Once Upon a Chasid Cold Feet

Once Upon a Chasid

Cold Feet

For G-d your G-d... is a consuming fire (Eikev 9:3)

Between coldness and heresy stands an extremely thin wall. It is written: “For G‑d your G‑d is a consuming fire”—G‑dliness is a blazing flame. Torah study and prayer require a flaming heart, so that “all my bones should proclaim” (Psalms 35:10) the words of G‑d.

Rabbi Sholom DovBer of Lubavitch

Rabbi Nechemia of Dubrovna recounted:

I once saw a Russian soldier being whipped. His crime? While standing watch on a winter night, his feet had frozen in their boots. “Had you remembered the oath you took to serve the czar,” his commander berated him, “the memory itself would have kept you warm.”

“For 25 years,” concluded Reb Nechemia, “this incident inspired my service of the Almighty.”

By Yanki Tauber
Published by Kehot Publication Society