אַהֲבַת יִשְׂרָאֵל שֶׁל הַבַּעַל שֵׁם טוֹב — אֵין לְשַׁעֵר. הָרַב הַמַּגִּיד אָמַר: הַלְוַאי הָיוּ נוֹשְׁקִים הַסֵּפֶר תּוֹרָה בְּאוֹתָהּ הָאַהֲבָה, שֶׁהָיָה מוֹרִי מְנַשֵּׁק אֶת הַיְּלָדִים בְּהוֹלִיכוֹ אוֹתָם אֶל הַ"חֵדֶר" כְּשֶׁהָיָה "בּאַהעֶלפעֶר".
The Baal Shem Tov’s love of his fellow Jews1 is beyond conception.
On this the Maggid of Mezritch once said: “If only people would kiss the Torah scroll with the same love that my mentor, the Baal Shem Tov, kissed the children whom he took to school, when he worked as a teacher’s assistant at the cheder.”2
A Story with an Echo
Oh, the delight tzaddikim take in simple Jews! The Rebbe Rayatz once expressed it in these words: “I would like to be a simple Jew — but in the sense that our forebears, the Rebbeim, understood it.3 Michl Tcherbiner, for example, was an unsophisticated yishuvnik4 who used to visit Lubavitch from his nearby village. Once, as he was standing at Selichos not far from where my father [the Rebbe Rashab] stood, tears gushed from his eyes as he prayed for Divine forgiveness. My father envied him. [In fact,] his cheeks sagged from envy when he later described how Michl out there in his lone cottage gets up at two o’clock in the morning to say Tehillim.”5
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