Switching Places Behind the Stove
During their years of wandering, Reb Elimelech begged to take his brother's beatings, and learned that a blow decreed for a man will find him.
A story ofRebbe Elimelech of Lizhenskרבי אלימלך מליז'נסקProfile ›
Chassidim tell that in the years of their galus, Reb Elimelech and Reb Zusha once took shelter in a village inn on a night when a Cossack wedding was going on. It was not a pleasant evening. The guests were drunk, loud and violent, and the two brothers crept behind the big stove in the corner, hoping to snatch a little sleep and stay out of sight. Reb Elimelech was wedged in against the wall, and Reb Zusha lay on the outside.
However drunk a Cossack gets, he never fails to notice a Jew. Soon they spotted the two figures behind the stove, dragged Reb Zusha out into the middle of the room, and beat him and threw him about for their amusement. Then they tossed him back, half dead, and Reb Elimelech held him and tended him. An hour or two later they came back for him again.
Reb Elimelech could not bear it. It was not fair, he felt, that his brother should take all the suffering while he took none. He begged and begged until Reb Zusha agreed to change places, and the battered Reb Zusha crawled in behind the stove.
Later the Cossacks returned and reached for the Jew on the outside. But one of them called out: Hold on, that is not fair to the other Jew. We have been beating the same one all night. Give the other one a turn. No, no, cried Reb Elimelech, but they pushed him aside, pulled Reb Zusha out from behind the stove, and beat him once more.
Afterwards Reb Zusha said to his brother: I told you, Elimelech. The blows go to the one they were decreed for, and the decree was for me, not for you.
Source: Chassidic tradition of the brothers' years of wandering. An older telling of the switch is attributed to Ohel Elimelech (Michelsohn, c. 1910), no. 177. No English edition identified.
Reb Elimelech's first instinct, when his brother was hurt, was to say: let me take your place. You can do a small version of that today. Think of someone near you who is carrying too much, a tired parent, a colleague behind on work, a friend in a hard season, and offer one concrete thing: an hour of your time, a meal, a task taken off their plate. Do not wait to be asked, and do not make it a big conversation. Sometimes love is simply moving over so someone can rest.