Yechiel Nachman had spent 20 years praying to his God. 20 entire years in which not a single day had he stopped praying for a wedding, a job, good health and peace in Israel. But it had no effect: Yechiel Nachman remained a broke and asthmatic bachelor, and peace was not on the horizon. However, he did not fail to enter into communion with God every day, without missing a single one of the three daily prayers. Deep in his heart, Yechiel Nachman had accepted that his prayers would go unanswered. Because prayer was a pure longing for compassion and justice, while life was life: cruel, discouraging, offensive. So it was logical that these two opposite worlds would never meet. However, on October 7, 2023, the 22nd day of Tishrei in the year 5784, something broke within Yechiel Nachman. That morning, as the joyous festival of Simchat Torah was to be celebrated, hundreds of his fellow citizens were killed, and many more were taken from their homes and taken into enemy territory.
When he had not even had time to absorb the terrible news, Yechiel Nachman found himself wrapped in his prayer cloak on the balcony of his small apartment in Beit Shemesh, without eating or drinking, and doing nothing but praying for hours and hours. He thus begged the creator: Those whom you have taken away are taken away, but I beg you to have mercy on all the innocents torn from their beds at dawn and return them home.
The next morning, after 20 hours of consecutive prayer, Yechiel Nachman logged into the Home Front alert app, but the situation had not changed. He put on his coat and walked quickly to the home of his rabbi, Nechemia Mittelman.
“Rabbi,” he said, “I no longer have faith.” Before taking off kippah and after cutting my ringlets, I have come to say goodbye.
The rabbi studied Yechiel Nachman with his eyes and calmly asked him what had made him lose his faith. Dismayed, he replied:
—Throughout the night I have prayed to the Almighty for the souls of the hostages. I have begged him to protect them, to free them. And I have not done it with the usual reluctance, but with true and full intention. But, despite everything, nothing has happened. I beg your pardon, Rabbi, but I no longer believe. I do not believe in a God whose heart is hardened by prayers as pure as mine.
“With true and full intention,” the rabbi repeated, stroking his beard. —Can I ask you how full that intention was?
Yechiel was offended by the question.
—How full? Well, totally full.
“It was not completely complete,” the rabbi stated, shaking his head sadly, “because if it had been, an answer would have been given.” Your prayer must have been almost full. Maybe more than usual, but not enough.
With a fatherly attitude, he put his hand on Yechiel Nachman's shoulder.
—I suggest to you, Yechilik, that instead of cutting your beards and ringlets, you put more effort into your prayers. Judging by how your voice shakes, I think you're very, very close.
So Yechiel Nachman returned to his little apartment, put on his prayer shawl again, and resumed his prayers. While he prayed, he looked for cracks in his faith and fissures in his intention, and discovered that, although almost all the time he prayed with his whole heart, at certain moments he became distracted. While with his lips he whispered “and they will return from enemy territory”, his heart contemplated the long, swan-like neck of the smiling cashier at Comestibles Osher, to her despicable landlord, and also the renewal of the prescription that he should have requested in the pharmacy a long time ago. As soon as Yechiel Nachman became aware of the selfish thoughts that were disturbing his prayer, he began to focus on them and gradually remove them from his head.
Like a man trying to push a heavy load up a hill, Yechiel Nachman sweated and panted as he prayed. He sweated and panted, panted and sweated, until he managed to completely tear the profane thoughts from his heart and made room for a greater intention and faith, which in the end invaded his entire being. And immediately the prayer was transformed: it was no longer a series of verses from a devotional book, but a true and sorrowful supplication. And this supplication, like any pure supplication, was inexhaustible; He was not content with requesting the well-being of his kidnapped brothers and his nation, but he asked for that of all human beings, including his enemies. Yechiel Nachman continued singing his overwhelmed prayers, like a rider who has lost control of his horse, and listened with curiosity to his own prayers, as if it were someone else who was articulating them. At the end of a prayer that lasted about 30 hours, Yechiel Nachman entered Home Front and discovered that two of the hostages had been freed, and that a ceasefire was being negotiated with the enemy at the same time.
That night, upon entering the synagogue, Yechiel Nachman noticed Rabbi Mittelman looking at him tenderly. When their eyes met, he smiled and nodded. On the way home, Yechiel Nachman no longer felt like he was stepping on a dirty cement sidewalk, but rather like floating above the clouds. Now, he thought, when the big problems are being resolved, I will be able to dedicate the next prayer to myself.
Despite being absolutely exhausted, that night, instead of going to bed, Yechiel Nachman put all his effort into praying for a wife and children. At first he asked the creator to join him with the Osher Groceries cashier. But his prayer, like any pure prayer, chose words and intentions worthier than any Yechiel Nachman could have chosen, and he insisted on praying that the creator might find him a suitable wife.
While praying, Yechiel Nachman felt a certain spiritual elevation, as if he had managed, for the first time in his life, to contemplate the spirit of the life he longed for, not just its details. He did not ask to be granted a woman, but a marriage; He did not ask for children, rather to be a wise and loving father. He prayed and prayed without rest, until he found himself lying on the ground with a bruised forehead. While the upstairs neighbor was dressing his wound, he told her that he had suffered a serious fall and that he had to go to the doctor immediately. Yechiel Nachman thanked him and explained that he was very tired and probably a little dehydrated: if he drank some water, ate something and rested for a while he would feel fine.
After leaving the neighbor's apartment, Yechiel Nachman stopped by Comestibles Osher, where he bought some packages of schnitzel frozen foods and six bottles of mineral water. As he paid, the long-necked cashier gave him her radiant smile and commented how much he must love those frozen veal schnitzels. Yechiel Nachman smiled back and said that he did like him a lot, but that he also liked other things. There were no other customers in the store, so they started talking about food, especially sushi. kosher. Yechiel Nachman promised the cashier that the next time she went shopping he would bring her a bottle of special rice vinegar that was only sold in Jerusalem, and with which the grains of rice would stick together like magnets to the door. of a refrigerator.
At night, lying in bed with his eyes open, Yechiel Nachman thought about how wonderful and simple this world was and how much suffering and how many hardships he had had to endure every day of his life, simply because he had not known what to do. ask and how. That was his last thought before closing his eyes forever.
The doctor explained to Yechiel Nachman's sad parents that their son, when he fell and hit his head, must have suffered a brain trauma and that, instead of going to sleep, he had listened to the neighbor and gone to emergency room, he would still be alive. When she finished speaking, the doctor showed a sad face.
However, Yechiel Nachman's spirit was not at all sad. He now found himself in the other world, where everything was fine. Not just 99%, but absolutely fine. Completely fine. And in that world, Yechiel Nachman spent hours and hours having deep conversations with the creator, to whom he presented the complaints and tribulations of all human beings. And God listened to him with infinite patience and nodded with mercy. He listened to him all the time, even when he had no idea what Yechiel Nachman was telling him.
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