On the eve of the Yahrzeit (third anniversary) of his father’s death, Chaim Dovid dreamed that his father came to him and told him to go to a faraway town. The next morning Chaim Dovid was amazed how real his father had seemed to him in the dream. He thought for a long time about the strange message: to go to a place where he didn’t know anyone. Chaim Dovid wondered if he could leave the safe halls of study because of a dream. Surely his teachers would forbid him to go because of a dream.
All day Chaim Dovid strongly felt his father’s presence and realized how intensely he missed him. The next night he had the dream again. It was a little different in that his father told him to see the holy rabbi in a faraway town for Rosh Hodesh, the celebration of the new month. Chaim Dovid knew that he had to decide whether to act on the dream or not.
The problem resolved itself the third night, when the dream was repeated, except that this time Chaim Dovid’s father told him to go to the faraway town for Rosh Chodesh and seek out the holy rabbi who lived there.
Chaim Dovid decided that he must travel to the faraway town, no matter what. His father convinced him that he must go. He wrote a letter to teachers explaining that he had left the halls of study to claim an inheritance in in a faraway town. This, he reasoned, would be more acceptable to him than his father’s command in a dream.
Chaim Dovid took a carriage to the faraway town. In the carriage were two merchants. As Chaim Dovid listened, they spoke about the holy rabbi. “It is said,” said one merchant, “that the holy rabbi understood the written and hidden mysteries and wonders of the Torah (Scriptures).” “That is very true,” said the other, “for I myself have heard of a man who came to the holy rabbi when he was full of doubts about G-d and faith. When he knocked on the door, the holy rabbi opened it and said: ‘Young man, I myself know what you are thinking. And if I know, should not G-d know?’ ” And Chaim Dovid wondered what kind of man he had been sent to, who could read the thoughts of men.
Chaim Dovid arrived only a few hours before the eve of Rosh Chodesh, the Feast of the New Moon. The holy rabbi greeted him and welcomed him to use the mikveh (ritual bath) before Rosh Hodesh. A servant showed him to the mikveh in a shed behind the holy rabbi’s house. The young man walked to the small shed and stepped inside. He saw a stairway, but from the top of the stairs he could not see the water below. Instead, he heard a deep whisper, like the wind rustling through trees. How strange, he thought to himself, that this whispering should come from within the mikveh.
Curious to see for himself, Chaim Dovid slowly walked down the stairs. Surprisingly, the stairway was very long, much longer than he expected. After a few moments. He found that he could see the top of the stairs nor the bottom from where he stood. He feared that something strange was taking place, as if he were descending from one world into another. Surely, he thought, no stairway could be this long.
With each step along the way, the whispering from below grew louder. Soon he could make out a lot of forest sounds — owls calling out, wolves howling, and the gurgling of a stream. Chaim Dovid was afraid and uncertain and wanted to turn back, but he willed himself to continue on. He hoped that he was almost there.
At last Chaim Dovid reached the bottom of the long stairs, but he found no sign of a mikveh. Instead, he found himself standing in a dense forest. He was confused and wanted to turn back. But when he turned around, the stairs were gone. There was no sign of them at all. How would he ever return to the world above?
With no other choice, Chaim Dovid looked around and saw that it was growing dark. He knew it was unsafe to stay where he was and looked for a tree to safely spend the night. He found one in a nearby clearing and pulled himself up into the branches. He was comfortable, but he knew he must not fall asleep or he might fall to the ground.
When it was completely dark, a band of robbers came into that clearing and made a campfire not far from the very tree into which Chaim Dovid had climbed. He was well hidden in the branches, but he was terrified that the robbers would find him and everything he had and then kill him. The robbers gathered around a fire and bragged about their adventures, how many men they had killed, and who among them was the strongest and most skilled. They shared stories half the night, until they fell into a drunken sleep. When they were asleep at last, Chaim Dovid was very tired. He would have loved to sleep himself, but he knew that his life depended on remaining awake.
From his perch in the tree, Chaim Dovid saw a snake slither toward the branch where the robbers left their wineskin hung, still open. The snake slid inside the wineskin and stayed there a long time. The snake spit up the wine, mixed with its own poison, crawled out of the wineskin and disappeared into the forest.
May all your tales end with Shalom (peace)
Read Part II tomorrow
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Tell it to your children, and let your children tell it to their children, and their children to the next generation. (Joel 1:3)