The Brotherliness Never Waned:
Sefer Kovetz Imrei Kodesh (Slonim) relates the following in the name of the Bais Avrohom of Slonim zy”a:
A chasid named R’ Yosele Dalatisher zt”l spent Rosh Hashanah in Slonim during the first year of the leadership of the Yesod Ha’avodah of Slonim. (After Rosh Hashanah, R’ Yosele got sick and died a short time later.) R’ Yosele said, “This is already my ‘fourth round’ (meaning that he had been by four tzadikim). I was by the Lechovitcher Rebbe and his son, by the Kobriner Rebbe, and now by the Slonimer Rebbe. And they all take the same path.”
On Tzom Gedalya, the Yesod Ha’avodah came to visit R’ Yosele, who had already fallen ill. He asked him to repeat something he had heard from the Lechovitcher Rebbe and he said: The Ohr Hachaim Hakadosh says that when Yosef said: “I am Yosef your brother”, he was saying that the feelings of brotherliness had never left him. Even after his brothers sold him as a slave, he still felt brotherly love towards them. The Lechovitcher Rebbe said about this: “We can see that the Ohr Hachaim Hakadosh was also holding on this level.”
The Zohar Hakadosh (Chelek 1, 201B) states that Rav Abba once saw a man having numerous miracles performed for him. He asked him what he did to deserve such reward and the man replied, “If anyone wrongs me, I immediately forgive him and I try to help that person, even though he hurt me.”
The truth is that although every individual has his own free will, no one can harm another human being if it is not the will of Hashem. Dovid Hamelech taught us this lesson, when Shimi ben Geira cursed him (2 Shmuel 15:10) but he commanded his guards not to do anything to him, saying, “This came from Hashem. He is not guilty.”
Even if it appears that one’s friend did something to harm him, the actual source is Hashem and one should recognize that this was His will.
One needs to have a lot of emunah to fully believe this. It is related that Kobriner Rebbe zy”a once met one of the tzadikim of his generation and asked him, “How do you make a baal teshuva?” The tzadik answered, “I engage in conversation with him about intellectual matters and, in this way, I make him become a baal teshuva.” The tzadik then asked the Kobriner Rebbe how he makes baalei teshuva, and the Rebbe replied, “I instill people with emunah and bitachon. This gets them to abandon their sins because emunah leads a person to distance himself from sin. If one believes that whatever he has is from Hashem and whatever is meant for his friend can never become his, no matter how hard he tries, he will never take anything that doesn’t belong to him or try to trick anyone out of money.”
It is said in the name of tzadikim that a thief would have acquired what he stole in a permitted way; however, the thief cannot hold himself back from stealing because he thinks that he won’t get what he wants if he doesn’t steal it. His problem is his lack of emunah. If he would refrain from stealing, he would obtain what he needs anyway.
So too, there is no need for a businessman to dress fancy in order to impress people. If one has emunah in Hashem, he will get whatever is destined for him without the need to impress other people, and whatever is not meant for him will not be obtained by him in any case.
Early chasidim lived their lives with this in mind. They had exceptional emunah and bitachon and relied on Hashem for whatever they needed. Therefore, they never tried to take anything away from anyone else, as they knew that Hashem decides how much each person will get. The Bais Avrohom tells the story of a chasid named R’ Dovid Zeltzer zt”l who owned a small grocery store. One day, another man opened grocery right down the block from him, which, obviously, affected his livelihood.
R’ Dovid traveled to see the Lechovitcher Rebbe and asked him for a bracha that he should not have any bad feelings towards his competitor. This bracha was successful. A short time later, he returned to the rebbe and asked for a bracha that not only should he not be angry at his competitor for taking away his customers, he also should feel happy for him that he is succeeding in his business. And this bracha worked as well!
