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Articles
by Rabbi Zalman Shacter-Shalomi
A
story that escaped from
"The Dream Assembly"
By Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi and Howard
Schwartz
I want to tell you a story about a river and some herring.
One day Reb Sholem came to see Reb Zalman. He had just been
thinking about the problem of Divine Providence, and freedom
of choice, and each time it looked to him that there was no
way in which any human being could solve this conundrum. If
there is such a thing as Divine Providence how could there
be freedom of choice and if there is the freedom of choice
then there is no such thing as Divine Providence?
This
doesn't give him any peace. So Reb Zalman said to Reb Sholem,
"Go and bring me Wojtek. The ethnik, the ferry man.”
So
he brought Wojtek, the ferry man and he said to him, "One
of the tributaries of the River Bug, the Bialtchik has a very
wild flowing and wild current, and it isn't too far from here.
I'd like you to take me and Reb Sholem and Reb Simchah, Reb
Chayim Elyah down through the rapids."
So
Wojteck looked at them and he said, "I can't understand.
This is what the wild boys are doing. I used to do it in my
youth and I still know the rapids quite well, but I can't
understand why you would want to do that."
Then
Reb Zalman said to him, "Well, how much do you get paid
these days?" So he says, "It's not an issue of money.
I'm prepared to take you." So he says, "Then what
are you talking about? So take us."
So
they went and traveled and came to the river. And at the river
they were sitting in a boat and Wojtek asked them, "Can
you swim?" And they looked at Reb Zalman, saying,"
Can we really swim?" Reb Zalman said to them, "Can
you swim across the ocean?" and they said, "No."
And then he said, "Could you swim across the sea?"
They said, "No." "Could you swim across a lake?"They
said "No." "Could you swim across a pond?"
And they said, "Efshar, maybe." So he says,
"O.K. Let's go.
And
they seat themselves and they're tying themselves by the gartel
to the gunwale of the boat, and Wojtek takes his place at
the helm and asks Reb Zalman to sit way in the front and he
gives him an oar. He's sitting in the back with one oar and
Reb Sholem and Reb Chayim Elyah are sitting in the middle
annd Wojtek is steering it into the current.
The
current takes them to the rapids with big boulders in it.
They prayed t’filat yam --the prayer for travelling on
the water. They said it in the beginning when they got started...and
after wards when they would frighten they repeated it. They
move and get down toward the boulders. Each time it looks
really terrible but Wojtek seems to know what to do. So he
gave a push in one direction, a push in another direction.
Sometimes Reb Zalman took the oar and paddled on one side
very strong, on the other side very strong. And they managed
to avoid the big boulders. The water was white and foaming
and it seemed that the river was making a turn and was going
down more rapidly than they were willing. Reb Sholem's face
started to get white, and Reb Chayim Elyah was pulling himelf
together. He knows that the boat was going to be OK, but something
in his stomach isn't happy.
At
one point Reb Zalman has to push the oar very strongly against
a boulder that they almost hit in order to avoid it and each
time Reb Zalman did something Wojtek shouted from the back,
"Dobzhe, Dobzhe." Polish for good. So they made
their way through and finally they came to the place where
the Bialtchik issues into the Bug river, and there Reb Zalman
said to Wojtek, "Now it's OK. We can go"
Meanwhile
the wagon that had taken them had come down the road while
they were davening and they were still settling their stomachs
and drying their clothes that had gotten all sprayed from
the water, when Reb Zalman says,"Let's load the boat
now on the wagon." They started lifting the boat on the
wagon and they're moving on out to another place. Soon and
they come to this quiet pond. Reb Zalman asks Reb Sholem to
take the oar and to row. Reb Sholem in his case starts rowing
to the right and rowing to the left and he rows wherever he
wishes and then Reb Zalman doesn't say a word again, and coming
back to the wagon, loading the boat on the wagon they come
to a small waterfall.
They
ask Wojtek if he would take the boat down a small waterfall.
