Ah, ah, ah My wife was in Tzfat, and I was in Tiberias. We had no clothing, clothes; we had no apartment, nothing. And Rav Motl, he gave me an apartment and furniture, a table and chairs, yes. And he brought me into the yeshivah, yes. Everything was Rav Motl. And if he spoke—he was an opponent—he spoke not, not, not respectfully against Rabbainu. Then, then I slammed the door with a great bang. “What is this? No, do not speak to me anymore. I want no connection whatsoever with you.” [You told me...] Then, then when he saw such a thing, he remained, remained like a child. “What is this? Who, who ever heard of such a thing? ...A man to whom I give furniture and an apartment, and...” He had mesiras nefesh for me. He had battles with the administrators of the yeshivah; they were opponents. And he said that they had to bring me into the yeshivah, and had to give me an additional allowance. And he was always at war with them, Rav Motl, yes. And when he spoke against Rabbainu not so, not so respectfully, I stood up from the chair and slammed the door: "I want no connection whatsoever with you. Do not speak to me." Then he remained sitting, yes. [Rebbe Yisrael, you once told me that your wife's father he, he wanted to kill Rebbe Yisrael Kardoner.] Yes, certainly, yes. He wanted to take two Arabs; Rebbe Yisrael would go to Meron, and the Arabs would find him on the road, and they would kill him, and no person would know of it, yes. I am not just saying it, just, yes. And once he... Rebbe Yisrael entered some house, and he was there. And he was sitting on, on an iron chair—not like this, so heavy. He got up; he... Rebbe Yisrael entered the house. He got up and took the chair. He was, he was mighty.

He wanted to bring the chair down on, on Rebbe Yisrael's head, yes. Then there was a miracle: the owner of the house was, was able in time, was... [Forceful.] He managed, managed to grasp the chair, and did not let him bring it down on his head. But he held him by the beard; he did not, did not want to release the beard, and he tore out half his beard, tore it out, and there was great anguish, very great anguish. And in that second he passed away. He was not so, he was not... he was not; he had... {he was a} good man, but he passed away. And he left ten orphans. [You once told me that you made a handshake pledge, and he threw you out the window to the dogs.] Yes, that... what... He locked the house: tonight I am not going to Rebbe Yisrael, Friday night. Nu, I have a handshake pledge with Rebbe Yisrael that every night, that every day and every night, we must see one another. And how? What will be? At any rate, at midnight—he did not know—at midnight he thought, "Rebbe Yisrael is already sleeping, and I need to sleep." So he let me—he opened the house and let me go out, yes. But he watched me, and he, he, he, {blessed be Hashem}, saw that I was fleeing, that I was fleeing; then he, he, he understood that I was fleeing to Rebbe Yisrael. He ran, he ran after me. Oy, oy. And I saw Rebbe Yisrael; we saw one another. And I returned, and he came after me and beat me and threw me onto the dogs, and... What happened, yes. [It was a miracle that the dogs did not eat you.] Oy... Who, who ever heard of such a thing? Who ever saw such a thing? He and his wife beat my wife with blows, murderous blows, so that she would get divorced. "Do you know what Breslov is? Get divorced!" And she said: "No, it is not." [The most beautiful story is the desert story.]

Oy, oy, the desert one, passed... [That is a story...] I, I sat on, on, on a camel, and a wagon passed in front of the camel, a wagon. [You wanted to go work in Damascus; you wanted to go work in Damascus.] Yes, yes, yes. I sat on the camel, and a wagon passed before it, and it became very frightened. Then it rose up in great anger, it rose up, and I did not hold myself, and it threw me up to the heavens, and everyone said: "He is dead; there is, there is no hope at all for his life... How? He, he is dead. He received a blow, a death blow." Hashem, blessed be He, performed a miracle: I fell onto a mountain of straw, yes; I remained alive. It was during, during the summer, at the time when they cut the... [The harvest.] The wheat—the harvest, yes. So there was a mountain, a mountain of straw, and I fell onto the mountain of straw. Oy, afterward... [You got an illness in your eyes.] Oy vey, oy vey, such an illness. The miracles that I saw with my own eyes all the days of my life! [For three days you could not see, right?] Ah. [Three days.] Yes, it was more. [More.] I could not see. It was, it was—the eyes were—the inflammation was—I could not see anything with my eyes. My father was blind, so I saw that I had become blind like my father, yes. And I became very weak. I had such pains, such eye pain, that it was impossible to live, to endure. At any rate, several days passed and... a little; I improved a little. But I had no strength. I did not, did not see with my eyes, no. They told me: "There is a group of twenty people who are traveling to Tiberias." I said: "Good, I want, I want to return to Rebbe Yisrael. I want to return." Yes, nu, but I had no, I had no strength. I had no—I did not eat and did not... the pain; I was...

