This last Thursday, 18 Kislev, was the yahrzeit of Rabbi Baruch of Mezhibuzh zy”a (may his merit protect us), one of the great disciples of the Baal Shem Tov and the uncle of Rabbeinu HaKadosh, Rebbe Nachman of Breslov zy”a.

Here is an excerpt from a shiur given by Moreinu HaRav Eliezer Berland shlit”a in the year 5782, in which he relates how Rabbi Baruch praised Rabbeinu HaKodesh:

Rabbi Baruch Getzeh, who came to Rabbi Mechteshe – he was called Mechteshe because he was a four-year-old child then.  Then he told him, “I will tell you a story from Rabbeinu.  You came to serve me.  I will tell you a story about Rabbi Nachman.  I was a child the age of four and sat on the lap of Rabbi Baruch of Mezhibuzh.  There was an amazing tish.  What a tish there was –wow…  Thirty Admorim, thirty Rebbes came; maybe forty Admorim.  And what songs with such devekut (holy devotion).  In the end, someone mentioned Rabbi Nachman.  Everyone began to laugh and to make fun, and to make gestures with their hands, legs, and heads.  Everyone did…  Then Rabbi Baruch said, ‘Know, what the Rebbe has in the sole [of his shoe], they do not have in their heads.’  Then he asked me, ‘Why did you stay silent?’ – a boy of four [or] five years old.  He said to me, ‘It is impossible; it was already decreed like this.’  Because Feiga, Rabbeinu’s mother, asked Rabbi Baruch at the brit to decree that people wouldn’t oppose him.  He [Rabbi Baruch] said, ‘It must be this way.’” Therefore, the Rebbe said, “I have brought a gift: opposition.”  The more opposition there is, the more vessels there are for the light of the Infinite.  Because the Rebbe said that the hurban (destruction) is from an overabundance of light, and the vessels are the opposition.  The more people oppose a person, disparage him, the more he has vessels for the light of the Infinite.

Moreinu HaRav shlit”a at the grave of Rabbi Baruch of Mezhibuzh over forty years ago: