In my favorite High Holiday tale – “If Not Higher” by Y.L. Peretz – an esteemed Hasidic rabbi disappears on the eve of Yom Kippur. While the townsfolk assume he is up in heaven arguing on their behalf, a skeptical Litvak visitor assumes the worst. Determined to expose the fraud, the Litvak hides under the rabbi’s bed and follows him over the course of the day. Horrified to see the rabbi dressing himself in peasant garb and brandishing a heavy axe, the Litvak is both alarmed and titillated at the shenanigans sure to follow. The rabbi proceeds into the forest, chops down a tree and cuts the wood into smaller slices, and then heads into the poorer section of town. Knocking on the house of an old widow, he helps light her fireplace on a chilly October day. The Litvak is stunned into silence, henceforth committed to protecting the rabbi’s legacy and even going so far to further embellish the tales being told about him.
This story is filled with the tension of long who resolved conflicts, between groups largely at peace with one another, but the overall message resounds – “don’t judge a book by its cover.” During the pandemic, it is so easy to be like the Litvak in the story and assume another’s bad intentions (can you believe their mask is around their nose in the picture or, heaven forbid, they were not wearing one at all!). When you begin to feel that way – resist the urge. Remember, initial impressions are not always founded in fact. But, more importantly, you should be like the rabbi, and find someone’s fireplace to secretly light.
This Shabbat as we read Ha’azinu, Moses’s final poem before his ascent up Mount Nevo, let us assume that he not only made his journey as described, but, perhaps, as Y.L.Peretz suggests, went even a little higher.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Alex
Last Updated on 01/14/2021 by Marc Slonim