Rabbi Avraham Gershon of Kitov
Date of Passing: 25-Adar. Brother-in-law of the Baal Shem Tov. According to tradition, the Secret Society of Kabbalists started teaching the Baal Shem Tov...
Rabbi Avraham Gershon of Kitov
(1765) Brother-in-law of the Baal Shem Tov. According to tradition, the Secret Society of Kabbalists started teaching the Baal Shem Tov the path of the Mystics, at the age of 14. When 18 years of age, the Baal Shem Tov already attained a significant role in the Secret Society, though outwardly, he remained the simple caretaker of the local synagogue. He moved from Okap to Brody, where he lived as a teacher of young children. There, the Baal Shem Tov married the daughter of Rabbi Ephraim of Brody, though to the dismay of Rabbi Ephriam's son, Gershon of Kitov, who considered the hidden Tzaddik an ignorant person, as he might have appeared, on the surface.
The Disappearing Brother-in-law
"I have sought my brother-in-law, Reb Gershon, in Eretz Yisrael, but he is not there," exclaimed the Baal Shem Tov in puzzlement on Friday evening as he sat in his beit midrash in Mezibuz. But on the following day, during the services, he declared that he now saw him in Eretz Yisrael.
Many years later he had occasion to meet his brother-in-law and question him concerning that Shabbat. Reb Gershon knotted his brows, trying hard to recollect where he had been on that Shabbat many years ago. "I remember now," he exclaimed. "I was honored with a brit milah in the city of Acco, which had two synagogues. On Friday evening I prayed in the one that is considered outside the boundary of the Holy Land but on the morrow, after I had discovered my error, I prayed in the other synagogue. (Shivchei HaBaal Shem Tov).
Source: The Daily Zohar
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