Ask a Breslever

Sometimes a brief parable brings a point home in a more cogent and clear manner than a hundred lectures can. Here’s an example of one, which I heard from a neighbor of mine:

A young man who didn’t have much of an idea about G-d, Torah, and Judaism was searching for some answers. He visited one of Ashdod’s religious neighborhoods. He stopped a person on the sidewalk who was a Lithuanian Torah scholar who was hurrying to the Beit Midrash, the house of study. The young man asked politely, “Excuse me, sir – is there a G-d in the world?”

The Lithuanian Torah scholar replied decisively, “Of course there is! Haven’t you ever learned the Rambam? It’s right there emphatically in the very beginning of the Laws of the Foundations of Torah, first chapter.” The young man shrugged; he had never seen the Rambam’s Laws of the Foundations of Torah. In fact, he didn’t even know who the Rambam was. He watched the Torah scholar look at his watch and scurry away in the direction of his Kollel.

In the meanwhile, he saw a happy-looking Chabad Chassid walking down the street and humming Didan Notzach, a lively Lubavitcher melody. “Excuse me, sir,” the young man said, “could you please help me and tell me if there is a G-d in the world?”

The Chabad Chassid had a surprised expression on his face, as if the young man asked him whether the sky was blue or not. “Of course there is! Just open the Tanya to any page you want and the Alte Rebbe talks about the Master of the World.” The answer didn’t do anything to satisfy the young man because he had never heard of the Alte Rebbe nor of the Tanya. Although the Chabad Chassid asked the young man if he put on tefillin that morning, the latter just walked away looking for someone else who might give him a satisfying answer to the question that pecked away at his brain.

Walking past a Gerrer shtiebel (neighborhood synagogue and house of study of the Ger Chassidim), the young man approached a healthy-looking Gerrer who looked like he was capable of playing linebacker for the Green Bay Packers. “Excuse me, sir,” the young man asked, “could you please enlighten me and tell me if there is a G-d in the world?”

Without blinking an eyelash, the Gerrer Chassid answered: “For sure there is! Just look at the Rebbe’s shmizzen, his discourses on the weekly Torah portion. The Rebbe mentions Him on every other line.” Still perplexed, the young man politely thanked the burly Chassid and walked away frustrated. Didn’t anyone here have an answer?

The young man saw something strange. A middle-aged man was walking down the street with a big smile on his face. He was dressed in long black with a black hat on his head like the others, but his shoes were all dusty. There were briars on the cuffs of his trousers; he looked as if he was just returning from the woods or from some field or the like. OK, the young man said to himself, I’ll try one more time. He turned to the man with the dusty shoes – a Breslever – and asked him, “”Excuse me, sir – could you please help me and tell me if there is a G-d in the world?”

Happily and instantaneously, the Breslever replied, “Of course there is, my brother!”

“How do you know?” probed the young man.

The Breslever smiled, “I just finished talking to Him!”

Shortly thereafter, the young man was seen walking around with dusty shoes and a big smile on his face too.