Counting the Minutes

Rav Yissocher Dov Ber was once traveling through the Polish countryside when night fell and the roads grew unsafe. He told his driver to stop at the first Jewish inn they found. The innkeeper welcomed him warmly and prepared a room kept for traveling rabbanim and noblemen. After Maariv, tired from the journey, Rav Yissocher went to bed.

The house grew quiet and the fields were still, except for the bark of a lone farm dog. Yet the clock on the wall ticked in such a remarkable way that he could not sleep. He tossed and turned, rose and paced the room, and his mind filled with verses from the Nevi'im, songs of deliverance and hope. Every time he lay down, the ticking drew him up again, and he spent the night pacing in anxious anticipation.

In the morning, tired but uplifted, he asked the innkeeper where the clock had come from. The innkeeper said that years earlier Reb Yosef of Turchin, a son of the Chozeh of Lublin, had stayed in that room for one night. Bad weather kept him for several days, and when he could not cover his bill, he gave the clock, which he said he had inherited from his father.

"Now I understand why I could not sleep," said Rav Yissocher. "Most clocks only bring sadness, since they count the hours that have passed, another day lost and another chance gone. The clock of the holy Chozeh counts the time that is coming, another minute closer to the final redemption and another second nearer to the age of universal peace."