The Shochet and the Four Cups
A shochet's drink at a roadside inn gave the Lisa Rav the answer to an old question on Chad Gadya.
While travelling through the towns near Lisa, Rav Yaakov stopped to rest at an inn. The shochet there had come in from the cold, and before he went to slaughter he drank several glasses of strong liquor to warm himself.
Rav Yaakov watched, and his face lit up. A question about Chad Gadya had troubled him and many others for a long time. In the song the shochet slaughters the ox, and then the Angel of Death comes and takes the shochet. But the shochet had done nothing wrong. He had slaughtered the ox according to halacha, so why was he punished?
Now he saw it. Chad Gadya is sung at the end of the Seder, after the four cups of wine. A man who has just drunk four cups has no business holding a knife for shechitah. The shochet in the song, in other words, slaughtered while intoxicated, and that is why the Angel of Death met him.
The story shows how Rav Yaakov read the world. A scene at an inn became a key to a line in the Haggadah, because he kept his questions with him wherever he went.
Source: Jewish Press, Torah Tots Midrash column, "Rav Yaakov Lorberbaum" (2009).
Choose one question you have not been able to settle, in learning, in a relationship or in how you spend your time. Keep it in mind through the day instead of putting it away. Notice what you see and hear with it in the background. Often the answer arrives from an ordinary moment, a remark or a small scene, and only a person who is still asking will recognise it. Write the thought down when it comes so it is not lost.