Spooky Stories With Rabbi Sonnenfeld

Many soldiers here in the army like to practice what we call necromancy, which means speaking to the dead. Speaking to to the spirits up above of people that passed away. Now, these this discussion can only be done, just in case you're interested in doing it, which is also al pi tarah, can only be done with the lower spirits, people who have not made it to the higher worlds, not made it to oil and hobbit. And someone who was at one of these events saw that someone's father, one of the soldiers father, one of the their father came to them and started getting upset at them. You never said kaddish for me, you never helped me out up here. I'm suffering over here because you never ended up doing anything for me. Of course, he raised him as a non-religious Jew, so I understand. But anyways, that's what happened until the actual person went and went to a shul, which he barely knew, stuck on one of the white kippahs and go ahead and went ahead and roughly kind of said the kaddish a number of times for about a week. They went ahead and did this necromancy again. Again, it's also al pi tarah, but these people like, you know, fools with the dead. It's more exciting than speaking with the alive. And they when he tried to get his father back, he wasn't able to get in touch with him. Why? Because his father actually went up from the core of kaddish. We see that kaddish has a tremendous core, and this is a tremendous khidush that we find in the end of partial shoftim because in the possuk at the end of the parsha, it says kapel amcha Israel asher padita. You should give a kaparah, says the midrash, elu achaim shemit kaprim b'mamonam. These are people who are alive that by giving money, they get a kaparah. Maybe this is a pledge for money if someone wants to donate. And asher padita, what does it say asher padita? Says the tan khuma an incredible khidush elu amaytim shemit kaprim b'mamonam shel achaim. The live people can give a kaparah even for someone dead. A massive khidush if you think about it. Because we all know as live beings baruch hashem until 120 or about that, we are able to go ahead and help ourselves out. We have free choice etc. After a person's dead, he's nesa khofshi mitzvah. He does a mitzvah we he has nothing. It's over. Wherever he's holding Gan Eden, wherever he is, that's where he's there to stay. Says the Midrash based on our parshas a share pedita that a live person is able to save his relative or even someone else. He's allowed to go ahead and help him go up in levels. He's able to pull him out of Gehenna. I'd get it out of the Arizal writes in chapter of notes of Chaim Vital brings that the Ari, the great Arizal writes that not only does it pull him out of Gehenna like people think, but it also can bring him up into Gan Eden. It could pull him out of Gehenna and bring him up in a level in Gan Eden. It's an incredible chidush. Because we're talking about someone that's not able to do anything and he's still because of someone else able to move up in levels. Wow. That's something that we have to appreciate the power of our mouth. When we go ahead and we do something le iluy nishmato, we go ahead and bring him up. When we do Kaddish, Kaddish, when we learn Torah, when we serve mishnayos for him, when we give tzedakah. That same Midrash at the end there says that that's why on Yom Kippur we give money and we do what Ashkenazim do, Yizkor, Hashkavah, whatever they do on Yom Kippur and the Chagim that we go ahead and do it in order to go ahead and help out the metim. Even though they're dead, by doing this we help them go up higher and higher. The Ramah brings in the end of our parsha also. He says al pi this we see the koach of the power of the chailas or la met to go ahead and help the met. The didn't lay down completely and he says especially by your father or your mother. Especially when you were a child, you were an extension of that parent and therefore you owe your life to them and therefore you can go ahead and help them also. What we call the Gemara in Sanhedrin, bar kara de avua. And this is what we have a capability of doing and it should never be missed out the capabilities that lies within our our hands. The Torah Lishma, which is the Ben Ish Chai writes, of course, that when you do it yourself, it's 10 times better than when someone else gives you a freebie. Okay, obviously it helps. What you do for the Meisim is fantastic, and you're going to get credit for it also, but what you do for yourself, don't wait till it's too late. Okay, so wait till my kid takes care of me, right? Oh, Baruch Hashem, my son became a rabbi, so now I can go ahead and do whatever I want. No, no, no, that's not going to work that way. It helps, but it's a love in common, it's not instead. A carbon, that's what we see, and there are an endless amount of stories to express this idea of the power of a live person to go ahead and help a and help someone who is not alive. In Maseches Kallah, which is where that's brought, in Maseches Kallah, Rebbe Akiva brings that he one time saw a person who was a Meis, and he was suffering tremendously. Rebbe Akiva was able to see this person, he was suffering tremendously, he told him that I left a someone who was pregnant, my my wife was pregnant when I left him. Can you please go ahead and tell that child to go ahead and say Kaddish for me and do something for me, teach him. And Rebbe Akiva took the child when he was 5 years old, taught him the Aleph-Beis, what he learned at 40 years old, he taught this child at 5 5 years old. He taught him the Aleph-Beis, and then eventually and then eventually he taught him how to say Kaddish, and the person had a tremendous Gedank Hakaras Hatov to Rebbe Akiva. Rebbe Silberstein brings a Maiseh with [snorts] a very Chashuv a person named