The Maggid of Kosnitz once told the following story:
In a certain Jewish village in Poland, the entire community had gathered to pray for their beloved rabbi who was hovering between life and death. As the rabbi's last moments approached, he called over his beloved pupil, Reb Avraham, and in the presence of the elders of the community put his frail hands on his head and appointed him as his successor. Moments later, the rabbi closed his eyes, and returned his soul to its Creator.
Reb Avraham was a Torah genius, and an inspiring speaker and wise leader. His fear of G-d and his knowledge were remarkable. He had been at the rabbi's side since his arrival some ten years earlier. No one had actually seen Reb Avraham arrive. One morning the rabbi arrived at the synagogue with a man whom he said had arrived several months earlier and since then they had never been apart. But no one doubted Reb Avraham's credentials.
After the days of mourning Reb Avraham began to fill the old rabbi's place and everything returned to normal. He was busy day and night with the questions and problems of the community.
But one day, an unusual problem arose: a madman entered their village. The madman was filthy, was constantly grunting like an animal or talking incoherently. Occasionally he quoted sayings from the Talmud or Psalms.
The elders of the village went to Reb Avraham to ask him to pray for the unfortunate fellow. Reb Avraham answered, "What? Are my prayers any more potent than yours that I can exempt you from praying? Tonight we will all gather in the synagogue and pray together for him.
A half hour later they were all saying Psalms and, strangely enough, the madman was there too, walking in a small circle in the corner looking at the ground before him and mumbling to himself non-stop.
But as soon as they finished the book for the first time and saw it had no effect Reb Avraham began to speak words of inspiration. The madman stood still, pointed a finger at Reb Avraham and yelled out to the startled crowd:
"What! He is going to inspire you? He is your rabbi? Heh!! Why he and I sinned together! We left the Torah together!! Heh! We ate what the gentiles, drank with them, acted like them! This is the person you call your rabbi?"
The entire congregation was stunned. Before they had taken pity on the madman, but now he was getting offensive. They all turned to the rabbi to see what he would say, ready to throw the fellow out at a moment's notice.
The room was filled with silence, it was obvious that Reb Avraham was going through some sort of inner turmoil and they were waiting to see the outcome. "He's right!" Reb Avraham whispered. "Everything he said is true!" The crowd let out a gasp!
Several minutes passed until finally Reb Avraham stood up and said in a loud voice. "I thank G-d for this moment! We were both from the finest, most G-d fearing families and we excelled in our studies. Everyone predicted great things from us. But somehow we fell. It began slowly: we began reading foolish books, then hanging around with the gentiles until we decided to leave Judaism altogether and 'enjoy life.' Just as he said.
"After a few years of this we finally parted ways. I went into business while he went to university to learn philosophy. Eventually, we lost contact completely. I succeeded fantastically, married a gentile woman and built a castle on a huge estate; no one had any inkling that I was a Jew.
"One day when I was taking a stroll on my estate, my dog began barking, broke away from me and ran to a spot not far from us. There lay the body of a dead Jew. Probably some anti-Semite murdered him, I thought to myself.
"Suddenly my entire being became filled with mercy. I called for my servants and ordered them to bury the man and put a marker on his grave. From that moment something happened to me. I felt as though G-d sent this to awaken me to my true self. It was a sort of miracle.
"Eventually, I went to the city, met with the local rabbi and told him wanted to repent. At first he thought that I was a gentile and was either insane or trying to get him into trouble, but finally he believed me. Another miracle.
"He advised me to take a bag of money, write a note to my wife giving her all my riches and to flee to a rabbi friend of his in a distant place to learn Torah. And that is what I did. I arrived here over ten years ago. I took to the Torah like a fish to water. I remembered everything I had learned as a youth and I quickly became quite a scholar. But although I became the rabbi of your community I somehow felt that it had all happened too quickly and easily.
"Just now my first reaction was to have this fellow thrown out of the synagogue. Then my second reaction was to deny it and tonight, run away myself. I was ashamed to the bone. But I realized that this was also a miracle; perhaps even more than the first miracles. Now let's all pray for my friend."
As soon as they all finished the next Psalm the madman suddenly became calm, a normal expression returned to his face, and he fell heavily into his seat... a cured man.
When the Maggid of Kosnitz finished the story, he explained: "The miracles that brought Reb Avraham to repentance - finding the dead body, the rabbi believing him, the ease with which he left his gentile life and remembered all his Torah learning - were the hand of G-d. But the words of the madman were the opposite: they returned him to his past, to his own faults. When he was able to see the hand of G-d even in them, then he knew he could see and feel G-dliness in all things. This is called sincere teshuva - return."
Reprinted from www.OhrTmimim.com
