Sefer Makor Mayim Chayim, Parshat Noach Amud Hatefilah

This is a story I heard from the Baal Shem Tov that happened while he was praying with his chaverim. The chevrayah did not extend their prayers like he did and finished much earlier. They waited on him a long time. But after a while, each went his way to attend to his different needs. After a time, they came back and gathered in the house of prayer and waited until he finished. The Baal Shem Tov said to them, “You caused a great divide by leaving to attend to your own needs and leaving me alone.” And he told them a parable: “As you know, the nature of birds is to travel to warm places in the winter. Once a splendid bird, more beautiful and precious than any in the world, the likes of which had never been seen before, was perched so high atop a tall tree that no one could climb up to capture it. When news of the bird reached the ears of the king, he ordered that a number of people should try and bring the bird to him. They were to stand on each other’s shoulders until the highest person could reach the bird and bring it to the king. The people gathered near the tree, but while they were standing on each other’s shoulders, some of those near the bottom decided to wander off. As soon as the first person moved, the whole chain collapsed, injuring several of the people. The story works as a parable and a lesson, that they emerged empty-handed, because the essence of the intention of the king was that they should be connected one with the other. The end.” And from this we learn “One must love one’s neighbor as one’s self.” But they needed to have among them a strong connection that they should have cleaved to one another in love and not divided one from the other. And so the Baal Shem Tov told them that it was good when you were joined with me in prayer, but when you left me alone and everyone went his way, the whole thing collapsed and what I wanted to achieve also flew away from me. This text was compiled by Rabbis J. Rolando Matalon, Marcelo Bronstein and Felicia Sol of Congregation B’nai Jeshurun in New York, NY, for Rabbi Matalon’s teaching on the American Jewish World Service Rabbinical Student Delegation. Their work was based on and inspired by The Dignity of Difference by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks.