When the robbers awoke in the morning, Chaim Dovid watched them drink the wine. Then, one after another, they began to choke from the poison, and soon they all lay dead.
Now Chaim Dovid carefully lowered himself from the tree and checked every one of the robbers and they were all dead. Then he looked for something to eat. In one of the robbers’ bags he found a loaf of bread, but the others were crammed with stolen riches of every kind. Chaim Dovid emptied bag after bag onto the ground and was amazed at all they had carried away. But when he shook out the last bag, he found it had a false bottom. He took a knife and cut it open, and a shining object came tumbling out—a round, glowing jewel. He held it up and turned it around, but try as he might, Chaim Dovid could not see the source of the light inside it. Surely, he thought, that was a priceless treasure. He recognized that such a precious object could only be owned by a king.
Now this student cared little for material goods. His concerns were those of the spirit. He would not have minded leaving all the gold and silver behind, but he could not abandon that glowing jewel, so he put it into his own bag. Then he buried the robbers and said a prayer over their souls, for surely they had found terrible punishments for their evil deeds. He then packed his bag and went on his way, going in the direction the robbers had come from, in the hope that he would find a city or town of some kind. He prayed and thanked to G-d for letting him survive that dangerous night.
Little by little, the faint path he followed became well worn, and that, in turn, led him to a wide road. Soon he reached the gates of that underground city.
There Chaim Dovid saw that the people of the city were dressed for mourning, and he asked a young man passing by what had happened. “Two tragedies have struck our kingdom at the same time. First, our king died without leaving any heir except for his daughter, the princess. And second, the king’s enchanted jewel was stolen by thieves. Now this glow¬ing jewel has always revealed who will succeed the king. But now no one knows where it is. Even so, the princess has declared that she will marry whoever brings that glowing jewel to her, for the jewel has always suc¬ceeded in reaching the one who was destined to be king. For it is guided by the hand of fate.”
Now Chaim Dovid shivered when he heard this, for he was carrying the glowing jewel in his pack. He took his leave of the young man and set off for the palace. when he reached the royal palace, he asked to see the princess, saying that he had news of the glowing jewel.
When the guards heard this, they took him to the princess at once, and he was overwhelmed by her great beauty and by the wisdom and radiance of her eyes. “Tell me,” she said, “what you know about the jewel?” Chaim Dovid was speechless, but he pulled the jewel out of his pack and gave it to her. The princess looked at him with amazement and said, “Then it is you who is destined to be my husband, and you who are destined to rule. But how did you come into possession of the jewel?”
So, the young man told her of his night in the forest and all that he had witnessed. He offered to lead guards to that very place, to confirm his account and to recover the other items the robbers had stolen. This was done, and the guards confirmed everything he had said. So it was that the wedding soon took place, and the young man, who had been a poor student, now found himself a great king in that underground country.
Now the young man ruled using the principles of the rabbis, as he had learned in his studies of the Talmud, and the kingdom flourished. So too did the young man fall in love with the princess, now his queen. Together they had three children, two boys and a girl, and he loved all of them as much as life itself.
Then one day there was a sudden storm that grew into a great tor¬rent. A great wave washed through the palace and carried the king out an open window and away from that world forever. The current carried him further and further downstream, and suddenly thrust him into a great whirlpool. As he was pulled down, the young man was certain that his life had come to an end. Then, all at once, he found himself standing in a mikveh. Then he recalled having descended the stairs in search of the mikveh just before reaching the underground forest. Now he looked up and saw a short stairway nearby, with no more than ten steps. He climbed out, greatly confused, and stumbled back to the home of the holy rabbi. The moment the rabbi opened the door, Chaim Dovid burst into tears and asked the rabbi how long he had been gone. “Why, no more than an hour,” holy rabbi answered. Then Chaim Dovid told the rabbi of all the years that he had lived through since he had gone into the mikveh, and he poured out his heart and begged the rabbi to explain how such things had happened to him. For it seemed to him that the world had been turned upside down.
The holy rabbi said, “Let me first introduce you to my daughter, and then I will explain.” He called forth his daughter, and when Chaim Dovid saw her, he almost fainted. For she was the very princess he had wed in the underground city! The rabbi saw that the young man was overwhelmed, and he quickly said: “Listen carefully to what I tell you. I learned from a heavenly voice that it was you who were destined to marry my daughter. And when you arrived here, I recognized you at once. That is why I sent you to the mikveh, for in this way you traveled the path of your own des-tiny, and now you can understand that you are indeed destined for my daughter.”
So it was that the young man married the daughter of the holy rabbi, and they loved each other as if they had already been married in another life. They had three children, two boys and a girl, who were identical to the children he had when he was king. Chaim Dovid loved all of them with all his heart and thanked G-d for restoring his family to him. He always held them dear to him, for he remembered well how quickly they had been lost.
May all your tales end with Shalom (peace)
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Tell it to your children, and let your children tell it to their children, and their children to the next generation. (Joel 1:3)
