The Pious Man Who Slept in the Cemetery
A pious man gives charity in a famine, flees his wife's anger to a cemetery on Rosh Hashanah night, and overhears two spirits reveal the year's decree on crops.
A pious man gave a poor man a dinar on Erev Rosh Hashana during years of famine. The pious man’s wife was incensed at his extravagant expenditure during the difficult times. In order to escape the incessant bickering, he went and slept that night (on Rosh Hashana!) in the cemetery. That night, he heard two spirits conversing with each other. One said to the other: “My friend, let us roam the world and hear from behind the Heavenly Curtain [pargod], which separates the Divine Presence from the world, what calamity will befall the world.” The other spirit said to her: “I cannot go with you, as I am buried in a mat of reeds, but you go, and tell me what you hear.” She went, and roamed, and came back. The other spirit said: “My friend, what did you hear from behind the heavenly curtain?” She replied: “I heard that anyone who sows during the first rainy season of this year, hail will fall and strike his crops.”
That year, the pious man went and sowed his seeds during the second rainy season. Ultimately, the crops of the entire world were stricken by hail, and his crops were not stricken.