A Year of Stories #45: Shabbas on Wednesday

This being Wednesday, 
seems like the perfect time 
to post this well known story.

Week after week, from one Shabbat to another, and especially when they would eat their Shabbat meal together with their Hasidi - when they would speak words of Torah, Rabbi Elimelech and Rabbi Zusya, two Hasidic Rebbes, two Hasidic masters, were overcome by a feeling of holiness. 

Once when they were in private together, Rabbi Elimelech said to Rabbi Zusya, 

“Brother, I am sometimes afraid that my feeling of holiness on the Sabbath may not be a true feeling, and if so, my service to G!d may mot be the right kind of service.” Rabbi Zusya said, 

“Brother, I too am afraid of the very same thing.” 

“What should we do about?,” asked Elimelech. 

And Zusya replied, 

“Let each of us on a weekday, prepare a meal which is exactly like the Sabbath meal. Let us then invite our Hasidim to join us, and let us teach the kinds of words of Torah that we ordinarily do. And then if it happens on that day, in midweek, that we still have the same feeling of holiness, we will know that our way is not the true way. But if we do not feel anything special, it will prove that our Saturday way is correct.” 

Well, they did exactly what they said. They prepared the Sabbath meal. They put on their Shabbas clothes. They put on the streimels that they would only wear on Shabbas. They ate with the Hasidim; they spoke words of Torah; and sure enough, the feeling of holiness overcame them, just as it did on Shabbas.. And so when they were alone together, Rabbi Elimelech said, 

“Brother, what should we do?” 

They were in a state of deep emotional and spiritual crisis. So he said, 

“Let us go to the great Rabbi of Mezhirech; let us ask him.” 

So they did. They spoke to the Maggid of Mezhirech. They told him their dilemma, and he said to them, 

“If you put on Sabbath clothes and Sabbath hats, and speak words of Torah and share a meal and song with your Hasidim,  it is quite right that you had a feeling of Sabbath holiness. Because all of those things together have the power of drawing the light of Shabbat holiness, down to earth. You need have no fears.”


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