THERE WAS A PARTICULAR INDIVIDUAL who was falling off the derech. Many people who knew him tried to persuade him back to the right path, but he wasn’t hearing any of them. His fall went so far that he decided to charter a yacht to sail off to the middle of the sea, and scheduled his departure for none other than Yom Kippur, r”l.
R' Yaakov Meir Schechter was asked to talk to him, hoping that he would be able to positively influence him, and he agreed. They spoke warmly, and at one point, R' Yaakov Meir directed the conversation to his yacht voyage. “Why’d you decide to go out on that boat on Yom Kippur of all days?”
The man responded: “Ever since I started my journey away from Yiddishkeit, I’ve felt my neshamah tugging at me, drawing me to return to Torah and mitzvos. This greatly disturbed my peace of mind; I had finished with observing mitzvos, and I didn’t want them anymore, but my inner conscience was pulling me away from what I was doing, disturbing me from enjoying the ‘fun.’
“So, after much thought, I decided to do something to disconnect me from everything, leaving no trace of Yiddishkeit. That’s why I chartered a boat and ate on Yom Kippur, r”l. It would relinquish my final connection with Yiddishkeit, and I’d be ‘liberated.’”
“And how do you feel now?” asked R' Yaakov Meir.
“The same as before! The pull, tug, agony, and guilt I always had is still there in full force, disturbing my life and preventing me from enjoying my new direction!”
Putting his hand on the boy’s shoulder, with a warm tone of voice, R' Yaakov Meir responded: “Wow! I'm so impressed!
“I have so many people crying at my desk, bemoaning how they’re yearning to feel connected with Hashem and His mitzvos. They feel their bond with Hashem is so dry, lifeless, and dull, and they come to seek guidance to rebuild that connection. You, on the other hand, are telling me that you constantly have this feeling, and that your problem is how you can free yourself from it. Your inner neshamah has such a longing to Hashem and wants so badly to have that association. That is something so special, and that’s why I'm so blown away.”
Every Yid, in every situation and in every level that he finds himself, has that inner desire toward Hashem and His mitzvos. We might not be aware of it, and it might not be on the forefront of our minds, but it’s there. The feeling that this young man had is something that us observant Yidden might take for granted, but we all have it. In every situation and level that we find ourselves in, our neshamah yearns for it. The neshamah of every Yid contains a desire and a yearning toward Torah and mitzvos.
These words deeply penetrated the young man’s heart, and they reignited in him the spark to start observing Torah and mitzvos. Today, he is a respectable yungerman, learning and growing to great heights.
