Nothing Else Matters

Reb Moshe Dovid Paluch zt"I was a well-known Gerrer chassid. He would relate that as a young bachur back in Poland, he traveled to his Rebbe, the Imrei Emes, for Shavuos. After Yom Tov, the leader of his group sent the bachurim home on their own, choosing to remain with the Rebbe for several more days alone.

"After we left," Reb Moshe Dovid would relate, "the Rebbe's son, the future Beis Yisrael of Gur, told our group leader to ask the Rebbe whether it was okay to send the young bachurim back home on their own.

"'Your job is to be with your bachurim,' the Imrei Emes told him. 'I want to tell you a passuk that you should repeat to all the bachurim in your group.' And the Imrei Emes quoted the passuk we say each day in Aleinu - "V'yadata hayom, v'hashevosa....

"The Imrei Emes explained this passuk as follows (and I myself heard the same explanation in the name of Reb Ahrele Karliner zt"l): If we know in our hearts that Hashem is the only Ruler of the world, then ein od - then we needn't know anything else. This knowledge is enough to sustain us.

"The head of the group left, armed with these words of chizuk, and caught up with the group of young bachurim he'd sent home ahead of him. They stopped together in a forest on the way, and he told them, 'I have a gift for you from the Rebbe.'

"And then, for over an hour, he shouted the words again and again. Ein od! There is nothing else you need to know - nothing, other than the fact that Hashem is running the world!

"That summer, World War II broke out, and the most sought-after thing during the war was 'news.' People were sure that information would save their lives and show them where to go to escape. But none of this interested me," Reb Moshe Dovid would say. "The Rebbe's words echoed in my ears all the time. And look," he'd conclude. "Many people who kept constantly up to date about the latest happenings were killed. But I, who knew nothing other than that Hashem is running the world, am alive and well, here in Eretz Yisrael!"

Tzaddikim would say that the entire month of Tishrei is meant to bring us to that point when we say Atah hareisa on Simchas Torah, affirming that nothing exists other than Hashem Himself.

If we live with the knowledge that Hashem is running the world, then, indeed, we need nothing else.

Gut Shabbos, Pinchas Shefer