"I Couldn't Protest but Rabbi Baruch Told Me the Truth"

A story passed down through the tradition of Breslov Chassidut, which was transmitted by Rabbi Levi Yitzchak Bender zt"l and recently recounted by our teacher, the great tzaddik Rav Eliezer Berland shlit"a, from Tzalmon.

"Rebbe Micheche was a hundred-year-old Jew; no one looked at him, they had forgotten he even existed. In Warsaw, it is minus forty; in Uman, there are days of minus thirty. I have immersed in minus thirty before; in Warsaw, half the winter is minus thirty."

"Rebbe Micheche lived in Warsaw, in Lodz—it is the same thing. He was a grandson of the Baal Shem Tov, and he had no chassidim. Back then, there were no chassidim; they just sat and studied. When it reached minus thirty, there was no way to heat the house; he would cover himself under ten blankets, shivering from the cold."

"Rebbe Getche arrived from three hundred kilometers away from Uman to serve him. He had heard that there was a grandson of the Baal Shem Tov lying under a million blankets, shivering from the cold, with no one to heat his house. Rebbe Getche bought him some wood, some planks—they were damp logs, because damp wood is half the price. Within a second, smoke rose up."

"Rebbe Micheche got up from the blankets, Rebbe Getche made him a cup of tea, and then Rebbe Micheche, the grandson of the Baal Shem Tov, told him, 'Listen, you are a Breslov chassid, right? I have a story for you! When I was four years old—now he is already a hundred—I sat on the knees of my grandfather, Rebbe Baruch of Medzhybizh. I sat on his knees, and all the great leaders of the generation were sitting there, making fun of our holy Rebbe—I could not protest, I could not say anything, but my grandfather, Rebbe Baruch of Medzhybizh, told me, "My grandson Micheche, what Rebbe Nachman has in his sole, they do not have in their heads."'"

Naftali Besanson, publisher of Shvivi Or