Once the Baal
Shem Tov stood in a House of Prayer and remained motionless for a very long
time. All his disciples had finished
praying but he continued on. They waited
for him a good while, and then finally left for home. After several hours, when they had attended
to their various duties, the returned to the house of Prayer and found the
Master still immersed in deep prayer. Later,
he said to them, “By going away and leaving me alone, you dealt me a painful
separation. I shall tell you a parable:
“You know that
there are birds of passage who fly to warm countries in the autumn. Well, the people in one of those lands once
saw a glorious bird in the midst of a flock which was journeying through the
sky. The eyes of man had never seen a
bird so beautiful. He alighted on the
top of the tallest tree and nested in the leaves. When the king of the country heard of it, he
bade them to fetch down the bird with his nest.
He ordered a number of men to make a ladder up the tree. One was to stand on the other’s shoulders
until it was possible to reach up high enough to take the nest. It tool a long time to build this living
ladder. Those who stood nearest the
ground lost patience, shook themselves free, and everything collapsed." –retold by Martin Buber
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