A certain well-known singer was once in yechidus. During the yechidus, he “argued” with the Rebbe about the rules and restrictions on how he can do his work. He told the Rebbe: “When I make a concert that is mixed, there are hundreds of attendees, and I am able to spread Yiddishkeit, and many of them become religious (and that, indeed, seemed to be the case). But if I make it separate seating, there will only be a small number of participants, and I can never hope for the same results”.
But the Rebbe negated that argument, and insisted on his conforming with the rules (which he didn’t).
Whatever stage we may be in in life, we have our goals, our objectives. And, more importantly, we (hopefully) have goals in our Yiddishkeit, our chassidishkeit, our fulfilling our purpose and shlichus in the world. And we have to always remember that we are told by Torah not just what to do, but, rather, it is a very precise GPS that tells us exactly how to go about getting there. Any other path is the wrong track.
A bochur once wrote a letter to the Rebbe. In it, he described a new approach that he discovered that greatly enhanced his success in learning and in Yeshiva. At night there are much less distractions and so on, so (instead of following the boring schedule of the Yeshiva) he started learning all night, and sleeping by day, and he has, indeed, seen that he was able to accomplish much more in this manner. He concluded his letter, excited by his new “discovery”, saying how he wants to continue on this path.
The Rebbe’s one-word response was to make an arrow to the side of the page (where the bochur had written that he plans to continue this way), and wrote the word לתהום (i.e., continuing in this way would not bring him to any desirable ultimate destination).
And one last story to conclude this thought:
A certain Jew, in the times of the Tzemach Tzedek, was very poor. He had a wealthy relative who supported him; - every month, the relative would send him a sum of money for his upkeep that month. One day, the relative said to him: “This way is very taxing on me, and humiliating for you. I have a much better idea. I will give you, this once, a larger sum of money, that will enable you to open your own store. This will enable you to continue supporting yourself respectably, and will be better for both of us in the long term.
The Jew liked the suggestion very much, but (I guess, being a chosid), he first consulted with the Tzemach Tzedek. The Tzemach listened to him, but negated the plan. So the Jew gave the negative response to his relative.
However, the relative continued to urge him, and the Jew himself was also eager for the seeming benefits. At that time there was a famous tzaddik and Rebbe known as the Vilednike Rebbe, who was known as a big baal moifes, and he was passing through the village. The Jew took the opportunity to present the question to him, and he approved of the plan.
Having received an endorsement, they immediately carried it out. The Jew opened a store, and was very successful. He had a good business sense, and, within a short time, he became very wealthy.
However, one day there was a robbery in his store, and he was r”l killed.
Chassidim said at the time: The other tzaddik “hot oich gezen, ober er hot nit gezen bizzen soif” [the other tzaddik didn’t approve of the plan merely because it made sense; - he was a genuine baal ruach hokodesh, and he saw the success that the plan would bring. But he didn’t see far enough].
Besides, obviously, being a story about the ruach hakodesh of the Rebeim, it is a powerful reminder that it’s not enough to know what we’re trying to achieve, we need to be following the directions of Torah, of shulchan aruch and of our Rebbeim with regards to how to get there.
