A Soulful Journey

Allow me to tell you a story. The 200 th  anniversary of the death of the Besht was in 1960. He was born in 1700 and died in 1760. Those were the days when American Jews associated Hasidism with Martin Buber who was kind of glamorous and esoteric.  So in 1960 the Jewish Welfare Board sent out directives to all Synagogues and Rabbis and cultural committees urging them to observe the anniversary, suggesting that they are read Martin Buber and organize appropriate programs. One congregation in Washington, Temple Sinai, whose Rabbi then was Balfour Brickner…took the directive very seriously.  Balfour decided not only to read about Hasidism. He would find the nearest authentic living Hasidic Rebbe and invite him to give a lecture at his congregation. After a thorough search discovered that the nearest living authentic Hasidic Rebbe was living in Baltimore and his name was Rabbi Hertzberg. He asked him to lecture at Temple Sinai.  “You can tell us about Has...

Rabbi Yehiel Mikhal said: “It is written: ‘Who shall ascend onto the mountain of the Lord?   And who shall stand in His holy place?’   For the sake of comparison, let us take a man who rides up a mountain in his carriage, and when he is half-way up, the horses are tired and he must stop and give them a rest.   Now, whoever has no sense at this point, will roll down.   But he who has sense will take a stone and put it under the wheel while the carriage is standing.   Then he will be able to reach the top.   The man who does not fall, when he is forced to interrupt his service, but knows how to pause, he will get to the top of the mountain of the Lord.”   - Buber, Early Masters

 I reported to my partner in dialogue how dreadful it had already been to me when I was a boy to read this as the message of God.   I told him how already at that time it horrified me to read or to remember how the heathen king went up to the prophet with the words on his lips, "Surely the bitterness of death is past," and was hewn to pieces by him. I said to my partner: "I have never been able to believe that this is a message of God. I do not believe it."             With wrinkled forehead and contracted brows, the man sat opposite me and his glance flamed into my eyes. He remained silent, began to speak, became silent again. "So?" he broke forth at last, "so?" he repeated almost threateningly. "You do not believe it?" And I once again: "No." "What ... what..." he thrust the words before him one after the other — "what do you believe then?" "I believe," I replied without...

When Franz Rosenzweig died, his long-time intellectual peer, Martin Buber, gave the eulogy.   Later, after a long-winded oration, Buber was approached to be told that about the only thing he said that was true was that we shall miss him.  – Rabbi Jonathan Magonet People always know when exaggeration trumps truth.