Ephraim Arenson, who was a Hungarian Yid who survived the Holocaust. Many Hungarian Yidden not survived, but he survived he survived Auschwitz. And he was a very he was he lived in England afterwards for many years, and he was a good Yid, he was a person who was a big Tzaddik, and he did everything as a good Ba'al Habayis. Anyways, he said that one day he passed away without children though. He passed away without children, and his wife on a periodic basis used to give um cake. She would bring Mazonos on his Yahrtzeit to the Yeshiva and also give a trumah and also give tzedakah every year on his yahrzeit and of because of that and after that the Rosh Yeshiva would say Kaddish for this Aaron. He would go ahead and and give this Efraim Arenson. He would go ahead and say Kaddish for for him. Um one day he appeared to his wife in a dream. He appeared to the almana in a dream and he said to her, "Why did you forget me? What did I do wrong? Why did you forget me?" She woke up in the morning, she remembered, "Oh my gosh, on that yahrzeit I went to the kever." She went to the kever and she said Tehillim but she never did this whole thing with giving money and the Kaddish and then the cake and the mazones for all the bachurim. And she immediately went that same day to go ahead and and do what she needed because she remembered that she forgot um this phenomenon. There's a endless amount of stories. I'll give you one last one cuz I don't want to make it too long but here's a very interesting one. This is brought in the story in the book of Rav Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld, incredible book Ohr Many Chaim, that over there he brings about a woman that was married and she had two daughters and they were very wealthy, they were very successful family, had a good business going, her and her husband, and they would be very makpid, they would be very specific to go ahead and give money on a constant basis to the Yeshiva in the area over there and for that they would ask that there should be one person appointed to be in charge of saying Kaddish for anyone who has no one say Kaddish for them, they didn't have any children and didn't have any uh capabilities of someone say Kaddish for them or they weren't religious. So they paid this money on a consistent basis, a nice sum of money to the Yeshiva monthly in order that there would always be someone saying Kaddish for all the neshamos that never had a Kaddish said for them. Once after a little while her husband passed away. This lady's husband unfortunately passed away. He wasn't he wasn't very old, I think he was mid-50s or something to that extent. And and after he passed away slowly but surely she was not able to handle the business properly and it ended up as we are quite familiar unfortunately that she ended up basically being pushed out regular. She went bankrupt. The whole business went out the thing and she became a pauper. She became a proper pauper from rags to riches. I was from from riches to rags rather. She went the other way around. From Iggeres ha-Ramban she ended up losing everything. She lost her husband and it was a very very sad story but she was a big big ba'alas bitachon and she said it's min ha-shamayim and I know I'm going to be okay. She had two daughters she had to marry and she hadn't got a penny to show for it. She was very nervous but she said I know Hashem is going to take care of me. I know it's okay. The one thing that she was worried about and upset about is to stop giving money to the yeshiva. She said I need I want them to keep saying Kaddish and I can't afford to give you money all the time. But she begged begged the Rosh Yeshiva can you do it? He said no problem. We're going to still do the Kaddish for all those neshamos that you're referring to even the ones that that that have no one to say Kaddish for. And with Hashem it should be okay and they did it obviously without receiving any trumot and she was so happy. She was overjoyed. Everything else she did would fall into place but that was fine. On her way back from this visit to the yeshiva when she's on her way back home this is where Rebbe Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld writing. On her way back home she bumped into a very elderly man with a long white beard. He had a little and even had a little bit of a whitish face. He looked very elderly. And he was and he started talking to this woman. A little bit uncomfortable. What is he asking? Started prying into her business. What's going on? So she told him she spilled her guts as they say. She went on and told him about her whole story and depressing my husband. I used to have a lot of money and I'm very poor. What can I do? Hashem etc. So the person asked her how much money do you need to marry off these two kids? How much money do you think you need to marry off your two daughters? She said she didn't even know why he was asking. Just tell me approximately. She told him a price which was not a cheap price especially one who was befitting of her stature and she told him a a number which she approximated would be the appropriate number in the amount of rubles, whatever it was. He took out a check, he took it to Star Chov, he took out a check and started writing out the check for the exact amount that she asked for. He was about to sign the check but before he signed it he said, "Look, this is a large amount of money. Let's bring two witnesses from the Yeshiva. We'll bring two bachurim out from the Yeshiva. They'll watch my signature so that way we know that everything is authentic. Nobody should accuse you that this check is false." No problem. They brought out two boys from the Yeshiva. They watched the event, they saw the signature, vizel, and that's it and she took the check and he said it tomorrow morning, he told her