Not a human being, only dead—that was how I went with them. And they went, and there was a Sephardi Jew there who had a shop in the village, yes. And while my eyes were still hurting, I stayed with him. And he had a donkey, and he went with them to Tiberias. I, I said: "I also want Tiberias. I do not want to work; I want to repent. I want to return to Rebbe Yisrael." Good, they went, but I could not continue. I could not walk. I had no shoes; I had no clo... I was sick, and the feet... [The skin of your feet peeled off.] The feet and the eyes and... At any rate, I remained; they went, and I remained. Oy, who can tell it? Oy, oy... I remained without, without bread, without water, without anything, yes. Nu, what, what could come of this? I saw where I was. What could become of me? At night lions or wild animals would eat me, and no human being would know. And I pictured in my mind: they will eat me; I, I will live, and they, and they will {eat} only the hands and the feet. And they will eat me—what will become of me? Then I thought: "What? What anguish will I have? I want to see death—and where does one see it? How does one see it?" Oy, oy, I have no water, I have no bread, I have no, no, I have nothing. What can happen in... And they all went. There were twenty people; they all went and abandoned me. And I could not continue walking, so... what to do? I asked the owner of the donkey to give me the donkey to ride on. Then he said to me: "I have wheat; I have it on the donkey." And I could not—I was sick—I could not.

Then robbers came and took the donkey with the wheat, yes. I remained like that. Oy... Then I saw that I was in such distress, so I said: "Here, there is, there is no one who will hear. I will cry out up to the heavens, to the heart of the heavens. I will cry out with all my strength until I die." I cried such cries to Hashem, blessed be He. I told Him: "You see my condition—what can become of me. I want to repent; I want to live." Then I said: "Master of the World, You can do everything. You can help me. If You help me leave here alive, then I dedicate all the days of my life only to serving Hashem, not to..." Like that, and... and I took upon myself a vow that cannot be annulled. There is such a vow—a vow, a vow made with the consent of the public. [...] There is such a vow that is impossible to annul. I took a vow upon myself: "Master of the World, I see that here I am far from life, but if You help me, I dedicate all the days of my life only to the service of Hashem." Nu, nu, I cried out with all... This, this, this—in a forest, sounds travel; one hears the voices from very far away. Then I heard the sounds of horses going—the horses go with irons. [Before the horses.] Yes. [Before the horses—you forgot—some Arab said to you from afar, "Come to me."] Ah? [Some Arab came to you to search you for money, right? There was some Arab who came before the horses.] Nu. [And he came and searched you for money.] [He stood on the hill.] [He said to you, "Come, come to me," and you went to him.] Yes, yes, yes, I went to him, yes. That... I do not, do not, do not tell everything. [Ah, one must tell everything.] Oy, I was walking with some garment, so he, he, he, he searched; he did not find money.

So he, he, he left me naked and took the, the clothes and went away. [He left you without the clothes?] Yes. [This is something new.] Then I cried out with such voices. Then I heard the, the sounds of the horses walking with irons. Then I said: "Perhaps this is a salvation?!" And so it was; it was a salvation. Two horses came, with riders, yes, and they saw me—that from the tears of my eyes, the clothes were wet, all, all, all (not understood). And they sighed over, over my condition. Then I said, I said: "What, what can I ask of them? That they should get down and I should go on the horses?" What? Then they said to me: "What, what, what can we do for you?" Oy, I told them—they said that they were going to the village, and there they would say that I was fleeing from the army, and they had caught me. "They must, must bring me to the village," yes. And they went, and I did not see them. Nu, they caught me and did not want to release me, but the officers—they did not, did not—we did not see them; they went. Oy... And also I forget. I do not, do not sleep. I saw the horses; I... They told me—they rode on the horses and told me that I should walk after them. I said: "What? Horses... I, I, I am walking—I walked on all fours." I did not walk on two; on the hands and on the feet, like an ani... like a... yes. Nu, could I, I walk after horses? What is this? And they, they sat on the horses and told me like this, that I should go with them. Nu, I went on all fours. I thought they would already stop, that they would wait for me. What, what is this? But I see that I—that they are standing; I see the horses. It...

