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A Year of Stories #19: "Is That So?"

11/14/2014

1 Comment

 
Picture
Picture
The Zen master Hakuin was praised by his neighbors as one living a pure life.

A beautiful Japanese girl whose parents owned a food store lived near him. Suddenly, without any warning, her parents discovered she was with child.
This made her parents very angry. She would not confess who the man was, but after much harassment at last named Hakuin.

In great anger the parents went to the master. “Is that so?” was all he would say.

When the child was born, the parents brought it to the Hakuin, who now was viewed as a pariah by the whole village. They demanded that he take care of the child since it was his responsibility. “Is that so?” Hakuin said calmly as he accepted the child.

A year later the girl-mother could stand it no longer. She told her parents the truth – that the real father of the child was a young man who worked in the fishmarket.

The mother and father of the girl at once went to Hakuin to ask his forgiveness, to apologize at length, and to get the child back again.

Hakuin was willing. In yielding the child, all he said was: “Is that so?”


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My late rebbe, R' Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, zt"l, (זכר צדיק לברכה) was a master storyteller. He taught, in the name of Abraham Joshua Heschel zt"l: "a mayse is a story in which the soul surprises the mind
". "A Year of Stories" is dedicated to his memory. I invite you to forward the link to these stories so that they find their way into the hearts of other listeners and tellers.
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Please consider offering a tax deductible donation to support this project and the work of DC's Jewish Renewal community Minyan Oneg Shabbat. A shout out to Judy Young for her generous offering in support of this project.
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"Year of Stories" followers, let me know at [email protected], 
with "Year of Stories" in the subject line.

1 Comment
Mary F. Meyerson link
11/16/2014 09:21:03 pm

Thought-provoking.

So often we are so to protest our innocence, provide our explanations for behavior, and deny any responsibility. Haikun did none of these. And that, in itself, might have been enough of a lesson.

BUT - "accepting the child,"implies that he was also willing to raise the child without tainting the child with any blame or negative reactions resulting from the way the child entered into his life. Which, for me, raises the lesson to another whole level.

Thanks for sharing.

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    Mark Novak is a "free-range" rabbi who lives in Washington DC and works, well, just about everywhere. In 2012 he founded Minyan Oneg Shabbat, home to MOSH (Minyan Oneg Shabbat), MindfulMOSH (Jewish mindfulness gathering), and
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