Where Should I Go?

After the Rebbe of Liska passed away, a dispute arose over who would sit in his place, and Reb Shayele, who had served him from the time of his bar mitzvah, stood at the center of it. The Sanzer Rav, whom he revered, wanted him to remain in Liska and take up the Rebbe's seat. The Divrei Chaim even ruled that a Rebbe's position is not an inheritance. When Reb Shayele said that he could not bear the quarrels, the Sanzer Rav insisted that he stay in Liska no matter what it cost.

Reb Shayele could not rest. Some time later he came to the Yetev Lev and told him that he could not withstand the strife. The Yetev Lev answered gently. The Sanzer Rav was a man of battle who could deal with such things, but that was not for him. He should go somewhere else.

"But the holy Rav said that I should stay," said Reb Shayele. Then, with the simplicity of a servant who has never asked for anything, he asked, "Where should I go?"

The Yetev Lev told him that wherever he went, even to the top of a mountain, people would find him and come. Rav Mordechai of Nadvorna, who was living in Kerestir at the time, also told him to settle there. So the former attendant went to Kerestir, where the crowds did come, as the Yetev Lev had said. All his life he signed himself as Shaya ben Reb Moshe, who once served the tzaddik of Liska.