It is said that “Olam Haba is a guta zach (the World to Come is a good thing) Lernen Toirah is a besser zach (learning Torah is a better thing)” and so the study of Torah in the Jewish community never stops. Long ago in a Jewish village there were two young men who loved to learn together and they were good friends. They spent all of their days in the Beis Medresh (House of Study) and immersed themselves in the revealed and hidden Torah (Scriptures). They even spent their spare time together and were seldom separated. For they were as close as brothers.

Then it happened that one of the young men became sick, his friend visited him each day. The sickness attacked the young man so strongly that he weakened and died. This unexpected event grieved his friend greatly. He continued to study the Torah even more in honour of his lost friend.

In time his grieving lessened, and when he thought of his friend he was able to smile at the memories of how close they had been. After a few years he became known throughout the region for his great knowledge of the Torah. Men of wealth and distinction began to visit his poor dwelling, hoping to bring him home as a groom for one of their daughters.

According to the direction, “marry your daughter to a scholar (Pesachim 49a) a match was made. The wedding day arrived and everyone was occupied with preparations for the wedding feast. As for the bridegroom, he was isolated in a room, waiting for the ceremony to begin. After a few hours he became restless, and he decided to step outside for a moment. Empty fields stretched before him, and on the horizon he saw a figure walking his way.

When the young man first observed him, he was barely curious to know who it was. But as the figure drew closer, it looked strangely familiar. All at once the young man recognized who it was—his friend, who had left this world. A long chill ran down his spine, but at the same time he felt a terrible longing. All the affection he held for his friend returned and overwhelmed him, and he stood rooted, waiting for the other to arrive. When he did, the two friends embraced, and the young groom saw that his friend looked exactly as he used to, as if he had never aged.

It was then that his long-lost friend spoke for the first time, his voice exactly as it had been.”Tell me,” he said, “do you remember what was the last thing in the Torah we were learning?” It had been ten years, and the young man had completely forgotten. His friend reminded him, and suddenly the whole discussion came back to him. He had not thought of it since then, but now it mattered to him as much as before. And they launched into a long debate, like those they had had in the Beis Medresh, sitting at the same table, studying the pages of the Holy Books together.

As they spoke, lost in their words, the two friends wandered from the field to the nearby forest. The young groom, only hours before standing beneath the bridal canopy, forgot all about his wedding. Indeed, he forgot about everything, except for the fact that he was immersed in the Torah once more with his friend. How such a thing was possible did not occur to him at that time, so natural did it seem.

As they were walking,they came upon a little hut deep in the forest. They went inside and there the Torah lay open to the very passage that they were discussing. The young man and his friend read it out loud together, as they had done so often in the Beis Medresh. And almost at once they were lost in the warp and weft that make up the weave of the fine points of the revealed and hidden Torah. One idea led to another, and yet another and still others beckoned as a tapestry of learning grew between them.

Time flew past. The young man forgot whether it was day or night. The Holy Word, after all, was
infinite, and he was lost in its complexity, as he had been in the happiest days of his life, sharing insights with his friend. Their ram­bling discussion led them, by one route or another, to the laws concerning the obligations of the bridegroom to the bride. At that moment the young man remembered that it was his wedding day. He looked outside and saw that it had grown dark, and the time of the wedding was at hand. Then he embraced his friend and hurried off as fast as he could, hoping that he would not provoke the fury of his new father-in-law or the disdain of his bride.

When he reached the town, he found himself confused, for it seemed changed from what he remembered. Nor could he find his father-in-law’s house, and he began to grow fearful that he would be late to his own wedding. At last he asked an old woman he met about where the house could be found, and she said, “I have lived here all my life, and there is no family by that name who lives here.”

The young groom pleaded with her, saying, “Please understand that this is the day of my wedding. I just left the house of my father-in-law a few hours ago. I took a little walk and lost track of time.

Please tell me where their house can be found.”

The old woman replied, “When I was a girl I heard a story about a groom who left the house a few hours before the wedding and was never seen again.” “And how long ago was that?” he asked.

And she said, “That was a hundred and twenty years ago.”

And he asked, “And what was the name of the groom?”

The old woman thought long and hard, and at last she remembered it, and she told him. And the name she recalled was his own.

May all your tales end with Shalom (peace)

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