Known as: The Rebbe Reb Zusha 226th yahrtzeit: 2 Shevat
Buried: Hannopil, Ukraine (Next to the Maggid of Mezritch)
Zusha is known for being earnest, sincere, and humble, and many of the stories about him highlight his earnest nature. Despite being one of the greatest tzadikim of his generation, Zusha would call out to Hashem before going to sleep every night, “Almighty, Zusha did not conduct himself properly today. Tomorrow, Zusha will conduct himself as You have commanded.”
A Story
Imagine this: one fine day two paupers knock on your door. They want to be your guests. You welcome them in, make them beds, and then you head off to sleep. In the middle of the night, you wake up to the sound of bitter crying. You leap out of bed to go check what is going on with your guests.
You quietly put your ear next to the door and hear how one of the paupers is talking to himself and saying something like this: “Zusha Zusha, how could you miss zeman krias shema! Zusha Zusha, how could you have moved muktza on Shabbos?” All of a sudden it hits you, “Hey, I actually missed shema the other day, and I wasn’t so careful about muktzah last Shabbos!”
You see how pained your guests are, crying over their aveiros, and you start to cry your heart out to Hashem and do Teshuva!
This is one of the famous things the Rebbe Reb Zusha would do. He would go from town to town dressed up as a pauper, and then would do teshuvah on aveiros that he had supposedly committed, while in truth it was the innkeeper who did them. In this way, he would inspire many Yidden to do teshuvah.
Fun Fact
The rebbe Reb Zusha was an older brother of the very famous Rebbe Elimelich of Lizhensk. You might think that their father must have been a Rebbe too, but did you know that their father was not a chassid!
Reb Zusha was always searching and looking for every way possible to connect to Hashem. This brought him to become a talmid of the heilige Magid of Mezritch, who was a chassid of the Baal Shem Tov himself! Reb Zusha then inspired his younger brother, Reb Elimelech, to become a chassid as well! Together they changed the world!
A Vort from Reb Zusha
When a Yid does a mitzvah, he creates a good Malach. If he did the mitzvah in the best possible way, the Malach will be healthy and strong! This also happens in the opposite way; if a person does an aveirah he creates a bad Malach. Rav Zusha once said: “ I have never seen a healthy bad Malach, because even if a Yid does an aveirah, he will feel bad about it, because a Yid never wants to do an aveirah!”
This article was found in Nekuda Tova Issue 67.