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A Tisha b'Av Prank

Told by Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak of Lubavitch

The Holy Ruzhiner (Chassidic master Rabbi Israel of Ruzhin, 1797-1851) rejected all feelings of sadness, even of bitterness.1 So his chassidim would engage in all sorts of practical jokes on the Ninth of Av (in order to mitigate the sadness of the day). They would throw burrs at each other. Then they conceived of the following prank: they opened a skylight in the roof of the study hall and dropped a snare; when someone walked into the study hall, they would yank on the rope so that the snare fastened itself around him, and pull him up to the roof.

It happened that the Ruzhiner himself walked in to the study hall. Those who were up on the roof could not see clearly who was coming in, so they pulled him up. To their dismay, they saw that they had pulled up their rebbe! As soon as they recognized who it was, they let him down.

Cried out the Ruzhiner: "Master of the Universe! If Your children are not properly observing Your 'festival,' take it away from them!"

4 Comments

FOOTNOTES
1.	Chassidic teaching differentiates between destructive sadness ("atzvut") which leads to depression and inertia, and a constructive "bitterness" ("merirut") that leads to soul searching and corrective action. The Ruzhiner's approach, however, was that everything should be done with joy, and he rejected all forms of sadness and melancholy.

Told by Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak of Lubavitch More articles... |

Told by the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneerson, in the name of his great-grandfather, Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Lubavitch ("Tzemach Tzeddek," 1789-1866), a contemporary of the "Holy Ruzhiner."

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Reader Comments
Latest Comments:

Posted: Aug 9, 2011

LOL!

Amen!

Posted By Anonymous, bklyn

Posted: July 29, 2009

OK I just had my boiled egg.

And, being a BasCohen (daughter of a priest), I thought,

For a thousand years (except during the Babylonian exile) my father;s father's father's father's ....[insert the word father's 100 times] served as a priest in the temple in Jerusalem.

And now the Temple is gone!

And suddenly it just HIT me. Hard. Sobbing.

It's gone! We had it and it's gone!

We all had it. If you are not a cohen or a bas cohen, you still went there and felt Gd's Presence.

And now it's gone!

Nobody but a Jew can understand how this hurts.

Posted By Barbara
via chabadhouston.org

Posted: Oct 29, 2004

The Holy Ruzhiner & others

From what I've read so far, it seems to me that holy people do everything with joy. When I say 'everything' I mean just that. The tears and the sadness of a holy person do not replace joy - not even for a nano-second. Even a deep sadness can't diminish that ever-present joy, nor change it in any way. That's the way I understand it.

Is all this due because a holy person has what I call "Humility with the capital H?" When a human being has that kind of Humility, how much room is he giving G-d, inside himself? Isn't he giving G-d all the room He wants, at all times?

If I were to talk to a holy person, who would I really be talking to? Who really is it that does everything with joy - joy that nothing whatsoever can take away nor alter? Who was the Holy Ruzhiner? Or the Baal Shem Tov...the Rebbes...all the holy people, who were and are they?

Posted By Anonymous

Posted: July 27, 2004

Galloway

There have been too many days to count when the message of the day pertains *exactly* to a situation about which I was ruminating. Thank you so much for this additional daily blessing!

Posted By Anonymous, Galloway, NJ

Insights


	Two Kinds of Good


	A Debt of Truth


	I Don't Have a Dream


	Are We Really Independent?


	Memory


	Can We Still Be in Love?


	Looking Forward


	A Tisha b'Av Prank


	Temporary Setback


	Consolation


	The Legalities of Destruction


	Unwarranted Love


	Making the Temple a Reality


	Seven Degrees of Consolation


	The Palace and the Pigeons

Full Index...

Showing 15 - 29 of 33

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