#rabbinachmanmoment
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Several of us are reading the Story of the Seven Beggars. I thought I would share this story with all of you but only in small doses. So we can read and absorb.
הבית של שבעה קבצנים - The House of Seven Beggars Online Synagogue Rabbi Nachman’s Story of The Seven Beggars
The Seven Beggars
Who brought gifts to the beggar bride and groom
A famous story of the nineteenth century chassidic Rabbi Nachman of Bratzlav, told by Meyer Levin in "Classic Chassidic Tales" (Jason Aronson, 1996)
There was once a king who had an only son, and while he lived the king decided to give his crown to the prince. He made a great festival to which all the noblemen of the kingdom came, and in the midst of pomp and ceremony the king placed the crown upon the head of his young son, saying, "l am one who can read the future in the stars, and I see that, there will come a time when you will lose your kingdom, but when that time comesyou must not be sorrowful; if you can be joyous even when your kingdom is lost, I too wil be filled with joy. For you cannot be a true king unless you are a happy man."
The son became king, appointed governors, and ruled. He was a lover of learning, and in order to fill his court with wise men he let it be known that he would give every man whatever he desired, either gold or glory , in return for his wisdom; then all the people in that kingdom began to seek for knowl- edge, in order to get gold or glory from the king. And thus it was that the simplest fool in the land was wiser than the greatest sage of any other country; and in their search for learning, the people forgot the study of war, so the country was left open to the enemy.
Among the philosophers in the young king’s court there were clevermen and infidels who soon filled his mind with doubt. He would askhimself ,"Who am I; why am I in the world?". Then he would heave a deep sigh, and fall into melancholy. Only when he would forget this doubt would he again become a happy king; but more often everyday he thought, "Why am I in this world?" , and sighed.
One day the invader came and attacked the unprotected kingdom, andall the people fled. Men and women left their fields and their homes,and the high- ways were filled with carts and wagons, with people on foot carrying infants in their arms. The fleeing people went through a forest, and there it befell that two five-year-old children were lost: a boy and a girl. After all the people had passed, the children heard each other crying. Then they went up to each other and joined hands, and wandered through the forest. Soon they were hungry, but they did not know where they could get food.
Just then they saw a beggar going through the woods, carrying his beggar’s sack. They ran to him and clung to him."Where do you come from?", he asked."We do not know", the children answered.He gave them bread to eat, and turned to go on his way. They begged him not to leave them alone, but he said,"I cannot take you with me." Then the children saw that he was blind, and they wondered how he found his way through the forest.But as he was leaving, he blessed them, saying, "May you be as I am, and as old as I am." Then he left them.
Night came, and the children slept. In the morning they cried again for food: then they saw another beggar. They began to talk to him, but he placed his fingers against his ears and showed them that he was deaf. He gave them bread to eat, enough for the day, and as he went he blessed them, saying, "May you be as I am."
On the third day when they cried for bread another beggar came, who stammered so that he could not speak to them. He, too, fed the children, but would not take them with him, and as he went away he blessed them with the wish that they might become like himself.
And so each day as they wandered through the forest the children were fed: on the fourth day by a beggar with a crippled throat, then by a hunchback, then by a beggar who had no hands, and at last there came a beggar who had no feet. And each beggar left them with the wish that they might become as he was.
On the eighth day they came out of the forest to a town: they went to a house and asked for food, and as the people saw that they were only little children, they were given food and drink. So the children said to each other, "We will go on like this from one p1ace to another, and we will always remain together". They made great beggar’s sacks for themselves, for carrying whatever was given them ,and they went over the countryside, into the towns, to the fairs,and into the cities. Wherever they went, they sat among the beggars,until they became known to all the poor folk on the roads as the "Two children who were lost in the woods."
Years passed, the children grew. Once, when all the beggars of the kingdom were assembled at a fair in a great city, a leader among them thought,"Let us marry the children, one to another" He told his companions of this thought, And they told others and when the children were told they said, "Good". So it was decided to marry them at once. All that was needed was a place for the wedding. Then the mendicants remembered that the king was holding a festival, where food and drink would be provided to all who came. "That will be the wedding feast " they cried.
The beggars went to the king’s garden and received meat and breadand wine; then they dug a great cave in the ground, large enough to hold a hundred people; they covered the cave with branches and with earth, and they sat up a wedding canopy within the cave. There they made the wedding, and feasted, with eating and dancing and merriment .But the children sat together , and all at once they remembered their days in the forest, and the blind beggar who had been the first to bring them food. And they longed for the blind beggar to be at their wedding
