Two Sacks Before the Throne
After a month of heavy silence, Reb Elimelech sang one verse of Rosh Hashanah davening for half an hour, and later told his chassidim what he had seen.
A story ofRebbe Elimelech of Lizhenskרבי אלימלך מליז'נסקProfile ›
Chassidim relate that one year, through the whole month of Elul, Reb Elimelech seemed broken. Nothing the chassidim tried reached him, by Erev Rosh Hashanah he spoke to no one, and on the first night of Yom Tov he davened quickly, like any ordinary Jew, and went home. The chassidim were heartbroken.
The next morning they had to all but lead him to the amud. He began Pesukei DeZimrah in the same flat voice until he reached the verse: You opened my sackcloth and girded me with joy. There he stopped, said it again, and began to sing it. For half an hour he sang that verse, and then he drew the whole shul into dancing. The rest of Rosh Hashanah was radiant.
At the meal on the second day an old chassid asked what had happened. The Rebbe told them. All Elul he had seen the Satan carrying two enormous sacks of the year's sins, reaching from the earth to the Throne of Glory, and nothing he or anyone did made them smaller. He had been seized with terror that in the coming year most of the Jewish people would perish.
On Rosh Hashanah morning the Satan dragged his sacks before Hashem and demanded that they be opened. He reached in and pulled out a sin, and it was a shining mitzvah. Another, and another, all mitzvos. He tore open the second sack, and it was the same. Thieves, he shouted, someone has switched my sins.
And Hashem laughed and said: Have you never learned the Gemara in Yoma? When Jews return out of love, their sins become merits. That, said the Rebbe, was the moment I reached the words: You opened my sack and girded me with joy.
Source: Chassidic tradition, told for Rosh Hashanah; the teaching that sins become merits is in the Gemara, Yoma. Printed collection not yet identified.
The Satan's sacks were emptied by teshuvah that came from love. Most of us also carry a sack of a different kind: old hurts we hold against other people. Choose one grudge you have been carrying, small or large, and decide to set it down this week. You do not need to have a conversation about it. Simply say to yourself, and to Hashem, I am letting this go. If you are able, do one kind thing for that person. Notice how much lighter you feel.