Weekly Story: The Descent of the Alter Rebbe’s Neshamah

Rabbi Sholom DovBer Avtzon

I would like to share with you the following story and thought that I mentioned in a farbrengen on Thursday, in honor of Chai Elul, the birthday of both the Baal Shem Tov and the Alter Rebbe. The story is taken from my upcoming book, Sippurei Meir, The Stories of a Chossid [Stories that were said by my father, HaRav HaChossid Reb Meir a”h] and the thought is what I heard from mashpiim. Your feedback is always appreciated.

May everyone have a kesiva v’chasima tova, that your wife and children also say it is a good year.

When the Baal Shem Tov would lie down in his room to sleep, his gabbai would read selections of Mishnayos or Zohar at his side. If the gabbai made a mistake, the Besht—although asleep—would awaken and motion that he should correct himself.

One wintry night, the Besht was very ill to the extent that he could barely move. In fact, his gabbai thought he would have to help him wash negel vasser when he woke up.

Shortly before midnight, the gabbai was startled as he heard footsteps in the Baal Shem Tov’s room. He wondered who can be in the Baal Shem Tov’s room. He didn’t realize that the Besht had suddenly arose from his bed, washed negel vasser, and before the gabbai could investigate, he came out and went over to the bimah that stood next to his room. Pounding on it, he declared three times: “I am healthy. I am healthy. I am healthy!”

He then turned to his gabbai and instructed him to bring him his heavy winter coat and to fetch an ax and torch. “I would like to go and immerse in the river,” he said.

The gabbai was horrified. It was so bitterly cold that the peasants wouldn’t even walk their animals outside. Yet the Besht wished to immerse in the freezing river, despite his present poor state of health!

The gabbai voiced his concern, but the Besht insisted that he was all right. Reluctantly, the gabbai did as he had been told; locating an ax and preparing a torch that wouldn’t blow out easily.

When they arrived at the outskirts of the town by the river, the gabbai began to break the ice with the ax so the Besht would be able to immerse in the frigid waters.

Chopping the ice took longer than expected, and the Besht remained in the mikvah longer than usual as well. As a result, the torch began to flicker and was in danger of extinguishing.

The gabbai was terrified. It was frigidly cold and he was trying to find an excuse to get the Baal Shem Tov out of the river, after all the Baal Shem Tov wasn’t feeling well. Furthermore, if the torch would burn out, the darkness might expose them to severe danger, such as a serious fall or an attack by wild animals. Once again, he voiced his concern to the Besht.

“Take an icicle from the tree and place it in the torch,” directed the Besht. “He who instructs oil to burn will instruct the icicle to burn!” And this is indeed what happened. The Baal Shem Tov remained in the river for a lengthy period of time.
Before the morning, the Besht said: “Know that a special neshamah, one that will illuminate the entire world, has just begun to descend. Just as the icicle’s fire is producing warmth, so will this neshamah warm up those who are presently ‘cold’ to Hashem.”

That night was Yud-Tes Kislev, the day the Alter Rebbe’s neshamah began its descent to this world.

A lesson/thought that can be learned from this story is as follows:

Not only can the warmth of Chassidus, overcome the frigid cold that is prevalent in some places, but furthermore; the icicle itself turns into a torch and lantern and illuminates and warms up those who are in dark and cold.

This is seen by countless Shluchim, that with a word, saying or thought of Chassidus, they illuminated the lives of hundreds of thousands of Jews. Additionally, many of these Jews became ‘torches’ – Shluchim themselves. Illuminating and warming up other Jews. Thus the icicle became the torch.

In response to comments I received on last week’s post.

Boruch Hashem last week’s post began a conversation and may it also bring some results. I would like to add a few points:

A. Just as the nessiim procrastinated in bringing their donations out of good intentions, so too here, the lowering of the expectations was done by educators who were interested in their students, to help the weaker ones, who were faltering or falling out of the system.

What I was saying is that it should be reassessed.

B. A side consequence of this is that the students who have the ability to learn more, no longer felt a challenge and they lost the need to push themselves to succeed. So they were going on neutral or automatic pilot. Many of them started to feel that class is boring and this often brought its own set of problems.

Additionally, one of the questions that was presented to me was how do we answer the question some students ask of why is it important to learn gemorah, especially those mesechtas that aren’t really directly relevant in our day to day life.

Some aspects of mesechtas Shabbos is pertinent. We have to know from where to where we can carry without an eruv, and where we cannot carry. However, some of the other chapters aren’t so relevant, so why do we learn them, if they are ‘irrevelant’?

I would answer by asking the students to help me answer a friend’s question. He is a salesman and has many customers. He now has a limited amount of a certain item and knows that he won’t be able to supply all of his customers, so he is asking to whom should he make it available.

Some students may answer sell it to your best customers, others may respond limit how many any one customer can purchase. And some say give it to the one you are close to.

So while they all are customers and pay their bills in a timely manner, nevertheless the students understand that there are some who in addition of your business relationship, you also became personally friendly with them. That means besides discussing the quality and purpose of each item, you also have a friendly chat about other things, such as your family and hobbies or interests.

So I say to them, there are two parts to learning: one is to know what the mitzvah is and what we have to do or are not allowed to do. So when we study that, our focus is knowing how to conduct ourselves.

But then there is another aspect to learning, I am learning about Hashem’s Torah. Yes, the gemorah notes an opinion that a rebellious son discussed in last week’s parsha never happened, so what is the need to learn it?

But we learn it because it is part of Hashems Torah, and out of our closeness and love to him, we want to understand his ways.

For example, if you have an assignment to write about a certain individual and the guidelines are that you should note when and where they lived and what are their accomplishments, and so on, and it should be between five and seven pages long.

It is an assignment and you want to get a good mark, so you do it. Indeed you receive an A for your work. Are you then going to research more about that person? Probably not.

But let’s say that person is your great grandparent, then, there is a good chance that you would be interested in obtaining more information about their life. Who were their siblings etc. even though it wasn’t part of the original assignment.

The same thing here, there is one part of the Torah we learn in order to know how to conduct ourselves. But then there is another or higher aspect of learning and that is learning for the sake of becoming closer to Hashem

Rabbi Avtzon is a veteran mechanech and the author of numerous books on the Rebbeim and their chassidim, He can be contacted at avtzonbooks@gmail.com