Lighting the Pipe A zaddik told: "In my youth I once attended a wedding to which the rabbi of Lublin had also been invited. Among the guests were more than two hundred zaddikim, as for the hasidim - you could not even have counted them ! They had rented a house with a great hall for the rabbi of Lublin, but he spent most of the time alone in a little room. Once a great number of hasidim had gathered in the hall and I was with them. Then the rabbi entered, seated himself at a small table and sat there for a time in silence. Then he rose, looked around, and - over the heads of the others pointed at me, standing up against the wall. "That young man over there," he said, "shall light my pipe for me." I made my way through the crowd, took the pipe from his hands, went to the kitchen, fetched a glowing coal, lit the pipe, brought it back into the hall, and handed it to him. At that moment I felt my senses taking leave of me. The next instant the rabbi began to speak and said a few words to me, and at once my senses returned. It was then that I received from him the gift of stripping myself of all that is bodily. Since then, I can do this whenever I want to." (Martin Buber, Jacob Yitzhak of Lublin aka The Seer, Tales of the Hasidim)
Posted on: Thu, 29 Aug 2013 05:21:02 +0000
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