The Horse Kid Returns - Tales from the Past

Nowadays it’s a motorbike. Back then it was a fast horse. So this teenage kid pulls up to the shul on his speedy white horse, ties it to a post and swaggers in for a talk with the rabbi. The Big Rabbi. Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Lubavitch. The one they call the Tzemach Tzedek. Just so he can get his parents off his back.

“Hi rabbi! Watzup?” He leans back, hands behind head, right foot up so that his boot wags over his left knee.

That’s okay. The rabbi is cool, too. “Nice horse you got there,” he says.

“Best you can get!” answers the horse kid.

“Fast?”

“Meanly fast!”

The rabbi shakes his head. “Too fast is not good.”

“Hey, fast is awesome! I can beat those Cossacks any day. Man, they see this Jewish kid whoosh past them and their teeth are grinding.”

The rabbi still shakes his head. “What if a fast horse gets off track? What if he gets you lost somewhere? A slow horse gets you lost, you’re not so far off. You could still find your way back. If your fast horse get's lost, he’s lost. You’re lost.”

“My horse won’t get lost. He knows I’m boss. He goes where he needs to go.”

“Hey, fast is awesome! I can beat those Cossacks any day.”

“What if he does? What if he figures he just wants to be free? That he doesn’t want a boss?”

Horse kid is squirming around, craning his head to check out the window on his horse. Still there. But ya never know.

“But then,” the Tzemach Tzedek rabbi conceded, “if he can run off and get lost so fast, he can run back home real fast, too.”

Horse kid smiles again. “Yeah, that’s right!”

The rabbi smiles too. Then he leans forward and holds the kid’s hand. His hand is warm and kind. His eyes, too.

“So what about you?” he says.

The kid liked the rabbi. With a little more guidance, he became a super-fast, awesome cool chassid.

By Tzvi Freeman

Rabbi Tzvi Freeman, a senior editor at Chabad.org, also heads our Ask The Rabbi team. He is the author of Bringing Heaven Down to Earth. To subscribe to regular updates of Rabbi Freeman's writing, visit Freeman Files subscription.

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January 13, 2013

Is your horse a friend or just a horsie?

You need to like your horse, so that your horse likes you. Then, he'll always come back cause your friends. It's a mmatter of relationship.

Victor Greentree

October 9, 2012

“You can run, but you can’t hide”

represents the boy wanting to run from his duties but eventually running back to his Boss, G-d’s representative “the Rabbi”

Feigele
Boca Raton, Florida

September 25, 2012

Beautifully give over!

- I'd say that the point was that the kid fled (with speed) from what his parents thought important, and what is important in life (torah), and in saying so, the fact that he can go so quickly, just run and leave it all, without thought to ponder and without slow movements in the wrong direction, the way back is easier, and you don;t have to slowly come back, you can do it in one swift movement, with the speed of a speeding horse. -

I love the way the story was given over! Wonderful!

G
k, k

September 25, 2012

The moral of the comments is: Jewish moms and chassids do not think alike!

Maybe that is why the boy chose to spend so much time with his Rabbi and not his mother! Seems the Rabbi understood fully!

Anonymous
DC

September 24, 2012

Style the story was told in

I don't like that the story was manipulated. It would have been much more poignant and inspiring had it just been told truthfully, the way it happened.

Anny One
Camden, NJ

September 24, 2012

Think Yom Kippur

It is Erev Yom Kippur. At the word "squirming" this is what I got: That this is a brilliantly brief story about teshuvah, returning, back to G-d (Father)(therefore the reference to parents in the story) who truly is the Boss. We each have moments when at least subconsciously we don't want a boss, and we're off running like a wild horse, saying or doing something we regret. As for the part about "fast" and the boy becoming a chassid, the whole point is, that we can and ultimately MUST find a way to use our strengths, talents, personalities whatever we are, whatever we've got FOR GOOD, for TORAH, for the furtherance of G-dliness in the world. A great story, cause isn't it just so cool how the rebbe not only found a way to relate to the rebel easily but like a laser, zeroed in immediately on how to redirect him to good using that which he treasures most: his precious horse. Why can't we just have that laser vision with all of our interactions? would be great. Thanks. Gmar Chasima Tova

Leah Lapidus
Cleveland

September 23, 2012

awesome metaphor

thanks!

izzy
buf

September 23, 2012

"With a little more guidance..." The "kid" looks to me like a rebel but a rebel with a rabbi's guidance. In real life when there is no rabbi nor guidance of any kind G-d looks hidden in the youth's life. Teenagers at most cannot assure G-d's existence in their lives. At the moment when something bad occurs, when remorse and regrets and suffering appear then G-d also appears. Exactly like in the for all known story of Adam and Eve. The kid liked the rabbi and that is his best shield against what it surely will come with life..

Jorge
Qro/MEX

September 23, 2012

For me,the point are the "Cossacks" and the "Boss"

Would we fully understand who´s the "Boss"(and the "boss"),we didn´t need to fear those "Cossacks".
Would we know how to fully control the "speed",confident that we know how to master that "horse",it would never run away and would always be the right servant.

But ultimately only a warm and kind kid is
able to understand such things.Even that kid being 120 years old.

But all kids need an understanding,wise, ,warm,kind hand in order to become a productive,helpful Chassid and not a waste.

Lucky is the little boy of the story.

Carmen

September 23, 2012

fast horse

The take-away I got from the story happened at the point where the Rabbi took the boy's hand... The Rabbi somehow connected with the youngster (ie: fast horse) at eye level, hand level and heart level all at the same time, at the right moment. Isn't that what we really need of our teacher(s)?

We are all (even esteemed Rabbis) horses waiting for a Horse Whisperer to find us so that we may find the Chasid in ourselves, and in turn become Horse Whisperers for others...

Becky
pittsburgh, pa

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