100 years after Rav Shayale's passing, the blessings of his home flow again
When Rav Yeshaya Steiner, known to the world as Reb Shayale of Kerestir, passed away a hundred years ago this week on 3 Iyar in 1925, could he have known that a century later, chassidish singers would be crooning “Yeshaya ben Reb Moshe” songs for personal yeshuos, and that his burial spot on a Hungarian hilltop would become the Jewish world’s most popular yahrtzeit pilgrimage site after Meron on Lag B’omer?
What’s more baffling is that just 20 years ago, most people only knew Reb Shayale as the “mouse rebbe”: Hanging his picture in your house was a surefire segulah for removing mice infestation, based on a miracle story in which Reb Shayale sent a battalion of mice to the local courthouse to shred the file of evidence against a fellow Jew who’d be standing trial the next day. Yet who would have dreamed of flying to Hungary to go to his kever? And how, as they say in today’s vernacular, did Reb Yeshaya “go viral”?
A chassidic rebbe in the Hungarian village of Kerestir (Bodrogkeresztúr), Reb Shayale was beloved and revered for his kindness and humility, with the doors of his home at 68 Kossuth Utca always open to all.
From impassioned chassidim who doted on his every word, to lost souls searching for a bed and a warm meal, everyone was made to feel welcome in Reb Shayale’s house, where a seemingly never-ending supply of food and drink was dispensed at all hours of the day and night. The downtrodden, the forlorn, the struggling, and even the lice-infested were all treated like royalty by Reb Shayale, and visitors left Kerestir both spiritually and physically sated, often seeing miraculous personal salvations when all hope seemed lost.
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