זֵכֶר צַדִּיק לִבְרָכָה 

A Question in Cheder

In cheder they were learning Parshas Chayei Sarah with Rashi. On the pasuk “I came today to the spring” Rashi says: “Today I set out and today I arrived — the road shrank for him.” Eliezer arrived in one day, through a miracle.

One boy asked: how could Eliezer tell Rivka’s family such a wondrous thing — who would believe him? The rebbe had no answer.

Little Shabsai stood up: further on Rashi says Eliezer showed them a deed in which Avraham signed everything over to Yitzchak. The deed was written the very day he left — so they could see he had indeed arrived through a miracle.

Source:Hevrat Pinto, “Rabbi Shabtai HaKohen — the Shach”

Across the Rooftops

Once the Shach went up on the roof of the house to learn alone, in quiet. Deep in thought he began to walk, and forgetting where he stood he crossed from one roof to the next — passing over the gaps between the houses miraculously.

Below, people gathered, astonished and trembling that something might happen. The Shach himself knew nothing of it.

Source:Sefer HaZichronos (the Previous Lubavitcher Rebbe), ch. 40

One Day’s Chiddushim

The Shach’s son, R’ Moshe, fell gravely ill. His father davened, but he only grew worse, until he lay at the gates of death.

The Shach stood and declared that he was dedicating for his son the merit of every chiddush in Torah he had innovated that day. At once the patient began to recover.

Source:Sefer HaZichronos, ibid.

“Torah Seeks Out Its Lodging”

The Shach wrote Nekudos HaKesef, challenges to the Taz — but in the introduction he writes that no one should think it came from discord: between them was fulfilled “es vahev b’sufa” — love in the end.

The Taz, the elder gaon, came to him and stayed three days. The Shach honored him beyond belief, and the Taz honored him too — until he kissed him on the head and rejoiced with him like at a Simchas Beis HaSho’eva.

They say the Taz then asked him how he writes. The Shach answered: by day I learn, by night I write — and in the morning I go over what I wrote and erase a great deal, until only the best and truest remains. The Taz kissed him on the head and said: I am sure halacha will be decided according to your sefer.

Source:Introduction to Nekudos HaKesef; the conversation — Hevrat Pinto

“I Command It to Wait”

Once the Shach came to Kalisch and gave a drasha. The Magen Avraham came to hear it, and afterwards sent a student to the Shach with a challenging question — and coached him how to carry the discussion further.

The Shach enjoyed the analysis. But when he began speaking with him about other things, the student let slip that he was only a messenger. “For whom?” — “For the Magen Avraham.” The Shach asked him to come, and the two sat long in divrei Torah.

In the middle, the innkeeper knocked: “Rebbe, you must leave — a dying man lies in the house.” A Kohen may not be under one roof with the deceased. The Shach rolled up his right sleeve, knocked on the table and said: “Ani metzaveh l’chakos” — I command it to wait. He went on talking with the Magen Avraham, and only when they had finished did he leave. Immediately after, the sick man passed away.

Source:B’tzilo Chimadti — from the Tchebiner Rav, from his uncle R’ Yitzchok Rapaport, from the Avnei Nezer

The Twentieth of Sivan

In the years 1648–49 Chmielnicki’s Cossacks swept through Ukraine and Poland, destroying kehilla after kehilla — Nemirov, Tulchin, Uman. The Shach was a young man, and he saw it all.

He wrote “Megillas Eifah” — a kinah on the tragedy — and selichos. And he took upon himself and his children to fast on the 20th of Sivan, the day Nemirov was destroyed. The Vaad Arba Aratzos later adopted it as a fast day for the Jews of all Poland.

Source:Megillas Eifah (Amsterdam, 1651)

The Daughter in the Forest

When the Russians took Vilna, the Shach fled with his small, sick daughter. In the frost of the forest he thought she had died — and when he heard horses and dogs, he hid. When he came back, she was gone.

It was a nobleman out hunting who found her, revived her and raised her as a princess. She kept her Yiddishkeit in secret, and years later the Shach found her again and knew her.

Source:A historic narrative; R’ Meir Lehmann wrote it up as the novel “Bas HaShach”

From Vilna to Holešov

On Thursday, 24 Tammuz 1655, the Shach fled Vilna together with all the city’s Jews. He came to Lublin — and there too the war followed him: on the first day of Sukkos soldiers killed many Jews. Again he fled, to Prague.

He who had sat on the Beis Din of Vilna became Rav of Strassnitz, a small town in Mehrin. From there he was called to Holešov. There he was nistalek on Rosh Chodesh Adar 1663 — forty-one years old.

Source:Wikipedia; Radio Prague; VIN News