By Dovid Zaklikowski for COLlive and Hasidic Archives
There was once a businessman who prided himself on his prayers. Each day, while he recited the daily service, he contemplated the Kabbalistic intentions recorded by Rabbi Isaac Luria, the Arizal.
Indeed, he had become so practiced that, despite this additional effort, the prayers did not take him long. The extra time he used for Torah study, confining his business activities to an annual trip to the marketplace in Leipzig.
The man had heard about the many hours that Rabbi Dovber, the Maggid of Mezeritch, would spend in prayer, contemplating the same intentions that he himself used.
Why, he wondered, did it take the great righteous man so long, when he could do it quickly? After one of his trips to Leipzig, he decided to make a detour to Mezeritch to observe Maggid in prayer.
Entering the Maggid’s study after services, the businessman asked his question: What took the Maggid so long? The Maggid answered in the traditional Jewish way, with another question. He asked the man how he earned his living.
“Once a year, I go to the market and purchase merchandise in which I am expert,” the man replied. “I bring it back to my city and sell it there. From this, I earn a livelihood.”
“How do you know that you made a profit?” the Maggid asked.
The man explained that he keeps a ledger with his expenses and income.
“If that is the case, why do you need to go to the market? Just fill out your ledger and you will support yourself that way.”
The man began to laugh. “Is that the way to profit, by writing down calculations? You need to actually go!”
Prayer is the same, the Maggid explained. If you do not spend the time to concentrate, to lift your heart and mind into the heavenly realms, you have not really made the required journey. Anything short of that is merely “filling out the ledger,” rote recitation from which one derives no profit, “even with the best intentions in the world.”
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