Just as Chashuv

The Rizhiner told that when the holy Berditchever Rav was alive, whenever a Jew left his home with his tallis and tefillin under his arm, Rav Levi Yitzchok would raise his hands toward Heaven and plead for Klal Yisroel. “Ribbono Shel Olam, how can You have any complaints against Your Yidden? Here is a Jew who leaves all his affairs behind and goes to shul to daven.”

The Rizhiner added that if the holy Berditchever could see a Jew going to shul in these days, he would say, “Here goes a Jew who leaves behind his home, where he struggles in poverty, with not a penny to his name and not a crumb of bread in the house, and his heart full of fear that the snatchers will seize his children and conscript them. Still he goes to shul.”

“And I say,” the Rizhiner concluded, “that today any Jew who puts on tallis and tefillin and goes to shul to daven is as important and chashuv as the Baal Shem Tov and the Maggid of Mezritch were in their days.”