The Komarna said over the following story. The Bardichever Rebbe once traveled to visit a certain city. When the locals found out that he was coming, they sent a delegation led by the greatest tzaddikim of the city to greet him on the outskirts of town.
There was a well known bum in that city named Berel. Everyone knew that Berel was a lowlife who had absolutely no connection to anything spiritual. He knew every single Mitzvah, in all its details, and used that information to intentionally violate them all! When the group of tzaddikim were approaching the Bardichever Rebbe, they saw Berel was walking towards them. Not wanting anything to do with him, the tzaddikim crossed the straight to avoid even walking past Berel. The Bardichever Rebbe, who was approaching them from another direction, did the exact opposite. He crossed the straight, walked right over to Berel, wrapped his arms around him and lifted him up enthusiastically, shaking him around. “Berel, you have no idea who you are! Your neshama is connected to the highest of places, connect yourself to who you truly are!”
The tzaddikim saw all this, and started laughing at the Bardichever, who they thought must be naive about Berel. The Bardichever came over to them, and said “do you think I don’t see any of Berel’s sins? I see more of his sins than you all do! But I see past that; I see who Berel really is in the root of his neshama.”
Sometimes we might think that we cannot love and encourage another Jew because we simply know too much about what that Yid has done. We might assume that the Bardichever was able to love them because he focused only on their good and didn’t see their bad side; but we see the bad, so how can we have the ahavas yisroel of the Bardichever Rebbe? This story teaches us a lot. The Bardichever Rebbe was not naive, he simply had the ability to see past all the sins, to see the root essence of the neshama of another Yid. We can all try to do the same!
This article was found in Nekuda Tova Issue 15.