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“All I can do is tell the story, and that must be sufficient.”
Rabbi Israel of Rizhin
When the great Israel Baal Shem Tov saw misfortune threatening the Jews it was his custom to go to a certain part of the forest to meditate. There he would light a fire, say a special prayer and the miracle would be accomplished and the misfortune averted. Later, when his disciple the Maggid of Mezerich had occasion to intercede with heaven, he would go to the same place in the forest and say, “Master of the Universe, I do not know how to light the fire but I am still able to say the prayer” and again the miracle would happen. Later, his disciple Moshe-Leib of Sassov, in order to save his people, would go into the forest and say, “I do not know the prayer, but I know the place and this must be sufficient,” and the miracle was accomplished. Finally, it fell to Rabbi Israel of Rizhin to overcome misfortune. Sitting in his armchair, his head in his hands, he spoke to God: “I cannot light the fire, and I do not know the prayer. I cannot even find the place in the forest. All I can do is tell the story, and that must be sufficient.” And it was sufficient.
The genius of the Hasidic masters was to remind us that there is power in telling our story. There is power and self-worth in remembering who we are, where we come from, what our spiritual inheritance has been from those who have handed down from one generation to the next our values, our culture, our celebrations, our prayers and our way of life. There is in particular a sacred power in using the stories of our past to help carry our dreams into the future. In many ways the very foundation of Jewish civilization itself is grounded in memory which is why the greatest Talmudic Scholar of our generation, Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz once said, “The homeland of the Jew is history.” Our challenge is to let the gifts of history, culture and tradition from our past become the light that guides us into the future we can create together.
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