This is a very famous person from the Talmud and we shall see what made him famous and some stories about him. The stories appear in Meseches(Tractate) Taanis 21A.
A story is told that Nachum Ish Gumzu was blind in both eyes, missing both legs, missing both hands and his entire body was covered in boils. He was lying in a dilapidated house with the legs of his bed in buckets of water so that ants could not crawl onto him. Once his disciples wanted to remove his bed from the house and then remove the furniture. Nachum Ish Gamzu said to them, "My children, first remove the furniture then remove my bed because you may be assured that as long as I am in this house it won't collapse." They listened to him and removed the furniture then the bed and the house collapsed after Nachum Ish Gamzu was outside it.
His disciples asked of him, Teacher since you are completely righteous why did this happen to you(the boils, no arms etc...)
He replied,my children I brought it upon myself. I was once traveling on a road to the house of my father-in-law and I had 3 donkey-loads of food items, one of food, one of drink and the last one of delicacies. A poor man approached me and said "teacher, sustain me." I replied wait until I unload some food from the donkey. Before I had a chance to unload the donkey the mans soul departed. I went and fell on my face and said, let the eyes that took no pity on your eyes become blind, let my hands which took no pity on your hands be cut off, let my legs which took no pity on your legs be cut off. And my mind did not find rest until I said Let my entire body be covered with boils! Nachum Ish Gamzu said to his students "woe to me had you not seen me like this"
The Gemora(Talmud) then goes on to ask why they called him Nachum Ish Gumzu? It answers because whatever would happen to him he would reply "gum zu letova", this too is for the good.
Another story about Nachum Ish Gamzu:
Once the Jews wanted to send a gift to the court of Caesar. They decided to send Nachum Ish Gamzu to deliver it because he is accustomed to have miracles performed on his behalf. They sent him with a chest filled with precious stones and pearls. On his way he spent a night in a certain residence, during the night the residents arose and took all the stones and pearls from the chest and replaced it with sand. The next morning he saw the dirt and said "This too is for the good" and went on his way to Caesar. He went to the palace and untied the chest, after the emperor saw the dirt he wanted to kill the Jews as he thought they were making fun of him. Nachum Ish Gamzu thought this too was for the good. Then Eliyahu HaNavi(Eljah the prophet) appeared as a Roman official. Eliyahu said to Caesar, "perhaps this sand is from the sand of Abraham?"(which was used in the battle of the four kings). When Abraham would throw the sand at an enemy it turned into swords and when he threw straw it turned into arrows.
There was one city the Romans couldn't conquer. They tested some of this dirt against that city and they conquered it. After this they went to the emperor's treasure vault and filled the chest of Nachum Ish Gamzu with precious stones and pearls in gratitude for his gift and off he went.
When they returned and spent a night at the same residence as before(where we was robbed) the residence asked what did you bring to Caesar that he gave you such honour? Nachum said whatever he took from there(the residence).
The residence immediately demolished their houses and brought the rubble to the palace. They said to Caesar, "The dirt that Nachum brought was from our residence." They tested it in battle and found it contained no special powers and they executed the residents for attempting to defraud them.
1 comments:
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Shalom!
Remy Ilona.
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