The Heilige Kapischnitzer

The Kapischnitzer Rebbe [who we learned about at length in a recent post] was a huuuge tzadik and a pillar of tzedaka and chesed. The Ponivitcher Rov, Rav Kahaneman, said that if he ever becomes a chossid, he already has a Rebbe - the Kapischnitzer. He was once in America and after a number of months he was barely able to raise anything. He had no idea how he was going to raise the money he owed for the yeshiva building. He met the Kapischnitzer and cried about his difficult situation. When he left, the Rebbe made some phone calls and in a short time raised 10k [a huge sum of money back then]. The Ponivitcher Rov once again cried but this time with joy.

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Rav Aharon Kotler, the gaon ha-geonim of his generation considered the Kapschinitzer his "Rebbe". [Amazing how he turned two super-litvishe roshei yeshiva and gedolei torah into chasidim. Zchus Ha-Baal shem tov yaazor vi-yagein vi-yoshea]. At a meeting of gedolei Torah, Rav Aharon insisted on hearing the opinion of the Kapischnitzer. When asked why specifically him, Rav Aharon explained that the Torah was given to purify us and the Kapischnitzer is pure.

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He once came to Eretz Yisrael for the wedding of his granddaughter. He went to visit Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach in the Shaarei Chesed neighborhood. When he was waiting outside for the car to take him, Rav Shlomo Zalman [who was 20 years his junior] brought him a chair and invited him to sit down. The Rebbe said "My father taught me that I should always imagine that everything I do is being "filmed" in shomayim. My whole life I work to imagine that I am being filmed. How will I look on the film if Rav Shlomo Zalman is standing and I am sitting?"

Rav Shlomo Zalman was blown away. On many occasions he related with great excitement that there is a Jew who lives his life as if he is being filmed in shomayim every second. He encouraged his son [who was married to the Rebbe's granddaughter] to publish a sefer with stories of the Rebbe as it would be a great mussar sefer. [Rav Mordechai Auerbach who was there] 

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There was once a Jew who emigrated from Austria as the dark clouds descended on Europe before the holocaust. He assumed that his wife would follow him and arrive right after but alas it was not easy to get out. As time progressed and he saw that his wife wasn't coming, he became more and more depressed and was even considering suicide. He was going out of his mind.

He told his business partner of his distress and his partner [who was a gerrer chossid] suggested that he go to the Kapischnitzer. The Rebbe heard of the man's distress and promised him that within 2 weeks his wife would arrive safely. The man, despite the fact that he wasn't a chossid, believed the Rebbe and was calmed. Within 2 weeks his wife in fact arrived.

The Rebbe was asked how he did this amazing miracle. He insisted that it was no miracle at all. He saw this man's distress and realized that it was a question of pikuach nefesh. So he knew that he had to say something, anything, to save him. So he immediately promised him that his wife would arrive safely.

Then he turned to Hashem and said that he only said what he did to help this man. Please don't make me into a liar. He then said tehillim. "So you see", explained the Rebbe, "I am no miracle worker".

Some time later a gerrer chossid named R' Chaim Mandel, told the Beis Yisrael [the Gerrer Rebbe] this story. The Rebbe was blown away and asked him to repeat the story again and yet again. When the Rebbe went to daven mincha he asked R' Mandel to repeat the story to all the chasidim present. When he finished the Rebbe said "Dos heist a Rebbishe myse" - That is a true Rebbe story.

[From the memoirs of R' Shlomo Lorentz z"l who was a member of the knesset on behalf of Agudas Yisrael and a close confidante of gedolei yisrael]