Wojtek looks at them and says,"Are you God-forsaken,
are you crazy? There's nothing that can save me. It's not
a big waterfall but the boat will break and I'll break every
bone in my body. I refuse to do this. I'm not going over that
waterfall. The waterfall is surely the place where one can
destroy himself."
Whereupon
he looks at Reb Sholem and asks whether he wants to go. "No,
no, no! For me the calm water was all that I could handle
I don't even want to go back on the white water, never mind
the waterfall!"
So
Reb Zalman still doesn't say anything and they come back to
the house, the Beis Medrash. They pay Wojtek the driver and
they give him a stiff schnapps for a Lechayyim and they all
take a Lechayyim. Afterwards a discussion ensues about whether
they have to bentsh gomel or not because after all it's written
in the psalm, 106 one that is for people who have to thank
God people who were sick or in prison; and those who go down
to sea in ships doing work in the mighty waters -- that's
the one you have to bentsh gomel on to give thanks for your
safe deliverance.
So
he's saying to him," Well, what do you think, do we need
to bensh gomel?" And they say, "Yes we do, absolutely!"
So he asks them, "Why do you think so?" And they
answer, "Because it was so dangerous. We could really
have gotten killed Look, I still don't understand why you
took us to this place."
So
Reb Zalman says, "Alright, let's just have patience for
a while Now we should spend some time in prayer and meditation
and afterwards bentsh gomel" Then he asks the question,"What
is it that makes us have the responsibility of the freedom
of choice?
Next
shabbos they're sitting at S’udah sh’lishit and
they're singing the psalm, “The Lord is my shepherd I
shall not want, he leads my beside the still waters”.
Reb Zalman in the middle of that nice contemplative song,
bangs on the table, and says - I want to interrupt you right
now for a moment and sing that song from Yom Kippur night
that goes, "we are like clay and the potter of hand,
in the hand of the potter.
KI
HINEH KAHOMER
We are as clay in potter's hand
He does contract, He does expand
So we are yours to shape at will
We yield to you--
Our passions still.
Like
mason shaping rough-hewn stone
We are Your stuff in flesh and bone
You deal with us in death, in life
We yield to you--
please heal our strife.
The
smith can shape a bade of steel
Shape the edge and bend the heel
So tn life's furnace you temper us
We yield to You –
surrender us.
When
they come to the verse:
“A boat is steered by helmsman's might
He turns to left, he turns to right
As long as You keep straight our keel
We yield to You-please
make us feel,”
He
turns to Reb Sholem and says, "He leads me beside the
still waters -- and on the rough waters. At which point do
I have a choice, and at which point is everything preordained?
Reb
Sholems's eyes light up and he gets very excited , and turning
to the Hasidim around the table he says, "I know, I know,
I know why you did it! Now I know!"
Reb
Zalman asks him, "What is it that you know?"
So
he says, "...some people think that the freedom of choice
they have is like the still waters and in the still waters
whichever way I want to row -- to the right or to the left
– I row. But as it says in the Yom Kippur liturgy, "We
are like the rudder in the hand of the sailor, whichever way
he wants to, he turns to the right, he turns to the left
When
they finish singing Reb Zalman asks him again, "Now sing
that stanza again,”
A
boat is steered by helmsman's might
He turns to left, he turns to right
As long as You keep straight our keel
We yield to You
please make us feel.
They
sing it again, "and as long as you keep straight our
keel, we yield to you please make us feel"
So
Reb Zalman says to Reb Sholem “now go through that whole
experience, "What is it that you know? What is it that
you see?"
Reb
Sholem lights up now because he understand perfectly that
the philosophers are arguing that God is doing divine providence
of everything -- they're talking about the waterfall. When
God takes you, there's nothing you can do. On the waterfall
you can't steer, but on the plain lake, on the pond where
the water is calm, there you can steer in every direction
where you wish to go. But most of life is made up like that
Bialtchik river where they were doing the white water traveling,
which is to say, there is a stream which goes down from the
high place to the low place but it leaves some room for you
to do some steering."
