"Two Hasidim and a Guru"

Interpreter Victoria Khodosevich

In the soul of every Jew lives pintele yid, a special spark that never goes out. No matter how far the strayed Jew goes, no matter how loudly he rejects his Jewishness, no matter how he turns away in shame from his Jewish soul, the pintele yid is always alive and ready to become fire again. But every Jew also has "helpers" who do their best to prevent this. Sometimes it's fear, sometimes it's selfishness, sometimes it's complacency.

On an exhaustingly hot summer day in 2008 in the Indian city of Hardwar in the upper reaches of the Ganges (one of the sacred cities of Hinduism, where masses of pilgrims and tourists gather), a strange picture could be observed. Along the busy street, among the passers-by, wrapped in traditional Indian robes, two Israeli Hasidim with long sidelocks and black kippahs were walking quickly. At their destination, the ashram of Anandamayi Ma, India's most revered saint of the twentieth century, they hesitated: outside the gates in the courtyard, stone statues of idols stood everywhere.

While they were standing like that, the great guru Swami Vizhayananda came out of the monastery building, dressed in an ocher-colored monastic robe. The 93-year-old elder took his place on the stone bench and prepared to receive a long line of visitors. One by one, they approached the guru and before asking a question or saying a few words, they knelt down and, according to the Indian ritual, brushed the dust from the feet of the great man, and then touched their forehead. The guru devoted no more than a minute to each visitor, after which the admirers, without rising from their knees, stepped aside and tried to take a place in the courtyard closer to the Teacher, in order to bask in the rays of his wisdom.

The Hasidic names were Eliezer and Nati. They were the leaders of the Bait Yehudi network of Jewish centers scattered throughout India in cities such as Hardwar and Goa, where many young Israelis go after the army. Despite the fact that both of them had already spent a lot of time in India, they looked as out of place at the entrance to Anandamayi's ashram as a klezmer clarinet at an Indian classical music concert.

A few minutes later, the guru noticed two religious Jews in the waiting crowd. He signaled to his assistants to stop another visitor and called the Hasidim to him. Before the eyes of the astonished queue, Eliezer and Nati approached the great old man. They did not bow, kneel, or dust off the guru's feet, but he invited them to sit on the bench beside him.

The question with which strange visitors turned to the elder was not about the meaning of life or the way to achieve higher consciousness. Looking directly into the face of the great man, Eliezer asked bluntly, “I heard that you are a Jew. It's true?" Guru smiled. Yes, he was born into a Hasidic family in France and studied at a cheder, but in his early twenties he left the Tradition and decided to become a doctor. Then the war began. He told Eliezer and Nati how he survived the Holocaust, how he gave his tefillin to a religious Jew because he stopped putting it on anyway. "How did you get to India?" Eliezer asked. The Guru said that after the war he was on a ship sailing to Israel. One woman asked why he was traveling from one war to another. "Where am I to go?" he asked, and the woman advised India, where, according to her, there was no war and anti-Semitism. In 1951, at the age of thirty-six, the young doctor met Anandamayi Ma and became her faithful disciple. He settled in a monastery and became Swami Vijayananda. When Anandamayi Ma died in 1982, her devoted admirers flocked to him.

“There are two levels of spirituality,” said Swami Vijayananda. “The lowest is religion, and the highest is the realization that everything is one.

“There are two levels of love,” said Eliezer. “Love for your family and love for all mankind. If a person is not able to love his family, how can he love everyone else?

"Agreed," the guru nodded.

“You are a Jew,” Eliezer continued. Your family is Jewish people. Before you love the whole world, try to learn to love your people.

The Guru laughed and they began to argue. The assistants were nervous, the line murmured softly, and the debaters continued their witty duel, and no one wanted to concede. Suddenly Eliezer changed the subject. He asked, "What did your mother call you when you were a child?" Tears welled up in the eyes of the old man, and he answered quietly: “Avremka. My name was Avraham-Yitzhak, my mother called me Avremke.” Eliezer continued, "Do you remember the Sabbath table of your childhood?" Guru closed his eyes. Forgotten words for seventy years gradually surfaced in his memory, and he sang the Shabbat song Ashes Chail, a hymn to a virtuous wife. Tears streamed down his cheeks, but he continued to sing until he had finished the entire song. Frightened assistants tried to send the dangerous foreigners out, but Vijayananda opened his eyes, returning to reality, and signaled them not to interfere.

Eliezer took out the Tanakh from his backpack and handed it to the guru. “No need,” he said. — I have the Tanakh. I'll tell you how he came to me." And the guru told the Hasidim how in the eighties a secular Israeli came to his ashram with his problem. This young man went through the first Lebanese war. Deeply traumatized by the war and the prospect of endless military conflicts, he decided to sever all ties with Israel and Jewry. He accepted Christianity, but this did not give him peace and satisfaction. Then he came to India and began to practice Hinduism, but this did not solve his problems. He came to the great guru and spoke about his doubts and searches: “I still carry with me the Tanakh, which was given to me in the Israeli army, and I cannot raise my hand to throw it away. Maybe that's why I can't drown out the Jew in me? What do you recommend, gurus? Should I throw this book away?" “No,” he replied. - Don't throw it away. Give it to me." And Vijayananda told the former soldier about Rabbi Akiva. Rabbi Akiva's death was terrible. The Romans skinned him alive, and he continued to read the Shema until his last breath. The disciples asked how he could perform a mitzvah while experiencing such torment, and Rabbi Akiva replied: “I have always strived to serve the Almighty with all my life. So, now that the opportunity has presented itself to me, I won’t do it?”

“I told him,” the guru continued, “Do you know what is the difference between Rabbi Akiva and us? Rabbi Akiva understood that suffering is not a punishment, but an opportunity to rise spiritually and get closer to the Almighty.”

Vijayananda glanced at Eliezer and Nati and added, “I don’t know where this man is now, but I think after our conversation he returned to being Jewish.” Eliezer seized the moment: “Maybe it’s time for you to go back? You are no longer young. Do you want your body to be cremated and your ashes thrown into the Ganges?

The assistants angrily intervened, "You are trying to take our guru away from us!"

Eliezer made one last attempt: "Hashem loves every Jew and wants every Jew who goes astray to return to Him..."

Here the patience of the assistants ended, and they pushed the Hasidim out of the yard.

In April 2010, Swami Vijayananda died in Hardwar...

HaShem sends messengers to us over and over again. They come in different guises. It may be a person who suddenly invades our lives and changes all our ideas; a tragedy or a situation that could turn into a tragedy; it may be a blessing so generous that we cannot help but ponder its Source. All these messengers have been sent to us to kindle the pintale yid. But our “duty assistants” wave their arms in fear or derision and shout: “You are too busy!”, “They will brainwash you!”, “You observe enough, there is no need for fanaticism”, “You are too old to change your life!” It takes courage to "step away" from their voices and accept the messenger who is trying to deliver our precious inheritance to us. Pintale yid, which lives in each of us, is waiting for us to let it become a bright fire of joy, love and spirituality.

Sara Yocheved Rigler, Aish.com