Stories of the Tzaddik

Rabbi Levi Yitzchok was born around 1740, became one of the leading disciples of the Maggid of Mezritch, and served as rav of Berditchev from about 1785 until his passing on 25 Tishrei 5570 (1809). He wrote the sefer Kedushas Levi and became known throughout the Jewish world as the one who always looked for, and found, the merit of every Jew. Here are some of the well-known stories about him, as they are told in Chassidic tradition, sometimes in different versions.

Chametz and contraband

One Erev Pesach, Rabbi Levi Yitzchok asked his attendant to bring him some contraband, the kind of goods the government had strictly forbidden and set police and border guards to stop. Within a short while, they brought him plenty.

Then he asked them to bring him a piece of chametz. They searched all of Berditchev and could not find a single crumb.

Rabbi Levi Yitzchok lifted his eyes and said: “Master of the world, look at Your children! The Czar has an army of police, and still there is nothing that cannot be found. You wrote in Your Torah only ‘no chametz shall be seen’, with no police and no guards, and in the whole city there is not one crumb. How faithful Your children are to You!”

The tailor on Yom Kippur

After Yom Kippur, Rabbi Levi Yitzchok asked a simple tailor what he had said in his prayers.

The tailor told him: “I said to Hashem: Master of the world, my sins are small. Sometimes I kept leftover cloth, sometimes I did not say a brachah properly. But You have taken children from their mothers and mothers from their children. Let us settle accounts: You forgive me, and I will forgive You.”

Rabbi Levi Yitzchok said: “Why did you settle for so little? At that moment you could have demanded the Geulah for all of Klal Yisroel!”

A Jew who would not lie

Once, on a fast day, Rabbi Levi Yitzchok saw a Jew eating in the street. He approached him gently and asked: “Perhaps you forgot that today is a fast?” “I did not forget,” the man answered. “I know.”

“Perhaps you are ill, and the doctor allowed you to eat?” “No, I am healthy.”

Rabbi Levi Yitzchok lifted his eyes and said: “Master of the world, see what a nation You have! Here is a Jew eating on a fast day, and still he will not say a single lie.”

The simple Jew’s seder

It is told that after the night of the seder, Rabbi Levi Yitzchok learned from Heaven that one seder in the city had risen higher than all the others: the seder of a simple Jew who did not know much Torah. The Rebbe went to his home and asked how he had conducted it.

The man answered, embarrassed: “Rebbe, I do not know all the halachos and all the explanations. I drank four cups, I ate matzah and maror, and then I said: Master of the world, I am a simple Jew. I only know that You took our fathers out of Egypt. Please, take us out of this exile too.”

Rabbi Levi Yitzchok told this to his talmidim, to show how precious before Hashem is a simple tefillah that comes from the heart.

A “din Torah” with the Master of the world

Rabbi Levi Yitzchok would speak to Hashem openly, in plain Yiddish, like a son speaking to his father. Famous is his tefillah that opens: “I, Levi Yitzchok son of Sarah of Berditchev, have come to You with a din Torah on behalf of Your people Israel: what do You want of Your people Israel?”

He goes on to argue that everywhere in the Torah it says “speak to the children of Israel” and “command the children of Israel”, and that despite every hardship, Klal Yisroel has stayed faithful to its Creator, and so it deserves mercy and redemption.

For tefillos like these he was called the Defender of Klal Yisroel, and to this day Jews come to his tziyun so that he will go on pleading in their merit and the merit of their families.

The stories are told here in our own words, following Chassidic tradition. Some exist in different versions.