The Man Who Left Chelm

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Honestly, some times I wonder why I do this. Why express myself in these ways, every morning? Then today over at the 101 board, someone spoke of "reverse engineering" the Soulmate process--rather than describing the desired mate, describe the current partner in terms OF the "Soulmate"--as if the person you are with already is that person. I don't know what will come of that exercise, but it sounds superb, and can't wait to see. That student also left us a parable I found extraordinary. And here it is for you.

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The Man Who Left Chelm.

You may have heard of Chelm-- that little corner of the old country where the Angel of Fools tripped and spilled the souls he was supposed to spread evenly through time and space. In Chelm, they hung the poor-box from the synagogue ceiling so the thiefs couldn't steal from it, and then built a staircase up to it so people could still donate. A scholar from Chelm who finds a hayfork in the road is likely to conclude it's a giant's menorah. If you ever see a group of people calmly taking shelter under a thin tree in the pouring rain, they're from Chelm. They figure when their tree soaks through they'll just run for the next tree. It's that kind of place.

There was one young man in Chelm who could not bear the shame of living in the famous town of fools. It ate at him. "He'll settle down when he takes a wife," the gossips clucked, and they married him off, and it did no good. "He'll settle down when the children come," the family said, but even when the little ones learned to pull themselves up by his trouser legs he did not look at them but stared at the wall.

Why should he be trapped in so meaningless an existence? How could he stay trapped living out his life in a town of fools, a place fit only for ridicule? One day he reached the breaking point. "I cannot live like this another day," he cried, and seized his coat and headed for the door. "What are you doing?" asked his wife, and he could not answer, could not begin to put into words the years of frustration and helplessness. He left without a word.

He pointed himself in the direction of the sun. He walked with great, ground-eating strides, and every step he took past the boundaries of Chelm, it felt like his chest was expanding, every breath greater than the last. Dusk grew deep, and while there was still a little light he stepped off the road to sleep with a rock under his head like the Patriarch Jacob on the first night of his great destiny. He had never felt so free.

In the morning, the light of false dawn woke him, and he opened his eyes and turned his face to the light in time to see the rising of the sun on freshmade world. He watched as the sunbeams gilded every blade of grass and turned the trees to treasures. He whispered the blessing of awakening, and for the first time he tasted the words, "I give thanks before Your Face, Living and Eternal King, for You have restored my soul to me in compassion; great is Your faithfulness," and he knew he has never truly meant them before.

Then he stood, and set out again-- in the direction of the sun.

Every step seemed to bring to light a new miracle. Soon he came to the fields on the edge of a town, and his heart soared to see the workers heading out in the early morning, how they called to one another and laughed, how they sang in the rhythm of their movements. Yes, he thought, yes, this was what it was all about, this was the kind of life the sage spoke of, every human blessed and beautiful, the greatest of wisdom possible in the plainest simplicity.

He came to the town itself and continued to marvel: what stories could be read in the care with which these buildings were built, the gentle bustle of the start of the day. A group of little children ran out of nowhere to surround him, and he had to laugh out loud at the magnificence of their open, eager faces, the preciousness of their fragile, flushed beauty. They took hold of him and pulled him along to a house. He looked in the window, and there he saw... the saddest woman in the world.

He saw her with the same eyes that had watched the new sun come up, the same openess that had filled him deeper step by step into this new wonderful world, and he felt as if he could not breathe. How alone, how hopeless, how utterly forsaken she was, her eyes wild and staring at the wall. It came to him suddenly that if he could only make that woman smile, his whole life would have been worth living. He leapt from the window to the door and threw it open, strode into the room and tasted his words again as he said, "You are not alone. You need not ever be alone again. I will be here for you and with you, and it will not matter what anyone else thinks or says about what goes on in this house. Only say that you will have me."

Slowly, stiffly, the woman turned as if stunned, and when she saw him, her expresssion was like the sun coming up all over again.

He took the time to see her comforted and the children gathered in and fed, then went out to find work. A simple, hard job came first, and because he did it without complaining and he did it the best he could, more work came. His evenings were spent at the fire with the children climbing over him, in the mornings he woke alone to count his blessings, beginning with the face of the good woman beside him smiling in her sleep, and he never, ever went back to that horrible town of fools where once he'd lived.