My Encounter with the Baba Sali: A Moment of Awe and Teshuvah

Transcript

This Torah class is brought to you by TorahAnytime.com. Abba sheli, malbish tefillin al choli. That's what he does all day. He walks around from Shaarei Tzedek, the Beilinson, to the old age home he goes. Why? When he was younger, he was sick. He had a heart attack. Heart attack. He had diabetes, so he couldn't do anything. He couldn't do anything. Surgery with diabetes. Today they know how to do it. Then they didn't know how to do it. So he was laying in Beilinson Hospital, and the doctor told my mother and my uncle, There's nothing you can do. I think he was in his late 40s. I didn't think he was 50. There's nothing they can do. My grandfather is Israeli. Doctor? Chazon Ish. Go to the Chazon Ish. Chazon Ish said, first of all, tell the doctor not he gives life. Not he. It's not—his job is לרפא, to heal. Who lives, it's not his department. It's not his decision. Tell this to the doctor: Mi chai u'mi lo, זה לא בידו. As far as your father, tell him to be mekabel on himself זכות הרבים, משהו, לעשות מצווה זכות הרבים. My grandfather told it to the doctor straight. The doctor was killed that week. Wow. He walked out into the street, and somebody ran him over on purpose. The comma for a surgery that he didn't do good. That week, Chazon Ish said, לא בידו, who lives... My grandfather never got the surgery. He lived to eighty-something, was eighty-six, eighty-seven. He was mekabel schar harabim, what? Kriat Shema for little children, tefillin on the cholim. So when I was in Israel, bachur learning in yeshiva, so my grandfather used to tell me, Come with me to put the tefillin. You know, he wanted me to see what he was doing. You know, he wanted to be proud of me. I was mekabel on myself yeshiva. I don't leave yeshiva. When I went to Israel, I stayed in the beit midrash, not eating, not traveling, not relatives, because once you start in Israel going around, there's no end. There's no end. You can be busy all day long with mitzvahs in Eretz Yisrael. He started to get insulted, and it was bothering him. So I said, You know what? One day. Give it a day. One day. So I told him, Saba, I give you a day. What day? Sunday. Come, Shaarei Tzedek. I met him in Shaarei Tzedek. He puts me on the white, you know, mitnadev, volunteer. And he starts taking me, showing me the tefillin. Me, I didn't have the heart to force. He used to force them. Come on, let's go, tefillin, let's go. You're sick. You want to go to Shamayim without wearing tefillin? That's how he used to talk to them. So he was once in one room, there was somebody laying there, and he was bothering the guy to wear tefillin. The guy said, I don't want to wear tefillin. He had liver cancer. He was dying from liver cancer, this patient. And he was bothering him, Tefillin, tefillin, tefillin. That's how he spoke to him. Me, I love the hard to speak to him. How do you... I could, I could. Lo ratzah. I don't want to wear tefillin. So my grandfather asks him, Lama? Ani Aravi, bnei... lo... I'm not Jewish. What do you want from my life? My grandfather turns around, Ashi amud. He was so angry at the guy. Kitsur, at the second and third floors, he told me, You do the right side of the rooms, and I'll do the left side. The rooms. Me, I finished right away, because if the guy said no, it's no. He, all of a sudden, commotion, and I see and I hear them, hear, ratzim ba'im. Someone on a mitah, on a bed, wearing a turban, blue pajamas, no socks, yeah, and they're rushing and they're coming and they're going and they're taking this room and here. I never saw him, you know, it was turban. I'm thinking, it looks like Baba Sali. It looks like Baba Sali. My grandfather comes out of the room. I says, Saba, ani choshev Baba Sali nimtza poch. I think Baba Sali's here. אמר, כאן התבל. He used to call me American tembel. Tembel. Tembel is a moron.

He's an American moron. Mini Tivot, Tivot, six hours from Yerushalayim, I think. Six, five hours. What is it? Huh? How many hours is it? Three hours. Maybe in those days it was longer. I don't know. He was telling me, Mini Tivot, ... that's how he was telling me. Talk about tzaddik. Nobody looks like that today. It doesn't. Could you imagine Baba Sali in a hospital, the lines of the cholim to get bracha? They started lining up, and within seconds we found out it was Baba Sali. So I tell my grandfather, I say, No, ani ... I'm still the tembel from America. Nichnasim. We're going in. Nobody was allowed in. He was sick. No. My grandfather, you know, ... Nichnasim. We're going in. We're going in. We're getting a bracha. I said, How are you going to do it? Nadav volunteered. They have to let you into the room. It was, I guess, one of the things. Knocks on the door. Guy with a wound, beard, answers. Nadav. He let us in. My grandfather walks over to him. Now, what I saw in that room was unbelievable. Grandfather walks over to him, but what did I see? They raised the bed about this high. One. He was sitting with his feet crossed. He was sitting with his feet crossed. He was sitting like this, like, like, like yoga. Like yoga. That's how he was sitting. He was sitting on the bed like that, yeah, with the turban, with the blue pajamas, yeah. I stood there, and I started to tremble. And I thought to— and I was a good bachur, listen, I learned Yomam vaLayla, I learned day and night, but I was thinking to myself, he could see through your neshama. He could. And I started to tremble. I got scared. I started to have pachad. And I started to think, could you imagine the pachad in front of Borei Olam, in front of Hashem? Here's in front of a person. I started— you know the fear I had. And I started doing teshuva. I started doing teshuva. My grandfather was screaming into his ear, I don't know what he was telling, tefillin, this, this. Came a bracha. Me, I didn't move. I was standing in the beginning of the room by the door, yeah. And all of a sudden, he looks at me, and he had long fingers, long, long fingers he had. He tells me to come to him, like this. Well, I figured, I was so scared, like this, told me to come. You know, his fingers were long. Tells me to come. I came to the side of the bed. He shows me to put my head down. I put my head down, put his hand on my head, and in Arabic— he was talking Arabi, he was talking Arabic, whatever he was saying. Moroccan. Right, what was that? Arabic, he was— Moroccan, not Arab, whatever. We finished. I was teshuva, I did tremendous teshuva. We left. The guy, the gabbai with the long beard ran after us, and he starts saying, Who are you? So my grandfather starts telling him, the Moroccans are tough, you know, they're tough. He says, I don't... not you. And he says, Who's he? ... again. Your grandmother probably. He was telling that... and he put chaylim on it. He said, Who's he? Okay. I can't tell you the rest of the story. It's a good story. Please, please, Rabbi, I want to hear. Come on, come on, come on, please. Avi's gonna go, please, please, to him. Ava Sali told him, neshama gvoha, mishpacha, zchut avot. And he saw it, and he wanted to know from which mishpacha he come from, which neshama-wise, mishpacha shel avot gedolim. That's what he said, avot gedolim. Yeah, that's what I want to tell. Probably he saw something. He saw my talmidim. He saw one day I'm gonna sit with Avram. Okay. You've just experienced another Torah class brought to you by TorahAnytime.com.