The talmidim knew that their rebbe always davened for a very long time. True, they were part of his minyan, but while he was davening the silent amidah, the Shemone Esrei, what need was them for them to just sit around? Each one of them had things to take care of. They figured that they had at least a good hour or so before he would be ready to hear chazaras ha’shatz, the chazan’s repetition. And so, each one went his separate way leaving the rebbe alone in his devotions. According to the time they estimated that the holy Baal Shem had ended his prayers they were all back in shul.
How surprised they were, when they returned well within the hour, and found the Baal Shem, not, as assumed deeply immersed in prayer, but instead, standing forlorn facing the door, awaiting their return.
“Why did you all leave me?” the rebbe asked. “Don’t you understand that I was relying on each of you? Let me explain,” The Baal Shem Tov then told them this story as a mashal:
In the winter, birds fly away to warmer climates. One season, as a great many birds came from afar, the king noticed one beautiful bird whose plumage was so dazzling that he decided he must capture it for the royal collection.
However, the bird landed atop a high branch on one of the tallest trees. It remained above the reach of the king’s men even with the use of ladders. The king had an idea. Each one of them was to stand on another’s shoulders, and together, they would form a human ladder that could reach to the top of the tree. At the peak, was the royal guard, only to be topped by the king’s most trusted advisor whose mission was to lay his hands on the prize bird and capture it for the king!
They began the climb--this one climbed up onto that one’s shoulders and so on until, indeed, the trusted advisor stood high in the clouds. He reached among the branches and was about to snatch the bird when . . . something went dreadfully wrong!
All those who made up the human ladder, came crashing down. The advisors, guards, and the rest of the king’s men ended up in one jumbled heap with bruised and broken limbs and torn clothing!
“FOOLS!” Thundered the king as he approached! The king was addressing the few stragglers who had wandered away and now returned to the site of the accident. These were the ones who made up the foundation of this human ladder. “Why did you leave? Where did you go? Didn’t you realize that everything depended on you?!”
It turned out that the foolish people on the bottom got tired, bored, and sore, and so some of them left, not realizing that they were the very foundation that everyone else depended on. They were an essential part of the structure and had been holding everyone else up!
“So too, my precious talmidim,” explained the Baal Shem Tov, “when I ascend to the supernal realms, I am relying on all of you. It is only when we are all connected that I can climb up so high. It is only when there is a hiskashrus, the tying and binding of us all as one rope, linking us as one chain, that forms a ladder whose rungs I can ascend. When you left me, I came tumbling down!”
