“Herschel, trog gezundt (carry well, Herschel).” Others addressed him by his full name, “Herschel Tzig, trog gezundt.”

For all of them he had the same patient reply – “Be well.”

I related this scene to Reb Yechezkel and Reb Efraim, the saintly nistorim, and they answered that they didn’t know this man nor whether he belonged to their circle of friends. After inquiring about him I found out that he was one of the common folk, a widower for the past ten years. His two sons studied in yeshivos and stayed with relatives from their mother’s side. Herschel was a porter and earned a comfortable living though all of his earnings went to feed his four goats, who provided him with the milk he so loved. He was therefore nicknamed Herschel the Milchiger, or Herschel Tzig (goat). He lived in a slum at the edge of the city.

I followed him around for many days — continued the Baal Shem Tov — but I couldn’t fathom his character and I was very distressed. I prayed and pleaded that his worthiness be revealed to me. Why did he merit the shining pure light that served as his halo wherever he went? Even my friends, the great and elderly Nistorim, Reb Yechezkel and Reb Efraim, were amazed. The bright light that shone above Reb Herschel’s head seemed like the rays of glory that emanated from Moshe Rabbenu. I decided to wait until after Shabbos and then to fast from the Melave Malke meal for three consecutive days and nights.

On the third day after Mincha, I left the inn where I had been staying and I met Reb Herschel. I told him that I was faint with hunger and anxious to buy some of the goats’ milk which he sold.

Reb Herschel answered me happily that he would willingly give me a cup of milk without pay, for he was required – as were all Jews – to share his bread, as well as everything that he owned, with his fellow Jew. He then took me with him to his house. We walked for over an hour until we came to a side street filled with mud and garbage, its houses windowless and roofless. At one of these ruins he stopped and opened the door. The goats sounded out their greeting and came to lick his hands and feet, dancing about him merrily. Reb Herschel took a cup and milked one of the goats and handed me the cup to drink. When I’ had finished drinking I davened Maariv. I stayed in his house until the following morning. He was in excellent humor all the while and told me that he had been widowed for ten years from his wife who had always busied herself with visiting poor sick people and attending needy mothers who had just given birth.

“During the days of Shiva,” Reb Herschel re-lated, “my wife appeared to me in a dream and told me of the great reward she was receiving for the sick she had tended and the new mothers she had cared for. She had often heard the Maggidim and lecturers say that when one came to the World of Eternal Truth,, the avenging angels came to the grave to escort the soul to its judgment. After the initial suffering in the grave and the trial in the Heavenly Court it is taken to Ge-hennom. But when she died and was taken to be buried, the kaddish said by her sons inspired not only the “Amen” of those who stood nearby but that of the heavenly angels as well. When they had finished covering her grave, an angel came and asked her name. She answered Rochel Leah’ and was taken to the Heavenly Court. She saw many men and women standing about and recognized them to be the very people she had healed so diligently over a period of twenty seven years from the time she had been a young girl in the home of her father, Daniel the tanner, until the day she died.