By Dovid Zaklikowski for COLlive and Hasidic Archives
A large crowd gathered for the bris of the son of the Tzemach Tzedek, the third Chabad Rebbe. Everyone was ready for the set time, but the Rebbe was late to the time he allotted for his son’s entering the sacred covenant.
When the Rebbe finally emerged from his room hours later, the gathered wondered what took so long. When it came to name the child, the gathered were even more confounded when the father gave the name Shmuel (the future Rebbe Maharash).
At the meal, the Rebbe was asked, “There is no Shmuel in our family to name the child after,” so who was he named after?
The Tzemach Tzedek said that it was after Shmuel, the water carrier in Polatsk, cryptically noting, “An intelligent person, is better than a prophet.”
At one point during the meal, the Rebbe once again enigmatically expressed himself, “A burial society is holy and worthwhile. But the Pletzker society? Ai! My goodness.”
There were several at the joyous occasion from Polatsk, and when they came home they looked into the event Shmuel the water carrier’s burial. They learned that on the same day Shmuel passed away, a respectable community member also died. When it came to the poor man, the burial society did not rush to take care of his burial until much later in the afternoon.
While no one knew much about the water carrier, disregarding a burial for late in the afternoon was surely a slight that even the poor was undeserving of. But the lesson they took, was that Shmuel was surely no ordinary person, and you never know who someone is and don’t disregard the respect even of the water carrier.
Find Hasidic Archives latest books on HasidicArchives.com Story Bites: Short Stories to Savor and Dear Rebbe: Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson corresponds with a singer, a writer, a sculptor & a Holocaust survivor, also available on Amazon Prime.
The story doesn’t answer the question.
Who was, and what was the metzias of, Shmuel the Water Carrier that the Rebbe should name the Maharash after him?
Or, as it seems the Rebbe was teaching an important lesson or rebuke to the chevra kadisha that all yidden are equal, and that Shmuel the water carrier should have been given the same kovoid hameis as the more prominent gheze member of the community and not buried later.
We know from the Chassidic Stories, that the water carriers, were Hidden Tzadikim‼️