Fruit Store Owner Dies Under Mysterious "Rabbi Akiva Eiger Style" Conditions

A spooky story reportedly happened in Bnei Braq recently.

According to Kikar's report, the City of Bnei Braq has been cracking down on shop owners who display their merchandise on the streets. This caused many stores to keep all their merchandise inside, to avoid fines, crowding the store. This is especially true of fruit and vegetable stores.

One such fruits and veggies shop made an offer to a neighboring store to buy his space so he could expand. Since he could no longer put his merchandise outside, his store was not big enough. Buying the neighboring store would allow him enough space to operate.

Despite various pressures applied by the fruit guy, and by known crime families on his behalf, the store owner refused all offers.

Eventually he could not take the threats any longer, so he went to Rav Wosner and laid it all out before him, describing the threats. Rav Wosner told him to open a case with the beis din and send a summons to the fruit guy.

The fruit guy refused to appear before the beis din, despite having been summoned a few times. All the while, he continued trying to put pressure and threats on the neighboring store to sell.

Rav Wosner's response to the refusal of the fruits guy to appear before beis din while continuing his harassment was to say "don't worry. If he refuses to be judged on this below, there is also a judgement up above."

A few days later the fruits and vegetables guy died of a heart attack.

This reminded me of the famous story of Rav Akiva Eiger, and Kikar compares it as well.

The story goes that Rav Akiva Eiger summoned a fellow who was refusing to give a get to his wife. The fellow came to hear Rabbi Eiger out, but he kept refusing to give the get. Rabbi Eiger told him there are three ways a man can marry a woman, by money, by contractual obligation and by sexual obligation, while there are only two ways to release a wife from marriage - by divorce or by death of the husband.

Supposedly, the story goes, that the fellow died of a heart attack on his way out of Rabbi Eiger's house.

I also know a modern-day story that happened a few years ago very similarly. A certain rav in America had a similar problem. he eventually got the fellow to agree to come talk, hoping he could convince him to give his wife the divorce. he continued refusing. Eventually the rav told him the story of Rav Akiva Eiger, and the fellow still refused. A few days later the fellow died.