The many broken, down-and-out visitors to Rav Avraham Yechiel Fisch’s home in Tel Aviv were looking for some measure of salvation — and they knew the blessings would be hidden in the cryptic ramblings of this hidden tzaddik.
“Go to Bnei Brak or Yerushalayim,” he would yell, trying to chase them away. “The gedolei hador are there. What do you want from a crazy person like me? Leave me in peace.”
The more tenacious among them were begrudgingly showered with good wishes cloaked in uncomplimentary epithets; others were indeed convinced that they had arrived at the wrong address.
Rav Avraham Yechiel Fisch ztz”l might have called himself “the king of the crazies,” but through his actions and promises, sick people were healed, childless couples were blessed with children, older singles found their zivugim, and Jews who had lost their jobs found ways to make an honorable living. He would ramble on, and couched between words that seemed to make no sense he would utter “A child will come,” to a barren woman, or “An angel will come and hide the file,” to someone facing felony charges.
Although 15 years have passed since the death of this hidden tzaddik, the lives he influenced and the salvations he accessed still reverberate throughout Israel and beyond, although no one ever really learned his secret, even those closest to him.
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