Tzaddik for 10 Days | Rabbi Menachem Savitz

Mori v’Rabi, Hagaon R’ Elya Ber Wachtfogel shlit”a, says over a very, very powerful story. There was a Bochur who was, Heaven forbid, he went off the Derech. He felt very bad about his situation and he tried and he tried to come back, but he kept on falling. This happened numerous times until his father met someone, who said, Why don't you bring him to Lakewood and bring him into the Mashgiach, Hagaon Hatzaddik R’ Nosson Wachtfogel zt”l. He came into R’ Nosson and he said over where he's holding and how things were going. And the Mashgiach asked him a personal favor. He said: I want you to be a Tzaddik for ten days. I want you to daven Shachris with Tefillin, daven Mincha, daven Maariv, and when you’re davening, try to have Kavanah. I want you to make blessings on everything you eat and drink and now try to have Kavanah when you make the blessing. And I want you to try to learn some Torah over those ten days. But that's what I ask of you, to try to accept upon yourself for ten days, to be a Tzaddik. And this Bochur’l accepted. The first day went very well. The second, third. When he got to the seventh day, he started plotzing. It was very, very difficult for him. But he saw the end of the tunnel for him, that he would, you know, somehow get it, because he promised the Mashgiach till day 10, and he pushed himself. Day 8 was even harder. Day 9 was very, very hard. Day 10 in the morning, he said: I have to just do Shachris, daven Mincha, and then by sunset, I can already go back to all my old ways. And in his mind, he said, he was already making up all the different things that he would do right after sunset on the tenth day. Came to Mincha time and he went to daven in Landau Shul in Flatbush, and he started to daven Shmoneh Esrei. And all of a sudden, he started feeling an incredible sweetness on every word he was saying. He, all of a sudden, felt an overwhelming situation that he felt like he was in Gan Eden. This is how he described it. He said he was overtaken by that feeling and he davened the Shmoneh Esrei for an hour and 45 minutes on a regular Mincha, on a regular day. And when he was finished, he was a changed person. That is definitely, the Rosh Yeshiva said, where a person was doing his own, like we see in the pasuk, And it came to pass on that day, that he came into the house to do his work. There's a Gemara in Sota, the Gemara says, it’s a dispute between Rav and Shmuel. The Gemara says: One opinion says that it reached a point in Yosef’s challenge of a breaking point. So Hakadosh Baruch Hu said, Now I'm going to send you the image of your father. He did everything humanly possible for him to do, and then Hakadosh Baruch Hu sent him the image of his father. And that's what this Bochur had. This Bochur had right then that unbelievable feeling of sweetness in every single word that he said in the Shmoneh Esrei. And then he was able to go and turn around and become an upstanding Yid in Klal Yisroel.