A Chassid Who Knows What to Tell

It is told that Rav Elimelech of Lizhensk instructed his talmidim, when they asked whom to accept as their Rebbe after him, to go to the Degel, the grandson of the Baal Shem Tov. His talmid Rav Mendele, then known as the Pristiker, traveled to Sudilkov on Erev Shabbos and asked permission to greet the Rav.

The Degel had little patience for the Rebbes from Poland. He had heard that they fasted often and did not understand serving Hashem with love and awe. He held that anyone who fasts and afflicts his body diminishes his soul, because man is created in the image of Hashem with both body and soul, and the true path is to serve with both, as taught by the Baal Shem Tov. So Rav Mendele was not welcomed warmly, and he was downcast.

Seeing this, the Degel drew him close and asked whether until now he had been a talmid of some other great Rav. Rav Mendele answered that he had served his master, Rav Elimelech of Lizhensk. At the name, the Degel was filled with excitement and asked what wonderful thing Rav Mendele had seen. He thought to himself that a person's inner nature shows in what he chooses to praise, whether miracles and salvations, or true awe of Heaven and dveikus.

Rav Mendele said that every day he saw his master meditate on the fear of Hashem until his bones shook and his whole body trembled. The veins and sinews stood out like pipes and his face changed color. He added that there is a sinew beneath the ear which, according to a tradition from his master, trembles only from fear of the day of death, and he had seen it tremble with fear of Hashem.

The Degel answered that such understanding was great, and that if the Chassidim of Poland were on such a level, he had not known it. He then drew Rav Mendele even closer, and, it is said, he remarked that from such a chassid he took pleasure, since he knew what to tell.