True Forgiveness

Once, Reb Zusha heard a wedding procession passing outside his window. He rushed outside at once and began to dance with wild joy before the new couple, to fulfill the mitzvah of rejoicing with a chasan and kallah. When his family later remarked that such a public display did not suit a Chassidic Rebbe, he answered with the following story.

"In my youth I was a talmid of Rav Yechiel Michel, the Zlotchover Maggid. Once he was angry with me and rebuked me. Later he sought to appease me, and I forgave him. 'Zusha, please forgive my angry rebuke, and forgive me for embarrassing you,' he said. 'Rebbe, I forgive you,' I answered. Before he went to rest for the night, he came again and asked once more, 'Zusha, please forgive me.' Again I answered, 'Rebbe, I forgive you.'

"As I lay down to sleep, I was still awake when the soul of my Rebbe's holy father, Rav Yitzchok of Drohovitch, came down to me from the world above. He said, 'I left only one son in this world, one precious son, and because he embarrassed you, you want to destroy him.' I protested, 'Rebbe, I have already forgiven him with all my heart and soul. What more should I do?'

"'You call that forgiveness?' he said. 'I will teach you the proper way to forgive. Follow me.' I got up and followed him to the mikveh. 'Now immerse yourself,' he said, 'and with each immersion say that you have forgiven my son.' I did as he asked. When I came out, I saw that his face was shining with a light so bright I could not look at it. I asked him why, and he said he had earned it because he was always careful with three sayings of Rav Nechunya ben Hakanah, who credited his long life to three things: 'I never took honor from my fellow's disgrace, I never went to bed having cursed my fellow that day, and I was generous with my money' (Megillah 28b). And he added, 'What I achieved with these three, you can achieve through joy and simchah.'

"So when I saw a chance to rejoice with a chasan and kallah in their simchah, right on my own street," concluded Reb Zusha, "I hurried to join them in the joy of a mitzvah."