Rabbi Moshe Heinemann, rav of the Agudah of Park Heights in Baltimore, gave a eulogy last week for the last two years of sheimos which they were burying, and mentioned that it is a segulah for a pandemic to end to bury sheimos. What is the idea behind this?
1 Answer
See Source for eulogizing for sheimos? for the 4 sources he brought for this. He finished the hesped with the following quote from the Sefer Mat'amim, p. 190 (couldn’t find the sefer on the Otzar Hachochma, so I am quoting from what I can make out from the recording):
טעם למנהיג כשגונזים ספרים בלים וקרועים הן מספר תורה הן משאר ספרים, הולכים בהמון אל בית הקברות וגונזים שם בקרקע ועושים עליהם אוהל וסימן לידע ש(ינהגו?) (ב?)קדושה באותה מקום, והרב דורש, שעל פי רוב עושים זאת בעת המגפה, רחמנא ליצלן, והיא סגולה כדי לעורר רחמים בזה, כי כמו שאנו חסים על שמות ודברים שבקדושה, שלא ילכו לאיבוד, כן ירחם השם יתברך עלינו ועל בנינו שלא נלכו לאיבוד ולביזון כי גם אני משותפים בשמו הגדול: ישראל ואורייתא וקודשא בריך הוא חד הוא, ושמו משותף בינינו ואנו גם כן נקראים גוי קדוש, ואנו מבקשים מאת השמות הקדושים שירחמו עלינו בזכות שאנו מכבדים אותם.
The reason for the custom that when they bury seforim (Hebrew books) which are worn and torn, whether it be a Torah scroll or other seforim, they go as a large crowd to the cemetery and bury them there in the ground, and make a tent over them and a sign to (so that others should) know that they should (conduct themselves?) (with?) holiness at that place. And teacher expounds (obviously referring to someone specific, unclear from this excerpt who), that the majority of the time they do this in the time of a plague, may The Merciful One save us, and it is a segula (supernatural cure) in order to awaken Divine Mercy through this. Because, just like we are having compassion on the sheimos and articles of holiness – that they should go to destruction – so Hashem should have mercy on us and our children that we shouldn’t go to destruction and embarresment, because we too are partners with his holy name (just like the sheimos): The Jews and the Torah and The Holy One, Blessed Be Her are one, and his name is partnered among us, and we see are called a holy nation(i.e. we are called holy, just like “the articles of holiness and the sheimos are called holy), and we request from Hashem through these holy sheimos that He should have mercy on us in the merit that we are honoring them.