Some years ago, a parent of one of the bochurim farbrenged in the Yeshiva in honor of Rosh Chodesh Kislev. This parent was a shliach who was just returning from the kinus hashluchim, and during the farbrengen, he related the following:
‘During the kinus this year, I met up with a friend of mine, who serves as a shliach in another country. On Thursday night, we walked together to Oholei Torah, to take part in the workshops. On the way I noticed that my friend was limping. I asked him what happened, but he insisted that it was nothing, and that he would be fine.
Over the course of the evening, however, his foot deteriorated, to the point that he could barely walk. When it came time to go home, although the place where he was staying was on Carrol St, just over 2 blocks away, the walk was too much for him to handle, and we had to bring him there by taxi.
“Something is obviously very wrong with your foot”, I exclaimed, “shouldn’t you seek medical attention?” But he continued to maintain that it was nothing, and that by the next day there would be no trace of the turmoil.
Sure enough, when I saw him the next day, he was walking normally. I pressed him for an explanation, and he shared with me the following amazing story:
“When I was a child (he related), learning in Lubavitcher Yeshiva, I once had an accident while playing sports, and injured my foot. My parents wrote in to the Rebbe, who responded ליזהר בכשרות האכילה ושתייה – to be more careful with kashrus.
“Now, I was a Lubavitcher kid, from a Lubavitcher family, and we were obviously keeping kosher at home, but as a result of the Rebbe’s response, we found some ways in which we could raise our standards.
“This happened some 30 years ago, and since then, any and every time I compromise in my standards of kashrus, my foot immediately begins to ail me!
“On the way to the kinus, my flight had a stopover, and my second flight was delayed, and I was stuck for some time in an airport. I was, understandably very hungry, and was looking for something to eat. I found some food item for sale, that had a hashgocho. I knew inside that I should really not be depending on that hashgocho, as it was not up to my standards, but I chose to overlook that.
“Therefore, as soon as my foot started hurting, I knew with certainty what the cause was. I made a hachloto on the spot to stay away from this hechsher in the future, and was certain that my foot would be better the next morning, which it was!”
With this shliach, his physical health was tied to his spiritual behavior in a very tangible and visible manner. Imagine if we all lived that way, we would be living at a much higher standard. But that would remove our b’chirah chofshis. Yet we must know and understand intellectually at least, that in truth this is the case, in actual fact our Yiddishkeit and chassidishkeit are not something extra that we practice, but they are our very life. The same importance that we attach to other things on which our life and health depends (like our cellphones and i-pads...) needs to be attached and applied to every part of our chassidishe conduct.
Matisyahu (heard of him?) recently removed his beard. Whatever his reasons were, it gives the impression that his beard was to him a superficial disguise, an external trimming that could be put on or removed (depending on how it affects the ratings or whatever).
You didn’t see him wake up one day and remove a finger or a leg or his head. But his beard, to him, was obviously expendable. But to a chosid a beard should be no more expendable than his head. Because living like a chosid is the source of or vechayus nafshenu in a very literal sense.
And, by the same token, just as you can’t decide one day to remove your head or your beard, so too you can’t decide one day to remove a portion of the time spent learning chassidus, or any of the ways by which you live according to its directives. This, then, is the realization that the Yud Tes Kislev farbrengens should grant us.
