Question:
I have several addictions. I don't want to go through all of them here, but
the point is, I've been struggling, getting off and then back on, going for
therapy, getting my life together and then watching it crumble again through the
thick haze of my self-abuse -- and this has been going on now for some twenty
years. I don't see it going anywhere. I made a decision at one point to try to
be a good Jew -- tefillin, Shabbat, kosher -- the whole bit. Sometimes I
manage to do that. Sometimes I crash and it all falls apart. Sometimes I just
stay in bed for weeks, afraid of what I might do if I get out. So what has it
all helped me? Whatever I do, I remain a miserable sinner. Sometimes more
miserable, sometimes less. But what does G-d want with sinners like me? What did
He put such a louse of a creature here for? I just want to know: does He
appreciate at all the effort I put into trying not to be what I am?
Answer:
A story says it all. I heard this one from Aryeh Prager of Crown Heights. I
have no recollection where he says he heard it. But the story tells it all:
He was big, he had an ominous laugh and they called him, "Yankel Baal
Aveiros." I can't really translate that, but if I did, it would be
"Jack the sinner." No, no, it's more than that: "the master of
sins." It means, as they said, if there was a sin being done in Vilna, it
had to be Yankel doing it. And if Yankel Baal Aveiros was doing something, it
had to be a sin. Everyone has his department, and Yankel's was sinning.
So it was understandable that some Chassidim were concerned when Yankel
started turning up whenever they made l'chaim. The chassidim in Vilna
were perhaps a little more conscious of their image than those in say, Dubrovna
or Nevel. Vilna, after all, was a hotbed of contention between Chassidim and
their opponents. They had to look good.
So, even when they farbrenged -- when they sat together over a bottle
of vodka and a bite of herring to sing, to tell stories and to inspire each
other to be better Chassidim -- even then, they were wary of what their
Chassidically-challenged neighbors might think.
And here was Yankel Baal Aveiros, as sinful looking as ever, sitting there
amongst them. He didn't disturb -- other than an occasional coarse laugh. It
even seemed at times that he might be listening. But he certainly hadn't stopped
sinning. And he made it clear to all that he had no intention to stop sinning.
So, some thought, what is he doing here?
The older Chassidim would have left him alone. Let him sit, who knows?
Perhaps one day a word spoken from the heart might reach to his heart through
all the muck and squeeze out a tear of repentance. One tear in a lifetime, at
least that.
But there were a few that didn't ask. At one farbrengen, they went to Yankel
and explained, "Yankel, we think you're a great guy. We really don't mind
you being here. But our children, you understand. We're worried they might see
and perhaps be influenced. After all, Yankel, you know who you are…"
They had more to say, but Yankel didn't let them. His stare was a face of
painful anger, of disgust and of spite and of every demon of every sin he had
ever done -- nobody could take such a look and speak. Until one hard kick broke
the silence, the table came crashing to the floor, and the air rung with a
shower of vocabulary most had never before been privileged to hear. When the
door slammed behind Yankel's crashing footsteps, most sighed with relief.
But that wasn't the last they heard of Yankel Baal Aveiros. You see, Yankel
decided to write a letter. He wrote it to the "Esteemed and holy tzaddik,
Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Lubavitch." That was the rebbe of the time (the
mid 1800's) for most of the Chassidim of White Russia and Lithuania and Yankel
knew he was the rebbe of these Chassidim.
Yankel sat at his desk and cried as a master of sins is never supposed to
cry. "All day long," he wrote, "my yetzer ha-ra (evil
inclination) burns inside me like a baker's oven, screaming, 'Sin, Yankel! Sin!'
I had no escape until finally, I had found a way, the only way, to quiet it
down. And I sat there, and I didn't sin! And now they have taken even this away
from me! Let all my sins be upon them from now on!"
It wasn't long before the Chassidim received a furious letter from their
rebbe. I don't know the exact language of that letter, but the content was to
this effect:
"You have no concept of what this Yankel achieves sitting there at your farbrengens.
All your studies, all your deep meditation and prayers, all your spiritual
ecstasy and cleaving of the soul to G-d -- all is hot air in comparison to the
revolution this Yankel achieves in the higher worlds when he sits there and does
not sin. With what presumption have you denied all the heavens such great
delight?"
And so, Yankel was brought back to the party. And as he sat there and
listened to the Chassidim sing, and even took a l'chaim himself, G-d on
High commanded His angels to strike up the band in full concert.
"But why? What great deed is being done that is so wondrous?" they
asked.
To which G-d replied, "Look at this being I have made! I have placed My
breath within him and look at the impenetrable muck that covers it over! And
yet, now he has managed to quiet the darkness! Now, if just for a moment, he has
made that darkness does not sin!"
"For the delight of this moment, all the worlds were brought into
being!"
