THE SIGH
BY ANON
A cobbler came to the Sage and said,
Tell me what to do about my morning prayers.
My customers are very poor men
who have only one pair of shoes.
I pick up their shoes late in the evening and work on them most of the night. At dawn there is still work to be done if the men are to have their shoes,ready before
they go to work.
Now my question is....
What should I do about my morning prayer?
The sage asked 'What have you been doing till now?
Replied the cobbler,..Sometimes...
I rush through the prayer quickly
and get back to work--but then I feel bad about it.
At other times, I let the hour of prayer go by.
Then too I feel a sense of loss...
and every now and then,
as I raise my hammer from the shoes, I can almost hear my heart sigh ... What an unlucky man I am, that I am not able to make
my morning prayers
If I were God, I would value that sigh..
more than the prayer.. replied the sage.
This sigh.....lives century.......
after.... century
Kol Tuv,
RRW
2 comments:
(continued...)
Years ago, I remember speaking with a very frustrated 19-year-old, who, having gone from one Yeshiva to another, expressed that he felt like a failure. "If only my father would realize that I love Yiddishkeit and learning Torah. I just can't sit 10 hours a day like the rest of the guys." I asked him, "What do you do well and also enjoy doing?" He answered, "Doing electrical work."
Later that day I confidentially met with his father, a fine mensch and respected scholar. I suggested that his son would do well to learn in the local Yeshiva in the mornings, and work as an apprentice for an electrician, where he could learn the trade. With a heavy sigh, his father replied, "My son can sit and learn Torah just like the others, if only he'd apply himself."
I told his father: "Enough with the sighs! Here you sit depressed with sighs that your child isn't good enough. And there your child sits with sighs thinking that he is a rejected failure. The Ribbono Shel Olam created your son with special talents of tradesmanship, which he must use in service to others and to God. Instead, you are diverting him from his mission. Worse, you are pushing him away from his family and community. And for what? Because you hold a certain preconceived yet false notion that in order for your son to succeed - and for you to be proud of him - he is required to conform to the norm? How can you make your love so conditional? Indeed, when was the last time you even told your son that you love him and are so very proud of him and his accomplishments, and that you appreciate his special qualities and unique abilities?!"
Sweet friends - enough with the "sighs" of angst and regret that depressingly express "Oy... If only...."
Instead, let us embrace with joyful abundance the tasks, responsibilities, obligations and relationships that take us to the highest heights of life fulfillment and Oneness with God.
Our Creator, Sustainer, Maintainer created us in a physical world, and calls us to elevate it through our unique talents and opportunities that He blesses each of us with.
As the late Reb Dovid Zeller says: Yiddishkeit teaches the world that the Ten Commandments are holy letters written in stone, and our purpose is finding the spiritual in the material. And I add: especially in service of our families and humankind.
Rabbi Avraham HaCohen Zimberg
Detroit, Michigan
zimmy @ lifesgreat . org
(My comment starts here...)
Thanks for your deeply inspiring website, your wisdom, and this particular story of the Cobbler.
But I hope you agree: the Cobbler's "sigh" was part of his problem, not the answer. His sigh seems to express angst and guilt and maybe shame, that he feels compromised by needing to attend to making and fixing the shoes of the hard working people but not being able to properly attend the morning prayers.
My answer would be different. I would say:
Holy Cobbler - Do you know how precious each of your stitchs and hammer-blows are? And that you do so for three holy Mitzvos: (1) Sustenance for you and your family, (2) Chessed for the Holy hard working people who toil to provide for their familis, and (3) Exponential Chessed, for those workers also do work that benefits many, many others.
Holy Cobbler: Your work is your prayer. There is no need for a sigh or vey or zifsts. Rather, there is great reason for pride, joy and glory.
Holy Cobbler: At the end of your work, after you have finished your diligent work long through the night, and after you give your last "customer" (i.e. recipient of your chessed/lovingkindness) his wonderfully repaired shoes ... and you are so exhausted that you can't attend the morning prayers... perhaps this can be your prayer:
Thank you Creator, Sustainer, Maintainer, for privileging me to bask in Your warmth and giving me the health, talent and opportunity to do so much Chessed for my brothers and sisters, Your children.
So many of us have those "sighs" - mistakenly thing that "if I didn't have all those obligations and responsibilities and difficulties of "mundane" life, I could be so spiritual and devoted to God." Yet, in those very tasks - for example all the details, responsibilities and even discomforts and pains of raising a child - therein is our spirituality and devotion to God. All seemingly mundane tasks are pregnant with righteousness.
I was privileged to study in Ner Yisrael Yeshiva in Toronto. Descending from the family of Reb Yisrael Salanter, I was especially touched by the lesson of the late Rosh HaYeshiva Rav Naftali Friedler, told in the name of his Rebbe, Rav Eliyahu Dessler, who told the following in the name of Reb Yisrael:
The Torah tells us in Parshas Bereishis that “Chanoch walked with Hashem.” The Medrash tells us that “Chanoch was a shoemaker!
And with every single stitch that he made, he achieved total unity with Hashem.”
So we might think this means that while Chanoch was making or fixing a shoe, he surely must have been deep in esoteric, kaballistic thoughts, in order to become One with HaShem.
Rav Dessler, however, quotes Reb Yisroel Salanter as saying that the Medrash cannot mean that. After all, if someone paid Chanoch to make a pair of shoes, the Halacha would not permit him to divert his attention to other matters, especially to
deep thoughts, that might distract and detach him from doing his work.
So how did Chanoch "Walk with HaShem" and achieve the highest heights of connection with God? By concentrating on every stitch with the intention of producing the very best, most comfortable, most durable shoe possible.
As Rav Moshe Katz of the Chicago Torah Network articulates, "Hoping to give the maximum benefit and pleasure to whoever would wear it, Chanoch became united with Hashem on the deepest level due to his desire to emulate Hashem, Who constantly showers His creatures with kindness!"
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