I’ll tell you a maaseh. One of the great Chassidishe Rebbes was the Apta Rav, known as the Ohev Yisroel. The story goes that before Pesach, a chassid once came to him with a question. He said that the laundry detergent his wife uses all year was chometzdik, so he was thinking of taking on a new chumrah (stringency) this year to sell the entire laundry room and not even enter it all Yom Tov as an extra precaution to avoid chometz. He wanted to know if the Rebbe agreed to his chumrah; if this was a good idea.
The Ohev Yisroel responded with a story. There was once a Yid, Yankel, who lived in a small shtetl. He was in the whiskey business, and most of his customers were goyim who loved his whiskey. But there was a gallach, a priest in the town, who was an anti-Semite and wanted to ruin Yankel’s parnassah. So this priest told all his followers not to buy whiskey from Yankel.
But his followers did not listen. Yankel’s whiskey was too good, and they could not bear the thought of avoiding it. So the priest made a new rule: anyone who buys whiskey from the Jew Yankel would not be allowed to confess their sins to him.
This posed a problem, because it was really important to them to have someone to confess their sins to, so they could get rid of their sins. Sure enough, the goyim stopped buying whiskey from Yankel.
When Yankel found out why they stopped buying from him, he had a simple solution — he told his customers that they could always go to him to confess their sins, and he would relieve the burden of their sins. And of course, they can continue to buy his whiskey. It was a win-win, and everyone was happy with this arrangement.
One day, a customer came to buy whiskey and said, “Yankel, I have a confession to make.” “Go ahead,” said Yankel. “I stole a rope from someone.” “So give it back,” Yankel said. “I can’t,” the man replied. “I don’t remember who I stole it from.” “OK, then give the value of the rope to charity,” Yankel told him. The man hesitated. “The truth is, when I was trying to steal the rope, I noticed that the rope was attached to a wagon, and I stole the wagon too.” “So give the wagon back to its owner,” Yankel said. “I can’t,” the man said. “I don’t remember who it belonged to.” “OK, so give the value of the wagon to charity.”
The man cautiously continued, “If I am being fully honest, when I stole the rope which was attached to the wagon, it turned out that the other side of the rope was hitched to oxen, and I stole the oxen also.” “So give them all back,” said Yankel. “I can’t. I don’t remember who owned them.” “OK, so give the value to charity,” Yankel replied. The man sighed. “But Yankel, the truth is, when I stole the rope, which was hooked up to the wagon and attached to the oxen, there was a man driving the wagon, and I killed him.”
Yankel looked at him with astonishment, “You killed him?! So you came here to confess that you are a thief who stole a rope, and now that I pull the details out of you, it turns out that you are a murderer?!”
The Ohev Yisroel finished the story and looked at the chassid with a penetrating gaze. The chassid got the message and broke down crying. “Rebbe, I know I have much bigger areas of teshuvah that I need to work on, rather than taking on a chumrah not to go into my laundry room for Pesach.
The Ohev Yisroel concluded, “The Ribono Shel Olam wants a Yid to be sincere and honest, and not to hide behind frumkeit. Don’t take on new chumros to avoid looking at the real avodah you need to fix. Be honest with yourself and with Hashem.”
Take It To Go!
The Ohev Yisroel was teaching us a very important principle in avodas Hashem, which is not to hide behind frumkeit. Of course, chumros can be wonderful, but ultimately, we must be honest and sincere with ourselves and honest and sincere with Hashem as we choose the areas that we know we need to improve in.
This article was found in Nekuda Tova Issue 61.