David
Hamelekh, King David is saying “He leads me beside
the still waters, and he gives me the greatest amount of free
choice. But, gam ki elech b'gey tsalmoves--yea though
I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, which is
like a waterfall, I fear no evil, for Thou art with me. Because
who makes the waterfall in the first place?. It's You who
got me in the waterfall in the first place, it's You.
And
finally the holy Izhbitzer, Reb Mord’chai Yossef teaches:
"When everything will be over, in the end, and we look
back, we will realize that everything was divine providence,
even our choices were decreed.
So
why is it that we experience says Reb Chayyim Elyah, "Why
is it that we then experience such trouble, such travail,
such work, and the choicesthat we then have to make?"
Reb
Zalman says, "That too the holy Izhbitzer says, God so
loves us that even though he decrees everything that is to
happen to us, He gives us the subjective experience. As this
leads us, our work has done it because this is what gives
meaning to our lives .This is the way in which He can invite
us into partnership; not that we can do it by ourselves, or
not that we can really do it at all, but the drama that God
sets up is the drama of our choice."
______________________________________________________________________________
The
next day Reb Gershon sought out Reb Zalman and complained
that he just couldn't manage certain things in life, the difference
between that which is good and that which isn't good was very
problematic. He had trouble with that and he couldn't find
a way to make it worthwhile for himself. He was depressed
and burst out saying, "Gevalt, gevalt, what am I gonna
do?"
So
Reb Zalman says to him, "I want you to go to the fish
market and buy some fresh herring, not salted herring"
So
he doesn't understand but he buys the herring and brings it
back to Reb Zalman who says, "You and I are going to
eat some herring for dinner tonight. Go and prepare some herring."
So
he says, "How am I going to prepare it?" He says,
"That 's your business."
So
he takes the herring and cleans it and gets rid of all the
scales and he takes out the big bones from the herring and
poaches it, and cooks up some potatoes. He and Reb Zalman
sit down at dinner to eat and each time he takes a fork full
of herring he starts to chew and there's a little bayndaleh,
a little bone inside and it doesn't go and it doesn't go...
It
tastes very good but there are little bones that under any
circumstance you can't get out before you serve it and they
trouble him a lot.
So
in the middle of the dinner he turns to Reb Zalman and says,
"Here it is again. This is what my life is, everything
is good, but those little bones, boy do they trouble me, oy
they're such a nuisance..." So Reb Zalman says to him,
OK Just for a ,moment run out to the grocery next door and
get us a pickled herring and get us a salted matjes herring,
OK?"
So
he goes out and gets the pickled herring and the matjes herring
and Reb Zalman cuts it for him and gives him a piece. He eats
and he pulls out the bones and he pulls and they come out
and he says, "Do you like that better?" He says,
"I like that a lot better this way." And Reb Zalman
asks, "Why?" and he answers, "Because while
it's saltier and it's harsher to eat, it doesn't taste as
good and as mild, but look over here the bones don't bug me
as much."
He
says, "Now have a shtickel pickled herring." And
this time he bites into a pickled herring, bones and all and
chews it up and swallows it and it's wonderful.
So
Reb Zalman says to him, "How do you say pickled in Hebrew?
So he thinks back and forth and finally he says, kovush. Kovush
kim’vushal damye. It says kavush, that which
is pickled is like as if it were cooked.
"Good,"
Reb Zalman says. "It is also written, who is mighty?
He who subdues his evil inclination. The Hebrew says, hakoveish
et yitsro, or the meaning can be said to be the one who
pickles his yetser hara his evil inclination. So he
pickles his yetser hara and he's mighty. Why? Because then
he can swallow it down, with the bones and everything else."
Reb
Gershon says, *"Rebbe, how do I start pickling my yetser
hara?"
So
he says, "A little bit with salt of tears and a little
bit with the vinegar of longing and a little bit with the
onions of compassion, and the spices are like the peppercorns.
And the herring is the flesh. By themselves you don't want
to eat them and that's the way of the vicissitudes of life.
The water's the Torah that we have to be immersed in , in
order for everything to come together right.
Articles
by Rabbi Zalman Shacter-Shalomi
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