They, they sat on the horses. It... yes, I saw the horses with them. Until I came—I saw the horses and I went after the horses. Afterward I stopped seeing the horses. But I had a path, so I followed this path until I came to the place of the shepherds, the animals, goats. [And you were fortunate.] Who can tell all this? [You were fortunate that they gave you cream to drink.] Yes, yes. Then I came, and I asked them to give me water to drink. I was parched. Then they brought me a box made of, of wood, a large box like this, with leben. Oy, it was a miracle. Had it not been for this, I would have died. And I was supposed not to eat and not to drink, yes. Oy, oy. [Afterward some Arab came with a donkey and took you to Tiberias.] He remembers. And an Arab came with a horse, and this horse was entirely covered with sores. The Arab was poor, so he did not have a good horse. Then I asked him that I should ride. "What will you give me?" I told him: "You will come to Tzemach. I have a wealthy family there; they will give you a lot of money if, if you take me." Then he, he took me, and afterward he regretted it. Oy. [Why did he regret it?] He, he wants money. [Ah.] Perhaps they will not give him; perhaps I only want... yes. [Good, he took you as far as Tzemach.] Ah, oy. At any rate, they took me to Tiberias by way of the sea, and I came home. [Unclear: And there—it was not there in Tiberias], and those who had gone on foot— they related that robbers came and took from them everything they had. Then they said: "Because they had left me behind." They, they told my family that I had remained—they did not, did not know in what, in what place, in what... I—and I came, oy. And I had sores on my feet. I walked on... in mud.

Oy, the doctors examined my feet. They told me: "A mikveh is forbidden. It is forbidden to go to the mikveh. If you go to the mikveh, you will die." I did not listen. Me, without a mikveh? So I went to the mikveh. And the smell of the feet was like a carcass, yes. Hashem, blessed be He, helped me. I suffered and suffered, and suffered, until the illness passed, until I remained alive... ...my condition, where I was: a person, a sick person unable to walk, without, without water, without bread, without... What, what would come of it? And also (not understood). But I made such cries, yes. I said: "I have no one before whom to be ashamed. Here I can cry out, yes, so I cried out up to, up to the heavens." I had already despaired, but I said: "Master of the World, You can do everything. If You bring me out of here alive, then I dedicate all the days of my life only to the service of Hashem," Oy, and I did not merit to fulfill the vow. I did not merit. There was hunger; there was... yes. But the rabbi, the rabbi... Oy, Werner, Werner, Rav Moshe Werner. I was with him. He saw what I was suffering, and he was... yes. He, together with other rabbis, annulled the vow for me, yes, yes. [...] I told him, so he said: "It can be annulled," yes. [You opened a bakery, a bakery?] Ah? [You opened a bakery.] Yoy, yoy. Do you know the story of the bakery? Oy, oy, may Hashem, blessed be He, have mercy on me—for what passed over me. Oy, there was this and that. But just this alone: Hashem, blessed be He, brought me out of such a place, out of a place of death, out of such a place. There was no one to care for me, no one, no one to help me, yes. And I was saved. Hashem, blessed be He, saved me, yes. It is im-, impossible to conceive in the mind, and I cannot tell everything, yes, like that.

And the yeshivah—I had beautiful handwriting. So they needed to send letters, yes, so they asked me to come take—to write. Nu, to write, but at night, at night. [......] I sat in the house, in the synagogue, and sat in great dejection. I have—I already vowed... I handed the days of my life over to Hashem, blessed be He, and I sit and write? To earn money? To earn a livelihood? Yes. I sat and wrote. Suddenly, in the middle of writing, such a mad dog entered, with water running from its mouth, and its eyes were very terrible, and it was, was running, running like this, inside, inside the synagogue, with such force. And I sit and see such a thing. I saw that it was mad—a mad dog, rabies, yes. What to do? Beside me there was a cabinet of books. I removed the books and entered the cabinet. It was very small and was... At any rate, I entered the cabinet. And the dog came to the cabinet and fought with me. It wanted to open it, and I held it so it could not, so it could not open it. [Yes.] {..}.. I saw more wondrous things. I was here and the dog was here. So it wanted to... and here was the grave of Rebbe Meir Baal HaNes. The dog came from here and wanted to come to me to bite me, and I saw as though they were not, not allowing the dog to go to me, yes. That is it; that is how it was. Afterward it wanted to come and... and it was as if someone was not allowing it. Oy, oy. My understanding is that it happened to me because I had made a vow not to work, and I was writing, yes, yes, yes. For money I am writing, nu. The dog stood there beside me and looked at me, and I looked at it. But it could not come to me. Suddenly it was running—it began to run outside and left the synagogue.

