as he recited the confession,
the other nine shuddered with him.
At the climax of the Neilah service, when the congregation
was about to utter together the words Shema Yisrael, the paritz
leaned forward until his head was deep inside the Holy Ark, embraced
the Torah Scrolls that stood there, and in a mighty voice that petrified
those present cried out: "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our G-d,
the Lord is One!" He then stood up straight, and began to declare
with all his might: "The Lord is G-d!" With each repetition
his voice grew louder. Finally, as he cried it out for the seventh
time, his soul flew from his body.
That same night they brought the remains of the paritz to
burial in the nearby town. Rabbi Leib himself took part in the purification
and preparation of the body for burial, and for the rest of his life
observed the yahrzeit of this penitent every Yom Kippur by
saying kaddish for the elevation of his soul.
Biographical note:
Rabbi Leib Sarah's (1730-1796) lived a solitary
life of wandering, in which he devoted himself to the great mitzvah
of redeeming Jewish captives. He was held in great esteem
by the Baal Shem Tov, founder of the Chassidic movement.
