Hide and Seek

Rabbi DovBer of Mezheritch (second leader of the Chassidic movement, d. 1772) once encountered a weeping child.

"Why are you crying?" he asked.

The child replied that he and a friend had been playing at "hide and seek," but his friend had run off to some amusement, leaving him curled up in his hiding place, waiting in vain to be searched out.

Rabbi DovBer lifted his eyes to heaven and cried: "You, too, have hidden Your face from us only because You want us to seek You. But Your children have tired of the game and have run off..."