At the beginning of the nineteenth century, as Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) fought his way across Europe, a group of Hasidic masters dedicated intense spiritual efforts to usher in the messianic era. One Hasidic account of this episode appeared in the work Nifla’ot HaRebbi, published 1911 – close to one hundred years after the purported events.
According to this version, the Hozeh (Seer) of Lublin, Rabbi Yaakov Yitzhak HaLevi Horowitz (1745-1815) recalled that during Napoleon’s heyday, Rabbi Levi Yitzhak of Berdyczów (1740-1809) had promised that after his death he would not let the deceased righteous rest until the Redeemer arrived. Napoleon’s military exploits and the havoc wreaked across Europe were perceived as part of the process of redemption.
As Napoleon’s military successes began to wane, messianic fervor increased. Together with a circle of dedicated Hasidic masters, the Hozeh of Lublin lead a concerted mystical campaign. A date was set for the coming of the Messiah: Simhat Torah 5575, October 7, 1814. Sins would have been expiated on the High Holy Days, and the celebratory atmosphere of Simhat Torah would be appropriate for the joy that would accompany redemption.
One of the crew, the Yid HaKadosh, the Holy Jew of Przysucha – Rabbi Yaakov Yitzhak Rabinowicz (1766-1813) – passed away on Sukkot 1813, a year before the designated date. This was a cunning mystical ploy designed so that the Yid HaKadosh would be able to help the efforts of the other Hasidic masters from his new perch in Heaven.
As the designated date approached, the Hozeh told his disciples that the upcoming Simhat Torah would be like no other. Moreover, the next Tisha B’av would not be a day of mourning for the destruction of the Temples, but a day to celebrate divine salvation: “When we have a good Simhat Torah, then we will also have a good Tisha B’av.”
On the day before Simhat Torah, the Hozeh’s disciples drank mead and left the empty bottles on the windowsill in the Hozeh’s private room. The Hozeh instructed the disciples that on Simhat Torah night they were to gather in the large room in his home, while he sequestered himself in his private study on the second floor. He warned them that they were to look after him on that night and watch over him in that room. The Hozeh’s instruction was cryptic and the Hasidim did not heed the warning. The Hozeh then approached his wife, Baila, and asked her to watch over him on Simhat Torah night. Alas, these requests amounted to naught: “Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman keeps vigil in vain” (Psalms 126:1).
Another Hasidic master from this posse, the Maggid of Kozienice, Rabbi Yisrael Hopsztajn (1737–1814), passed away a day before Sukkot. News of this loss did not reach the Hozeh before the festival began. Later, the Hozeh would claim that had he known of the Kozhnitzer Maggid’s demise, he would not have undertaken the dangerous step to hasten redemption.
Simhat Torah arrived. As another Hasidic master from this band, Rabbi Kalonymus Kalman HaLevi Epstein of Kraków (1753-1825), author of Maor VaShamesh, began the festivities, a stone was hurled through the window and shattered the glass. The Maor VaShamesh responded: “Who knows what is happening at the moment in Lublin …,” and he broke into tears.
Meanwhile one of the Hozeh’s students, Rabbi Naftali Hirtz Halperin of Brzeżany was dancing up a storm with the Hasidim in his town. Unbeknownst to him, a fire broke out in his home. While Rabbi Naftali Hirtz was singing mystical praises and performing kabbalistic rites, the people in his home were fleeing for their lives as they tried to escape the flames. Alas, one maid lost her life in the blaze.
In Lublin, as planned, the Hozeh went into his private study together with his wife. Empty bottles of mead still lined the windowsill. Baila thought she heard the sound of crying baby, so she left the room and went to open the front door. No one was there. She hurriedly returned to the Hozeh’s private room, but her husband was gone.
The window was open, but it was high above the ground and the empty bottles still lined the windowsill, so Baila assumed that the Hozeh could not have exited that way. Moreover, that room had served the Hozeh for some fifteen years and he had never stood by the window to look out at the street.
The Hozeh would later recount that the Heavenly Court had ruled against him on account of his attempts to bring the redemption before the appointed time. Supernal forces had come to carry out the death penalty and threw him out of the window. The recently deceased Kozhnitzer Maggid sped from Heaven, and with his cloak he broke the Hozeh’s fall. It was at that moment that the Hozeh realised that his colleague had died.
It would be hours until the Hasidim discovered the Hozeh lying in heap, and they carried his broken body back to his room.
When word about the Hozeh’s fatal injuries reached the Mitnaggedim, they opened a bottle of wine and rejoiced at the demise of their nemesis. When the Hozeh heard this, he declared: “When I depart the world, they will not even sip water!”
The Napoleonic Wars ended when the French Imperial Army under the command of Napoleon was defeated in the Battle of Waterloo on June 18, 1815 (10 Sivan 5575). Two months later on the Fast of Tisha B’av (August 14-15, 1815), the Hozeh succumbed to his injuries and passed away. Indeed, on that day the Mitnaggedim did not even drink water.
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In Hasidic collective memory, this tragic episode is remembered as Ha-Nefila Hagedola, The Great Fall, a double entendre referring to the Hozeh’s defenestration on Simhat Torah and the dashed dream of imminent messianic redemption upon his demise on Tisha B’av.
Many of the details of Ha-Nefila Hagedola are shrouded in mystery, and different versions of the events have reached us. Hasidic storytellers and scholars of Hasidism have attempted to unravel truth from myth and reconstruct exactly what transpired.
Everyone agrees that the Hozeh fell from a window on Simhat Torah, October 7, 1814 and suffered fatal injuries. Everyone also agrees that some ten months later, on Tisha B’av 1815, he passed away. The circumstances of the Hozeh’s fall from the window have been debated by Hasidim and Maskilim, and the spiritual meaning of his demise has been the subject of speculation.
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As Tisha B’av is upon us, and the reverberations of Simhat Torah still looms large. Not The Great Fall of Simhat Torah, October 7, 1814, but The Great Fall of Simhat Torah, October 7, 2023.
When Tisha B’av would start straight after Shabbat – like this year – one of the Hozeh’s students, Rabbi Naftali Zvi Horowitz of Ropczyce (1760-1827) would delay ending the Third Meal by adding liturgical poems and songs. “O Shabbat, our dear guest,” Rabbi Naftali of Ropczyce would lovingly sigh as he personified sanctified time, “We will keep you in our home a little longer.”
Then he would turn to the other ‘guest’ who was waiting to come in: “And you – Tisha B’av – wait patiently, because you are not welcome in our home. We wish that you didn’t come at all!”
While we are happy to usher in guests like Simhat Torah; other guests – like October 7 and Tisha B’av – are less welcome. We wish they would not come at all.
The writer is a senior faculty member at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies, a senior lecturer at Bar Ilan University’s Faculty of Law, and a rabbi in Zur Hadassa.
