Reb Shaya'le
of Kerestir

Reb Shaya'le — Reb Yeshaya ben Reb Moshe, Zy"a — was niftar in 5685 (1925) and is buried in Kerestir, Hungary, where Yidden from all over the velt still come to daven at his tziyun. He was born in 1851 in Zboró to Reb Moshe and Hentsha Miriam Steiner, zy"a, and was orphaned at the age of three. By the time he was bar mitzvah he was already learning by the heilige Liska Rebbe, Reb Tzvi Hirsh Friedman, zy"a, who took the young Shaya'le as his shammes and saw in him the neshamah of a true gadol.

He was also a talmid of the heilige Divrei Chaim of Sanz, zy"a, and later of Reb Mordechai of Nadvorna, zy"a, who guided him to be mekabel his rabbonus in Bodrogkeresztúr — di Kerestir of legend. There he built a court that was mamash an ir v'em b'Yisrael, where no Yid ever left hungry and where nisim v'niflaos happened on a daily basis. Yidden came from far and wide — from Hungary, Galicia, Romania — just to be in the tzaddik's presence and to receive his bracha.

His hachnasas orchim was legendary — the Rebbe's tish fed hundreds of aniyim every single day. He was a ba'al tzedakah and ba'al chesed of the highest madreiga, and the oilam says his shulchan never ran short even when the tzedakah pushke was empty. It's a known fact b'shem the mekubalim: the gematria of ישעיה equals the gematria of פרנסה — parnassah — as if Shamayim itself wrote his mission into his very name.

His most famous segulah — and the reason his tzelem hangs in nearly every Yiddishe home in the velt — is the incredible ma'aseh with the mice. A chossid's warehouse was being destroyed by thousands of mice and he was in mamash a matzav of bittul parnassah. He came to the Rebbe in Kerestir crying. The Rebbe told him not to worry, and b'derech neis, all the mice picked up and left — straight to the yard of the local antisemitic poritz. From then on, it became a minhag Yisrael to hang the Rebbe's tzelem in shuls, homes, and storehouses as a segulah against mice and for parnassah. The minhag stands b'kocho ad hayom hazeh.

His beis medrash at 65 Kossuth Utca in Kerestir — b'neis gadol — survived both the churban of the Second World War and the Communist regime that came after. Today it stands as a makom kadosh where thousands of Yidden make aliyah l'regel each year, especially around his yahrtzeit on Gimmel Iyar. The Rebbe's ohr has not dimmed one iota since his petirah — his zchus stands for all of us, and his portrait in our homes is a connection to that kedushah that never goes away.