I found this sweet holiday folktale in the book "Time For My Soul," edited by Annette and Eugene Labovitz. It focuses on Rizhin, or Ruzhin, a town in the Ukraine, and its famous rebbe, Yisroel Friedman, who founded a Hasidic dynasty there in the early 19th century. Another historical figure, the Ropshitzer rebbe (Zvi, from Ropshitz, or Ropczyce, Poland), had created his own remarkable dynasty some years earlier. Here is my retelling.