But I was afraid lest it come back. I was able to close the doors. Oy vey, oy... Blessed be Hashem, Hashem saved me from the dog as well. This was also the same kind of thing as the desert, when I remained like that, yes. I, I together in the synagogue with, with a mad dog, and it could... ...It was in Tiberias. It was a small city. But there were Chassidim, Chassidim of several kinds, yes. And each one of the Chassidim thinks that he, he... everyone needs to learn from them. They are Boyan Chassidim, and this is Chabad Chassidus, yes, yes. At any rate, the Karlin Chassidim and the Slonim Chassidim were close to one another; the synagogue was nearby. But, but Karlin would shout in prayer. So among them they were held in great esteem: they shout, they, they shout in prayer, they pray with cries. Nu, and the Slonim Chassidim, they, they dismissed the Karlin Chassidim. What is the main thing? To learn, to be a lamdan. Nu, among the Slonim Chassidim there were lamdanim, yes. The Karlin Chassidim would shout in prayer. But the Slonim Chassidim, they did not shout in prayer, yes; only they had lamdanim, lamdanim. So they, so they had, had all the honor and all the pride and all, and all the world. They thought they were the great ones of the generation, that they, they were the leaders of Israel, that the main thing is to study Gemara, yes. And they have, and they have lamdanim in this. And Rav Motl was—he was, truly was—he was very talented, a man of intellect, a man of heart. He was wise and understanding and compassionate and had good character traits, Rav Motl. Nu, but the world had more pride in him, because he, he, he was God-fearing; he, he was a lamdan; he... yoy. So among them they had, had... yes. The self-importance and the pride, that was... that, that was the main thing in life among them, yes.

Yisrael Ber, Yisrael Ber was neither a Karliner nor a Slonimer. Rather he, he chose, he chose Breslov Chassidus, yes. So Hashem, blessed be He, brought it about that Rav Motl—I was his student and was like a son; he loved me, yes. Even though I was not talented and he was a great lamdan, nevertheless he honored me and drew me close. Yes. So I was in great poverty, and my wife was with her parents, and I was with my parents. We had no livelihood. Nu, and Rav Motl—I, I was a member of Rav Motl's household, yes. And he saw that I had drawn close to the holy Rabbainu, to Breslov. He saw that I had no wife, no apartment, no livelihood, and I was happy. He did not understand it. "What? What is this? Is he not of the world, of this world? What is this? What is this with Yisrael Ber?" He did not understand it. He understood that I had no bread to eat. This, this, this he understood. He was wise, he was a lamdan, so he understood. I did not tell him. He asked me: "Who gives you food? Who?" Then, then I told him: "Hashem, blessed be He, supports me!" Yes, and he—and this entered his ear, and he understood that I had no, no, no, no food, yes. And I had no garment for Shabbos and had nothing. The wife was in Tzfat, and I had neither an apartment nor, nor... Yes, neither money nor pride nor Torah nor... nothing. And he saw that I was happy, so he, he understood that I had no bread to eat. So he went—he was compassionate—he went; among the Slonim Chassidim there was a baker who baked bread, yes. So he went to him. His name was Rav Mendel Weck, yes.

Rav Motl saw that I had no bread to eat. He said: "He deserves bread. It is necessary; without bread... I need to give him bread. I cannot..." Yes. And so it was. He went to the baker and told him—the baker was one of the Slonim Chassidim, a friend of his—he told him: "Give Yisrael Ber one loaf of bread every day on my account. Every Rosh Chodesh, give me the bill; I will pay you!" That is how it was. Afterward he, he, he was a detective, a detective; he... I sat in his courtyard. I had a small kitchen. And the owner of the kitchen, he, he, he... But the kitchen was without a person, without (not understood), so I came to him: "What is this? How much do you want to rent the kitchen to me?" So he told me some small sum. Good, I took it, but I did not have even, even the small sum. I told him: "Do not worry; I will pay you!" Nu, what did he have... He gave me the kitchen. And I found among the merchants some broken crate, some—and took it into the kitchen. And I had some, some crate for a table, and some crate for... yes, crates... And I myself—it was here, and I sat on the floor. I put some rags on the floor, yes. And I sat on the floor and said Likutey Tefillos, Tehillim, and... yes... And Rav Motl saw my, my apartment, the kitchen, and how I, I occupied myself with Likutey Tefillos. Nu, nu, Breslov. And he sees that I have no bread to eat, and the wife is in Tzfat with her parents, and I am happy. "What is this? What kind of life is this? What is this?" So he did not understand it. From where do I take this? At any rate, Hashem, blessed be He, had mercy on me. And his neighbor, who lived beside Rav Motl, moved to another apartment. So he, he, he knew that I, that I had no apartment and no wife and nothing.

