This story took place at the beginning of Iyar, just about two months ago. Following the article we have included the response of HaRav Chaim Kanievsky shlita to the events recounted.
Rabbi Eliezer Lipa Zeril is a mashgiach kashrus who travels for the Eida Chareidis. Recently he has been in a small town near Strasbourg, in Germany. There are two Strasbourgs: one in France and one in Germany. The one in France is a big city. The in Germany is a smaller center.
This is the story he told us.
We leave Eretz Yisroel together as a large group, and then split up into pairs to supervise the kashrus of a number of factories all over the country. In the course of the week we have little contact with any Jews, and especially not with religious Jews. We have our own food and we also can eat of the fresh fruits and vegetables. Boruch Hashem our time is dedicated to our task in kashrus, to make sure that Am Yisroel gets the high standard of kashrus that it deserves. On Shabbos the group comes together in one city, where there is a shul and a dining room, and we spend the Shabbos together, refreshing. We learn and we daven together.
I am now based near Strasbourg in Germany with my partner in a very small village named Newesond in the Strasbourg district. There are many such small villages in Germany, with factories nearby. Our job as mashgichim is to supervise the production of various dairy products.
A picture of the gravestone that the rabbis found
A month ago, my partner woke up one morning, and said, "Listen to the dream that I had last night. A neshomoh came to me in the dream and said that not far from here is its grave, and it very much wants me to say some Tehillim at its grave on 10 Iyar, its yahrtzeit."
My partner seemed very moved by the dream. He said that he felt that it was not just stam a dream. There was more in the dream:
"The neshomoh took me in the dream to some train tracks that are nearby (a two minute drive). It pointed out a large house, and said that its grave is behind that building. Right after that I saw the grave in my dream. The stone had an engraved pitcher on it, and the name on it was Eliezer."
Then he realized the day's date: 8 Iyar. "Wait a minute. 10 Iyar is in two days!"
"As you might expect," said Rabbi Zeril, "on that day, 10 Iyar, we drove in our car to the place described in the dream. Our only directions were what the neshomoh had described to us in the dream. We found the train tracks and, after a short slow drive past them, my partner exclaimed, `Here is the building! This is the building that I saw in my dream.'
"We stopped the car, and approached the building. It seemed old and abandoned. It gave the impression of having been vacant for decades. We walked around it and in the back we saw a forest with a narrow path in the center."
By now it was clear to them that something was going on. They walked down the path. Soon they saw several gravestones. There were no identifying marks on them and they could easily have been non-Jewish graves.
Pressing onwards, they had to catch their breath.
"We saw a wooden gate, closed, with a Mogen Dovid engraved on it. These were Jewish graves!
"We pushed on the gate which, it turns out, was not locked, and we entered the fenced in area. It was a small area, about 15 square meters (150 Sq. Ft.), all green. In the middle was a small hill, about 2 meters wide, with about 20 graves around it. We started to look for "our" grave, looking at grave after grave. They were all from around 5687-88 (1927-8).
The building in reality as described in the dream
"Suddenly my partner cried out, `Here is the gravestone and it has a pitcher on it!'
"The description of the neshomoh was accurate to the last detail. We were now standing in front of the gravestone with a pitcher engraved on it, exactly as described in the dream."
It took us a few minutes to recover from the shock. "After we recovered," continued Rabbi Zeril, "I said, `Let's learn some mishnayos.' but my friend refused. `The request was to say a few chapters of Tehillim.'
"So we said a few chapters of Tehillim, with a lot of feeling."
Even now, more than a month after the events, Rabbi Zeril cannot get over the events.
"According to what it says on the gravestone, the person was niftar in 5576, that is, 203 years ago. The lesson that I took away may seem obvious, but when you go through something like this yourself it is stunning: The power and value of Tehillim, and how important it was to a neshomoh that came, more than 200 years after it departed this world, to ask for a perek Tehillim.
Any clues or guesses about the identity of the person?
"The story is just one big puzzle. My partner was here last year. Why didn't the neshomoh come to him then? Why now and why to him? This is simply what happened and we do not know anything more."
They photographed the gravestone and sent it to Rabbi Binyamin Hamburger of Bnei Brak, a recognized expert on German Jewry.
Rabbi Hamburger noted that there were several spelling and other mistakes that seemed to be the result of the work of a German non-Jewish stone mason who was not so careful in copying the shapes given to him. He also noted that Leviim often had a pitcher engraved on the tombstones, symbolic of the fact that they wash the hands of Kohanim. But Rabbi Hamburger said that the niftar did not seem to have been well known and it is probably impossible to find out anything more about him.
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The Response of HaRav Chaim Kanievsky
Rabbi Zeril wrote up the incident and asked for a response and guidance from HaRav Chaim Kanievsky shlita.
This is what he replied:
Even though so many years have passed, sometimes a neshomoh still needs a tikkun even after so many years. Many neshomos do not need a tikkun by then, but there are neshomos that do need a tikkun. There are also other Heavenly calculations, such as to decide who will be given the opportunity to try to achieve the tikkun.
As to the one who had the dream, even though he apparently is not a descendent of the niftar, still the neshomoh told him, including where the grave is (and this is like ruach hakodesh) and Heaven gave the neshomoh the ability to ask him in a detailed request to say Tehillim at his grave on the day of the yahrtzeit. They asked it specifically of this person, who apparently is somehow connected to the niftar.
The inyan of requesting Tehillim and not mishnayos, is connected to the yahrtzeit. And there is also an in inyan insofar as it requested that he say Tehillim at his grave. As far as years to come, it is not necessary that anything need be done.