tomorrow morning, he told her go to X bank, go to this bank and be poria the check. You know, I want you to go ahead and cash in on the check. But wait till tomorrow morning and please go to this bank. No problem. I don't know who this man is, I don't know what he wants and that's it. He walked away and that was that was the end of the story. She went home, she didn't know if this was real, she thought it would maybe be like a bigger joke. The next day she went, if you can imagine, in the morning to the bank and she went to the pakid, she went to the teller in the front of the bank and she told him, "Here's a check." The guy looked at the bank, looked in the back of the check, he looked at the check, he looked back at the check, he looked around, looked at the woman's face, looked back at the check and he didn't know what was going on. She didn't know what was going on. "What's wrong? This is a check. What's the problem?" He went ahead and he went to the back room to the owner of the bank who was also the menahel, the one who runs the bank, the menahel, the main president of the bank who is the owner of the bank also, very very wealthy man. She went He went ahead and showed the owner the the check of the He told him the check. The owner, who was a very stern, strong man, looked at the check, slipped out of his chair and fell on the floor completely out cold. He fainted on the spot. A man who was a very People were shocked. People in the bank didn't know what was going on. Immediately they surrounded the woman cuz they realized that something here is illegal. Something's wrong. And the woman's scared out of her mind. What did I do wrong here? I don't know. What is this guy selling drugs? Like she didn't know what was going on here. What did I do wrong? And while she till they waited till he came back, they went ahead and helped. Don't throw water in his face. Everybody likes throwing water in the face of a person who fainted. That's the wrong that's the wrong answer. Anyway, so till he came back from his spell and then he looked at the check again, the owner of the bank, and he asked her, "Who gave you this check?" She told him the whole entire story. And he said, "Could I ask you something? I want to show you." And they they brought the two boys who were witnesses and her. He brought out a picture and he said, "Was this the man who gave you the check?" She goes, "Yeah, that's him. Exactly picture Exactly that's the man who gave you the check. I recognize him to a bull. Exactly that's who it is. Just his face was a little bit wider, but it's exactly who it was." And the guy almost fainted again. He said, "This is my father. My father had passed away 10 years ago and he appeared to me in a dream 3 days ago, in a dream. And he said to me to to me meaning to the owner of the bank, he said to me, "You're not a good son. I'm very upset of you. You went off the derech. You married a shiksa. You married a goya. You don't keep anything. And just because you're successful with money, it doesn't mean anything. In the end of the day, you didn't do one thing for me when I passed away." Said the father who passed away in a dream to his son. He said, "You didn't say kaddish for me. You didn't do anything. You didn't even give tzedakah for me. And you have so much money. What's wrong with you? Why did you do this to me? I'm suffering up here because you weren't able to do anything l'ilui nishmati to go ahead and raise my uh to raise my neshama to a higher world." And having [clears throat] said that, he said, "I want you to but there is someone that did help me very much because she was able to she supported someone that would say kaddish for people who had no one to say kaddish for them. And that helped me a tremendous amount. You are you are obligated to go ahead and help her children, her two daughters when they go ahead and get married. And with that, poof, as they say, and he disappeared and he woke up from the dream. This guy, he was a non-religious man, didn't believe the dream so much. He went and he reported to his wife, again, who was a goya, who was a non non non-Jew. And he told it to her and she started laughing in his face. She goes, "You're a meshugana, you crazy man. What are you dreaming? You think dreams mean anything? Why are you wasting my time with all your idiocies?" And she got upset at him and therefore I forgot about the whole scenario. And here I am, I'm looking at the check and it's signed with my father's signature and his name with the picture that you said you recognize it. They looked at the two boys and said, "Is this the one?" That's the man, exactly the same boy. Everybody was there together. He immediately opened the the the register. He immediately opened up his cash and he gave her every penny to the end of this check. He cashed it in for her to the end and said, "Please tell them from me up above." Right? He realized that this was this and it helped him even start the tahalich of hazara, of getting back into the story. Says Rav Chaim, Rav Yosef Chaim Zonnenfeld, Rabbi Yerushalayim, a story that happened 90 years ago, 90 years ago 100 by now, 100 years ago, and he says, "You're probably wondering how do I know this whole story? Well, guess what? I was one of those witnesses. I was one of the bachrum together with Rav Greenwald, my other friend Rav Greenwald. The two of us were bachrum. I saw everything with my own eyes. The power of a Kaddish, of some money, the power of going ahead and helping out a parent or a relative, that is how far we can get. These stories are true, they have real authenticity, and by doing that we realized if we could do what that what we could do for them up above in the next world, a share pedita, then you don't realize how powerful your actions are even in this world while you're still alive.