So he, he rented the apartment from the owner of the... from the owner of the kitchen. He was the owner of the entire courtyard of Rav Motl, of... yes. So he rented the apartment for me, yes. And he told me—he came to me and told me, and related to me that he had rented an apartment for me. "Write to your wife that she should come," yes. I told him: "Good, an apartment has walls, but there is no table, I have no chair, I have nothing at all. And what? How can I write to her that she should come?" Then he, he struck me. Then he told me, told me: "That is not your concern. I will give you furniture—an apartment with furniture. I have—it will have chairs for you, and you will have a table and a bed. Write that she should come." And so it was. In Tiberias there was a carpenter, an excellent carpenter, a good carpenter, and I did not recog... and I did not know that he was Breslov. He had drawn close to the holy Rabbainu, and I did not know. He heard that I was suffering, that I had been suffering. So he would, would draw close to me, and he was mighty, mighty and wise, yes. So I thought that he was mocking me, that he was a scoffer, given to mockery. He, he, he liked me in order to mock me. To him, Chassidus was nothing. No—I learned it; he told me: "I am Breslov. I saw a couple from Russia, who came from Russia, and they rose at midnight and recited Chatzos at midnight, Chatzos, and they, they drew me close to Breslov," yes. So he brought—Rav Motl brought this, this carpenter. And in his storeroom he had several broken chairs, yes. So Mordechai was, was a great expert in carpentry, and he made... This furniture—it was a novelty in Tiberias. I had chairs and a table. Rav Motl had two daughters. One was Sarah, Sarah, and one was Feiga. And they, they saw that Rav Motl delighted in me and he... yes.

Even though I was simple, nevertheless he loved, loved me. He himself did not know what it was—why did he love me? So Sarah was the younger one, and Feiga was older. In short, they came, the daughters, and I brought my, my wife. She had no garment for Shabbos. She had no dress; she had no... Then his daughters told him: "You brought the woman; she has no, no shoes, and she has no dress, and she has nothing. And it is necessary, necessary, necessary to do something for her... A woman comes without a garment, without shoes?" Then it became known to him; the daughters told him that she had no, she had nothing. Then he told me: "Go..." In Tiberias, the mukhtar of the city was Yaakov; his name was Yaakov. Yaakov was an expert shoemaker. As Mordechai was in carpentry, he was an expert in shoes, yes. And people stood in line. He received so much, and there was a lot, a lot of money. It was strong—he, he worked; the shoe was strong and beautiful, yes. So he, he, he sent me to Yaakov. He was the most, most, most select [Unclear: "carpenter"; context says shoemaker] in Tiberias. He charges a lot of money, so he sent me to him, yes... Nu, at that time there were no stores and there was nothing ready-made. When shoes were needed, people had to stand in line and have a measurement taken and have them made according to the measurement, yes. They had to wait two or three weeks in line, yes. I went—she had no shoes. Nu, this requires a turn; it requires several, several weeks. One has to wait. What will be? What will be? So I came to him and told him: "Rav Motl said that you should give, that you should give me a pair of shoes, size such-and-such." My wife had told me her size, yes, oh. Then he said: "I have her size. This size is ready, and there is no need to wait."

Then he, he gave me the shoes, and they were very beautiful and good, according to her size, yes. So she already had shoes. Afterward I had new furniture and joy. He heard my Shalom Aleichem. Then it was not like today; I was then at the beginning of drawing close—and my Eishes Chayil and Azamer Bishvachin—so he became completely nullified. Then he said: "What, what is this? He, he, he is a lamdan and does not know what Shabbos is and knows nothing. Yisrael Ber, Yisrael Ber—he, he knows." He told everything; he poured out his heart to his daughters, yes. "Yisrael Ber, Yisrael Ber, Yisrael Ber," and...