The Kohen Godol Who Atones for You

The Toras Chaim was one of a kind in hiding his true nature and concealing his greatness. He often dressed very simply, in a shpentzer, the short leather coat of the peasants, tied with a coarse rope as a belt. He also kept a large coop full of chickens, geese and ducks, and was often seen feeding them or making sure that others fed them on time. Such simple behavior did not appear very Rebbish or refined, and it caused some to wonder.

One day a chassid arrived and found the Toras Chaim dressed this way, standing and instructing the farm hands to feed the hens and geese, acting in what seemed a very un-Rebbish manner. Seeing the chassid's obvious astonishment and dismay, the Toras Chaim told him a story.

"Many years ago, when the Bais HaMikdosh stood, there was an elderly Jew who lived far from Yerushalayim and had never been there, and so had never seen the Bais HaMikdosh. He once sinned by accident, and this made him liable to bring a Korban Chatos. So he set off to offer his sin offering, not knowing the way to Yerushalayim.

"As he traveled, he had no choice but to ask for directions. All the passersby and travelers laughed and wondered, 'How can such an old Jew not know the way to Yerushalayim, to the Bais HaMikdosh? Have you never been there, and why are you going now?' He had no choice but to explain his journey by admitting his sin, and to endure their stares and jeers.

"When he finally arrived, the same torment came again and again. First he was laughed at, gawked at and jeered at for not knowing where to buy an animal for a korban. Then others mocked him when he asked the way to Har HaBayis. 'An elderly man like you still sins? Do you not know where they sell korbanos? Did you not realize you need to buy two, one for a Chatos and one for a Shelomim? You do not know the way to Har HaBayis? What do you mean you were never there before?' And so on.

"At last, after the long journey, after suffering the distance, the time, the effort, the expense and the insults of people who could not believe his ignorance, the elderly Jew reached the Bais HaMikdosh and approached the Kohen Godol, who was in the middle of the Avoda. He looked up and saw a man in short pants, standing barefoot, with bloodstains on his clothes and body. The old man stood bemused and thought to himself, 'For this barefoot butcher did I have to travel and suffer such a long, hard journey full of insults?'

"And yet," the Toras Chaim concluded to the chassid, "it was precisely through this Kohen that he achieved his atonement."

The chassid understood the hint.