Rabbi
Bunim told the man the following story:
Once, the
holy Baal
Shem Tov had to travel to
a far-off destination on a matter of extreme importance to the welfare of a
Jewish community. As was his custom on such trips, the Baal Shem Tov told his coachman, Alexis, to drop
the reins and turn around in his bench. No sooner had the coachman turned his
back on the horses that the road began to literally fly under their feet, and
they traversed a many weeks' journey in a few hours.
The
horses, noticing that they were galloping past the feeding stations without
stopping, thought to themselves: "Perhaps we are not horses after all, but
human beings. Otherwise, why are we not being given oats and water at the
customary places? Surely we will eat with the men, when they stop for their
meals at the crossroads inns."
But the
inns, too, flew by, one after another, with dizzying speed. "It
seems," the horses now surmised, "that we are not men after all, but
angels, who do not partake of earthly food at all."
But then
the Baal Shem Tov and his disciples arrived at their destination and rushed off
to attend to their holy mission, while Alexis unhitched the horses and led them
to the barn, where they guzzled water and devoured oats like the horses they
were...
"The
purpose of a fast," concluded Rabbi Bunim, "is to refine the person,
to have him transcend, if only for a few hours, the gross materiality of the
human state. But if the moment the fast ends he attacks his food with the
fervor of a man who hasn't eaten all day, what has been achieved?"
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