Welcome to the Daily Holy Story. In one town, there were two men named Yechezkel Levi who looked exactly alike, like twins. They had the same name and the same appearance. However, one Yechezkel Levi was a butcher who feared Hashem, learned Torah, performed mitzvot (commandments), and went to the shul (synagogue) every day. The other Yechezkel Levi was very rich, with a lot of money but no religion, no mitzvot, not even Shabbat.
One day, the rich Yechezkel Levi was walking outside the city in his beautiful botanical garden. As he walked through his vineyards, he noticed a dead Jewish body on the ground. His Jewish neshama (soul) awakened, and he picked up the body, put it on his shoulders, and carried it to the road. There, he saw two Arabs with two donkeys coming toward him. He went over to one of the Arabs, rented one of the donkeys, and told them, “Put this body on your donkey, take it into town to the rabbi, and tell the rabbi to bury the body.”
The Arab went and knocked on the rabbi’s door. He said to the rabbi, “We have a Jewish dead body that was found by a Jew, and you have to bury him.” The rabbi asked, “Who was the Jew who gave you the dead body?” They told him, “It’s Yechezkel Levi, the rich man.” The rabbi took the body and buried it. Then he thought to himself, “Wow, Yechezkel Levi the rich man sent a body to be buried. What a mitzvah he did. Maybe I can open his heart and get him to start doing mitzvot, keep Shabbat, and be religious.”
So the rabbi sent the shamash (synagogue attendant) to tell the rich Yechezkel Levi to come visit him. The shamash went and knocked on Yechezkel Levi’s door, and Yechezkel Levi asked him, “What do you want?” The shamash said, “The rabbi is calling you. He wants you to visit him.” Yechezkel Levi said, “I don’t want to visit the rabbi. I’m not interested in him. I’m not interested in his Torah or his mitzvot. Get out of here.” The shamash went back and told the rabbi what Yechezkel Levi the rich man had said. The rabbi couldn’t hold back, and he put him in nidui—he excommunicated him.
When Yechezkel Levi heard that no one wanted to talk to him anymore, he took his wife and two sons and left town. He moved out and went to live three hours away, in a village where there were only goyim (non-Jews). One day, after his afternoon lunch, he went to take a nap and never woke up. He passed away in his sleep. Now his sons didn’t know what to do with their father’s body. No Jew was going to bury him because he was excommunicated, and no Arab or goy (non-Jew) was going to bury him because he was a Jew. What were they to do? They were in a dilemma.
As they were thinking about what to do, all of a sudden the oldest brother raised his head and noticed Yechezkel Levi, the butcher, the tzaddik (righteous person), coming into town to buy oxen and sheep for his meat business, slaughter the animals, and sell the meat. So he called to Yechezkel Levi and said, “Come, come, I have animals to sell you. But come rest first after your journey. You must be tired.” Yechezkel Levi went into their house, sat down, and rested. Then they served him coffee, but they put sleeping pills in it. After he drank the coffee, Yechezkel Levi the tzaddik fell asleep.
Now the younger brother asked the older brother, “What should we do?” The older brother said, “Let us take Yechezkel Levi’s clothes and put them on our father.” And so they did. They took off the clothes of Yechezkel Levi the tzaddik and put them on their father. Then the younger brother said, “Now what do we do?” The older brother said, “Now we send our father’s body, dressed in Yechezkel Levi’s clothes, to the town, and we send a message with one of the Arabs that Yechezkel Levi the butcher passed away.”
So they sent their father’s body to town, and everybody thought that Yechezkel Levi the tzaddik had passed away. Everybody came to the funeral, including his wife, the rabbi, and the whole town. The rabbi eulogized him, saying what a tzaddik he was. They buried Yechezkel Levi, the rich man, thinking he was Yechezkel Levi, the tzaddik.
After the funeral, Yechezkel Levi’s children were in a dilemma. What were they to do now with Yechezkel Levi, the tzaddik? They said, “Okay, let’s put our father’s shrouds on him.” So they did. Then the younger brother said, “What are we going to do? Soon he’s going to wake up.” The older brother said, “What we’re going to do now is take the body of Yechezkel Levi, the tzaddik, and put it in the cemetery next to the town.” They took him to the cemetery, put him on a monument, and left him there. They went back home. Yechezkel Levi the tzaddik’s body was on a monument in the cemetery, and the cool breeze and the cold woke him up in the middle of the night. He found himself in the cemetery, on a monument.
He went home to his wife and knocked on the door. She woke up and said, “Who’s there?” He said, “It’s me, Yechezkel, your husband.” She said, “Where did you come from?” He said, “I came from the cemetery.” She looked through the window and saw her husband dressed in shrouds, and she fainted.
Now Yechezkel Levi went to the rabbi’s house and knocked on the door. The shamash answered. He asked, “Who’s there?” “Yechezkel Levi.” “Which Yechezkel Levi?” “The butcher.” The shamash said, “Where did you come from?” I said, “I came from the cemetery.” The shamash looked through the window. He couldn’t believe his eyes. He said, “Let me go to the rabbi.” He went to the rabbi, and the rabbi came and said, “Okay, it’s nighttime. We don’t talk to dead people at night. Go to the shul in the morning. I’ll see how I can help you.”
And sure enough, Yechezkel Levi went to the shul and into the ladies’ section, under the covers, but he couldn’t fall asleep. Early in the morning, the shamash came to open the shul, and Yechezkel Levi screamed out to the shamash, “Please bring me something hot to drink. I’m freezing, and I didn’t sleep the whole night.” The shamash told them, “We will talk to you after the tefillah (prayers).” And sure enough, they finished the prayers, and the rabbi came over to him and said, “Tell me your story.” Yechezkel told the rabbi exactly what had happened: he had gone into town to buy cattle, they had given him coffee, he had fallen asleep, and then he didn’t remember anything else.
The rabbi smiled and said, “Okay, bring him his tefillin (phylacteries), bring him his clothes, and let him get dressed.” Everybody looked at the rabbi and said, “What happened? What is going on?” The rabbi said to them, “Don’t you understand? The children tricked us. They put Yechezkel Levi the tzaddik’s clothes on their father and made us think that the dead man was Yechezkel Levi the poor man, but it was their rich father, and we held a funeral for him even though he was a rasha (wicked person).” All the people asked the rabbi, “Why did he have that zechut (merit)?” The rabbi said, “Very simple. He did one mitzvah to bury a Jew who died, and Hashem gave him a beautiful funeral.” Thank you for listening and have a lovely, lovely day.