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#463 (s5767-02 / 12 Tishrei 5767) Choose Life! One exceptionally cold night, the youth refused to sleep in the sukkah with the father of the Divrei Chayim.
Choose Life!
A tailor who had a request to make of Rabbi Chaim of Zanz wrote out his story on a kvitl note which he handed to the tzadik. The story ran as follows. Many years earlier, whenever Rabbi Chaim's late father Rabbi Aryeh Leibush slept in his sukka, this tailor -- who was then a youth -- slept there too, so that the rabbi should not be out there alone. One exceptionally cold night the youth refused to sleep in the sukka, no matter how earnestly the Rabbi implored him to agree. This went on until the Rabbi promised him that if he would do it, he would give him half of his own portion of the World to Come. The lad quickly obliged. Some fifty years later the tailor fell ill. As he lay on his sickbed, Rabbi Aryeh Leibush appeared to him and said: "You should know that the time has come for you to leave This World. Choose now between two alternatives: either you waive your right to the half-portion in the World to Come which I promised you -- in which case you will regain your health; or you may come with me to eternal life and receive your portion." The tailor choose to continue living in This World, and said that for that he was prepared to forgo his claim on the promised share in the World to Come. When he regained his health, however, he regretted having chosen as he had. He therefore came now to the illustrious son of the departed tzadik, Rabbi Chaim of Zanz, with the request that he annul his waiver. Rabbi Chaim only smiled, and replied not a word. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Yrachmiel
Tilles is co-founder and associate director of Ascent-of-Safed, and editor of
Ascent Quarterly and the AscentOfSafed.com and KabbalaOnline.org websites. He
has hundreds of published stories to his credit. |
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