The Monastery and the Rabbi
A Version of The Rabbi's Gift
During Thursday Night Meeting this week at Sirius Community, our Core Group Member representing the Hearthstone Village told us an interesting story that resonated with me as a parallel situation to one we have here: an aging community in search of rebirth. ~ JDHWB-R
THE RABBI'S GIFT
Different Drum version by Dr. M. Scott Peck
The story concerns a monastery that had fallen upon hard times. Once a great order, as a result of waves of antimonastic persecution in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and the rise of secularism in the nineteenth, all its branch houses were lost and it had become decimated to the extent that there were only five monks left in the decaying mother house: the abbot and four others, all over seventy in age. Clearly it was a dying order.
In
the deep woods surrounding the monastery there was a little hut that
a rabbi from a nearby town occasionally used for a hermitage. Through
their many years of prayer and contemplation the old monks had become
a bit psychic, so they could always sense when the rabbi was in his
hermitage. "The rabbi is in the woods, the rabbi is in the woods
again " they would whisper to each other. As he agonized over
the imminent death of his order, it occurred to the abbot at one such
time to visit the hermitage and ask the rabbi if by some possible
chance he could offer any advice that might save the monastery.
The
rabbi welcomed the abbot at his hut. But when the abbot explained the
purpose of his visit, the rabbi could only commiserate with him. "I
know how it is," he exclaimed. "The spirit has gone out of
the people. It is the same in my town. Almost no one comes to the
synagogue anymore." So the old abbot and the old rabbi wept
together. Then they read parts of the Torah and quietly spoke of deep
things. The time came when the abbot had to leave. They embraced each
other. "It has been a wonderful thing that we should meet after
all these years, "the abbot said, "but I have still failed
in my purpose for coming here. Is there nothing you can tell me, no
piece of advice you can give me that would help me save my dying
order?"
"No,
I am sorry," the rabbi responded. "I have no advice to
give. The only thing I can tell you is that the Messiah is one of
you."
When
the abbot returned to the monastery his fellow monks gathered around
him to ask, "Well what did the rabbi say?" "He
couldn't help," the abbot answered. "We just wept and read
the Torah together. The only thing he did say, just as I was leaving
- it was something cryptic - was that the Messiah is one of us. I
don't know what he meant."
In
the days and weeks and months that followed, the old monks pondered
this and wondered whether there was any possible significance to the
rabbi's words. The Messiah is one of us? Could he possibly have meant
one of us monks here at the monastery? If that's the case, which one?
Do you suppose he meant the abbot? Yes, if he meant anyone, he
probably meant Father Abbot. He has been our leader for more than a
generation. On the other hand, he might have meant Brother Thomas.
Certainly Brother Thomas is a holy man. Everyone knows that Thomas is
a man of light. Certainly he could not have meant Brother Elred!
Elred gets crotchety at times. But come to think of it, even though
he is a thorn in people's sides, when you look back on it, Elred is
virtually always right. Often very right. Maybe the rabbi did mean
Brother Elred. But surely not Brother Phillip. Phillip is so passive,
a real nobody. But then, almost mysteriously, he has a gift for
somehow always being there when you need him. He just magically
appears by your side. Maybe Phillip is the Messiah. Of course the
rabbi didn't mean me. He couldn't possibly have meant me. I'm just an
ordinary person. Yet supposing he did? Suppose I am the Messiah? O
God, not me. I couldn't be that much for You, could I?
As they
contemplated in this manner, the old monks began to treat each other
with extraordinary respect on the off chance that one among them
might be the Messiah. And on the off off chance that each monk
himself might be the Messiah, they began to treat themselves with
extraordinary respect.
Because the forest in which it was
situated was beautiful, it so happened that people still occasionally
came to visit the monastery to picnic on its tiny lawn, to wander
along some of its paths, even now and then to go into the dilapidated
chapel to meditate. As they did so, without even being conscious of
it, they sensed the aura of extraordinary respect that now began to
surround the five old monks and seemed to radiate out from them and
permeate the atmosphere of the place. There was something strangely
attractive, even compelling, about it. Hardly knowing why, they began
to come back to the monastery more frequently to picnic, to play, to
pray. They began to bring their friends to show them this special
place. And their friends brought their friends.
Then
it happened that some of the younger men who came to visit the
monastery started to talk more and more with the old monks. After a
while one asked if he could join them. Then another. And another. So
within a few years the monastery had once again become a thriving
order and, thanks to the rabbi's gift, a vibrant center of light and
spirituality in the realm.
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