Welcome to the Daily Holy Story. About 300 years ago, the holy Rabbi, Rabbi Shalom Sharabi, better known as Rashash, lived in Yerushalayim (Jerusalem). A young lady who supported her household by working as a seamstress and sewing dresses passed away, and the family was very poor. At that time, the ruler of Jerusalem was a Turkish ruler who decided to impose terrible taxes on the Jewish people. Included in the taxes was what was called a burial tax. Anybody who wanted to bury their beloved in Har HaZeitim (the Mount of Olives) had to pay a tax to the Turkish ruler. The seamstress’s family was very poor and could not collect the money for the tax, so her burial was delayed.
When the hours passed and they still couldn’t get the money, they decided to hold a very small funeral and try to get to the Mount of Olives without the ruler knowing. It wasn’t simple. The ruler’s house was right on the road to the Mount of Olives, where the cemetery was. Hours upon hours, the Turkish ruler would sit on his patio opposite the road to the cemetery, relaxing in his chair to make sure that anybody who was going to bury their beloved paid the tax. The ruler was in his house when the quiet steps of the funeral procession caught his ears. He right away ran to the patio and saw the small group trying to perform a funeral. “Okay, okay,” he said. He knew that the small group had not paid the tax, because nobody had come to pay tax since the morning. Right away, he summoned his men and told them to stop the group and not allow them to do the burial. His men went and turned them back, but no matter what they did—all their begging and pleading, saying that they didn’t have the money and were poor—it did not help. They chased away the people who were carrying the lady toward her burial place.
At that very time, Rabbi Shalom Sharabi, known as Rashash, was learning in the yeshiva of the Kabbalists in Beit El, surrounded by his students. Suddenly, there were knocks at the doors, and the mourners for this young lady came into the yeshiva, sad and crying, with tears running down their cheeks. They told Rashash what had happened. When they finished, Rashash got up, turned to his students, and told them, “Let us do the mitzvah (commandment) of escorting the deceased to her final resting place. She was a tzaddeket (righteous woman), and we will give her her final honor.” All of a sudden, the avelim (mourners) saw that Rashash was going outside with them to escort them to the final resting place. If, in the beginning, the mourners had wanted a quiet funeral, they were now being escorted by Rashash and all his students, and it was certainly nothing short of a very meaningful and large funeral.
So they went down to Har HaZeitim and got close to the Turkish ruler’s home. He rubbed his eyes in disbelief. He could not believe what he was seeing. The Jews—the nerve they had to come back and make fun of his warnings that they must pay the tax! To make sure he was seeing what he believed he was seeing, he got closer to the fence of the patio that was surrounded by Rashash. By metal poles. His anger went to his head. His eyes were looking in disbelief. What he saw was as clear as day, and he started to get red in the face like he had never gotten red before. He was losing his temper, and he put his head in between the metal poles of the fence around the patio. When he started to try to take his head out, he could not. The ruler became frightened. He felt like he was trapped. His head was trapped in between the bars of the metal fence.
In the meantime, the funeral procession continued, and they buried the young lady in Har HaZeitim. An hour passed, the burial was concluded, and they started going back home, taking small steps and waiting to see what the Turkish ruler and his men were going to do. Only Rashash and his students stepped with ease and patience. When they got closer to the ruler’s house, Rashash went to the house itself. His bewildered students followed him, and, all of a sudden, as Rashash knocked on the ruler’s door, the ruler yelled out, “The curse of the Jewish rabbi has touched me.” The people accompanying Rashash and the members of the ruler’s household opened the door. They looked at Rashash with tremendous fear and respect and took him to the home’s patio.
It was a very strange scene. The ruler, who used to inspire fear in all the people—all the citizens of the city—was trapped inside the bars of the fence and could not get out. The members of his household surrounded him, yelling hysterically. Two large Arabs went close to the fence, trying to pull the bars apart to free his head, but they could not do it. “Please pray for me,” the ruler cried out to Rashash. Rashash told him, “You’re going to have to pay for that.” The ruler yelled out to the Rabbi, “Anything you want.” So Rashash told him, “For once and for all, you have to stop the attacks for burial against the Jews.” All of a sudden, there was silence and quiet. You could hear a pin drop. The ruler turned red from pain and from trying to get out of the bars of the fence. After a few seconds, all of a sudden, as he was trying to move his head and look at Rashash, his head came out all at once. The ruler kept his promise and removed the attacks from the Jews, and the people were able to bury their dead once and for all in peace and tranquility. That is the holiness of Rabbi Shalom Sharabi, HaRashash. Have a wonderful, wonderful day.