Rebbe Zev Wolf Kitzes, among the most distinguished disciples of the Ba’al Shem Tov and his close companion, was born in the year 5455 (1695). He was renowned as a genius and master of all parts of the Torah, with broad knowledge in the wisdom of the world as well. He served as rabbi of Tulchin and later moved to Mezhibuzh, where his father-in-law Rabbi Naftali served. Together with Rabbi David Furkas he led a group of ascetics, until an encounter with the Ba’al Shem Tov revealed to them the depth of the latter’s holiness and they became his close disciples. The Ba’al Shem Tov said of him: "Between you and me there is no more than a hair's breadth, but you cannot cross it." His standards of purity were extraordinary, and it was said of him that he immersed all his household vessels in the mikveh, even a needle. He passed away in Mezhibuzh on the 12th of Cheshvan, 5549 (1788), and was buried near the Ba’al Shem Tov.
Once, the Ba’al Shem Tov said to his circle of disciples: "Next week a righteous man will come here—a tzaddik who is the foundation of the world. Whoever brings this man some pleasure will merit the World to Come." That week, Rebbe Zev Kitzes set out to find the tzaddik his master had spoken of. He searched in the inns and in the communal lodging houses where the poor were sheltered at the community's expense but did not find the man.
On Friday, before the onset of Shabbat, Rebbe Zev entered the bathhouse and prepared for himself a bath of hot water. His intention was to linger there in the hope of finding the man. Just then a poor man entered the bathhouse and stood near the blazing stone furnace at its center. Suddenly the man let out a great sigh, so deep that his very bones seemed to crack. Rebbe Zev understood that this was the tzaddik his master had spoken of.
Rebbe Zev saw that the bathhouse attendant was pushing the man away from where he stood, as one would shove aside an idle loiterer. At once he stepped out of the bath he had prepared and gave the poor man the hot water and the bundle of moist branches that bathers use to massage their bodies. Afterward he said to the man: "Come and be my guest for Shabbat."
Rebbe Zev then put on the Shabbat clothes he had brought with him and gave his weekday garments to the poor man so that he might wear them in place of his tattered clothes. When the poor man refused to accept them, Rebbe Zev said: "Know that I am considered a man of standing in this community, and it is not fitting that you be a guest in my home in torn garments." The poor man agreed and put on the clothes Rebbe Zev gave him.
Throughout that Shabbat, Rebbe Zev saw nothing out of the ordinary in the poor man's conduct. After Shabbat, he watched as the man began to remove the garments he had received. Rebbe Zev said to him: "These garments are yours as a gift." The poor man refused — until Rebbe Zev said to him: "I am considered a man of standing; it is not fitting that I wear these garments after you." The poor man agreed and accepted the clothes.
Afterward, Rebbe Zev went from house to house through the town collecting money for the poor man, until he had gathered some ten rubles. When he returned home, he found that the poor man had already left his house. Rebbe Zev searched until he found him outside the town and gave him the money he had collected.
The poor man refused to take the money from Rebbe Zev's hand, but Rebbe Zev pressed him and said: "This is my constant practice, to give a guest a suitable gift." Reluctantly, the poor man agreed and accepted the money.
Some time later, Rebbe Zev met his master the Ba’al Shem Tov. The Ba’al Shem Tov said to him: "You have given me life! Know that this man is a tzaddik upon whom the world is founded. He is hidden, while I am revealed. He found it exceedingly difficult to go on living amid his hardship and had sought to depart from this world. Had he done so, I too would have been compelled to leave this world. But you, by giving the man life through everything you did for him, saved my life as well."
Once, the Ba’al Shem Tov said to his wife that he was one of the thirty-six tzaddikim of the generation. His wife asked him: "Are you among the thirty-six hidden tzaddikim or the thirty-six revealed ones?" He replied: "Among the hidden ones." "But everyone knows you?" she asked. To this the Ba’al Shem Tov replied: "Nonetheless, no one knows even a single drop of the ocean of what I truly am."
If we take the Ba’al Shem Tov’s concealed existence a step further, could it be that it is related to our story as well?
Naturally, a story never departs entirely from its plain meaning. On that level, this is a story about an actual person whom the Ba’al Shem Tov and Rebbe Zev met and recognized as a hidden tzaddik. And yet, the story invites a deeper reading, one in which the hidden tzaddik represents the Ba’al Shem Tov’s own concealed dimension. It is as if the hidden tzaddik that visited Mezhibuzh and whom Rebbe Zev honored was a projection of the Ba’al Shem Tov’s own concealed spiritual dimension (whom he said no one was familiar with).
Interpreted in this way, the story provides a beautiful illustration of the quality of the sefirah of foundation within the sefirah of foundation. The literal meaning of a foundation is the hidden part, buried in the earth, and upon which all that is visible rests. The tzaddik is called “the foundation of the world” (Proverbs 10:25), and for this reason he is normally concealed, unrecognizable by most people. The foundation of the foundation is thus the hidden within the hidden—that dimension that the tzaddik usually conceals even from himself, parts of his soul that remain beyond even his ordinary comprehension.
Seen through this lens, the story describes the Ba’al Shem Tov’s inner reckoning with a complex dimension of his own personality: the experience of being what is known as a tzaddik vera lo (צַדִּיק וְרַע לוֹ), which refers to being a righteous person who suffers. One of the defining characteristics of a chasid is that joy is on his face while his sorrow remains buried in his heart. So too, the Ba’al Shem Tov struck a balance between revealed joy and concealed awe. The balance between joy and awe shifted only during the Ten Days of Repentance (from Rosh HaShanah to Yom Kippur, inclusive, when the joy would recede into the concealed part of the Ba’al Shem Tov’s psyche while the awe was prominently displayed on his face). Though sorrow is not identical to awe, the fact that both must be borne with their opposites within the innermost chambers of the heart suggests a deep kinship between them.
In the Tanya, the phrase tzaddik vera lo refers to the remains of the animal soul’s mindset that remain even in a tzaddik and prevent him from being completely righteous. Still, we might say that a tzaddik who still has some of his animal soul mindset experiences distress and hardship from being in the world personally, as well as from the realization that in general, the Divine Presence is still in exile. This interpretation connects with the plain meaning of the expression a tzaddik vera lo, which the Sages applied to the Talmudic sage, Rabbah—the tzaddik who experienced so much suffering. This, in contrast to Rav Chisda, the tzaddik who was wealthy and abundantly blessed.
The Ba’al Shem Tov does not seek to nullify this dimension of himself, but at times the pain within him overflows its banks and the sense of weariness with life grows stronger. At such moments the Ba’al Shem Tov awakens the tzaddik vetov lo—the righteous who is blessed with a good life— that dwells within the tzaddik vera lo— through his disciple Rebbe Zev Kitzes. When Rebbe Zev succeeds in infusing joy into the sorrow and sighing of the hidden tzaddik, the Ba’al Shem Tov’s characteristic bearing of opposites—weeping on one side and joy on the other—returns to its proper place, and the Ba’al Shem Tov’s life is saved.
(Based on a class from the 26th of Iyar, 5780)
