#rabbinachmanmoment
6 of 9 of the story of The Seven Beggars
The Hunchback
On the fifth day the children, in the midst of merriment, sighed, "If the hunchback were only here " And there he stood, and said," I have come to your wedding, my children. And do you remember how I blessed you that you might be as I am? Today I bestow my wish upon you as a wedding gift: be as I am.
It seems to you that I am a hunchback, but indeed my shoulders are wide and straight and strong, and I have proof of this from the land where people once came together to see who could bear the heaviest burden upon the slightest support; then one said, ‘The top of my head is a small enough place and yet I carry myriads of creatures, with all their needs upon it’.But they made sport of him, while another man said, ‘You are like a creature I once saw: I thought he sat by a mountain, but when I came near I knew that it was a mountain of refuse that he had thrown out of himself ‘
Then a third man said, ‘ I know of a small place that bears a burden greater than itself, for I have an orchard where fruit trees grow, and the fruit on the trees could many times cover the earth out of which the trees grow.’" Many people said, ‘That is indeed a great thing come out of a little thing,’ but another man declared, ‘ I have a tiny garden so beautiful that princes and kings come to walk in it; then my garden is only a small place, but it has borne up the weight of a kingdom’." Still another spoke, saying: ‘ My speech is a slender support that bears great burdens, for I am a minister to a king; I hear the complaints and the praises, the petitions and supplications of all his subjects; all these utterances are taken within me, and my word bears them to the king’.
"But a fifth man answered him: ‘ My silence is less and yet greater than your word. for there are torrents of accusation against me. and curses, and foul names, but my only reply is silence, and my silence bears up against all the cries of my enemies: my silence is a little thing. and yet it withstands a great storm’.
"Then another contender spoke: he was hidden. because he was small but he said: ‘ I am a little man, and yet I bear up a great burden: for I know a needy one who is far taller than myself, and though he is a Greater Light he cannot find his way! I lead him. and were it not for me he might fall and lose his path.’
"I, too, was there, and I said, ‘ It is true that some among you have the power of bearing up great burdens, for I have understood all that you have said, even to the last of you, who spoke of leading a GreaterLight: for the little man is greater than the greatest of you. since it is the wheel of the moon that he speaks of, for the moon is called a Greater Light and a Blind Light since her light is not her own, and though he is a little man he leads the great wheel of the moon through the heavens. and his deed is a help to all the world, for the world has need of the moon.
Nevertheless, in me there is a support that is smaller and bears weightier burdens than any of these: for you know that every beast in the world has his favourite tree whose shadow is pleasant to him, and there he makes his place: and every bird has his favourite bough, and there he sits: but once it was asked, is there not a tree in the world in whose shade all beasts might linger. and upon whose boughs all birds might rest? It was answered, there is such a tree! And it is indeed a pleasant tree, for all the beasts of the earth are assembled in its shade, they lie happily together, yet there is no preying of one upon the other; and all the birds sing in the boughs of the tree. Then my people cried, ‘How can we find that tree? ‘ And one wanted to go to the east, and another to the south, so that they became all confused. But a wise man said, ‘Why do you quarrel over the way? First, know whether you can come to the tree at all, for the tree has three roots: the first is Belief, the second is Fear of God, and the third is Poverty; and the trunk of the tree is Truth. Only those who possess these things can approach the tree.
"The people asked among themselves, but not many of them possessed the three qualities that are Belief, and Fear, and Poverty; those few might go, but they would not go and leave the others behind. ‘We are one people,’ they said, ‘ and all of us must go, or none: So they waited, and laboured amongst themselves, that all the people might possess the three needed qualities.
And when all had Belief, and Fear, and Poverty, they found that they were agreed on the one way to go to the tree; they went for a long time, and then they saw the tree, and they saw the hunchback and the tree of life that it did not stand on any place at all! And since it did not stand anywhere, how might they come to it?
"But I", the hunchback said, " was there among them, and I said,’I can take you to that place. For the tree is not of this earth, but of a place higher than this earth. See, upon my back I have a little place where great burdens may be borne: it is a tiny thing that is on the very edge of this world, where a higher world begins, and so, upon my little hump, one may go from this world to the world that is higher than here.’
Then I carried them all upon my hump, from the earth to the tree that stood above the earth, and so you see that I carried a great burden upon a small support. For when I brought them to the tree they said, ‘You are indeed the master of us all, for upon the smallest place you have borne the greatest burden.’ And thus I have their word for my deeds, for upon my back I carry all the ills and the woes and the sins of the people of the world. And now I bestow my gift upon you, that you may be as I am.
