Last Thursday I spent in Minneapolis giving that trusty old talk on Chassidism and Modern Men. There being a number of Mitnagdim, some rabbinical colleagues among them, they armored themselves in Shaul's heavy armor and came to the defense of the Vilnaer Gaon, but nobody stood up for the Modern Men.

Yesterday I held an Haskara - meeting for the late Rabbi Kravetz. If only ten percent of all the feelings of loyalty expressed would have been entered into cooperation with him whilst he was still alive, he still might be.

This brings me to the amazing thing that happened two weeks ago, while the other letter was being typed out. Two people came to see me. One of these two people had called me at 7 a.m. asking me for an appointment. It seemed rather urgent and I made time for him. One is a regular Minyan-Mensch in the Lubavitcher shul, we will call him Re'uven, and the other one, we will call him Shimon, comes from time to time. And here is the story that unfolded when they came to see me. Shimon was an orphan from his mother when he was still an infant. When he was at the age of six, his father remarried. His stepmother did not want him around the house. So it came about that he was raised by some compassionate people in the village. Shimon grew up till the age of 15 feeling deeply hurt and rejected. When he was fifteen, somebody sent him eine Schiffskarte to come to Canada , and as he was about to leave, he went to bid his Bobbe farewell. When she suggested to him that he also visit his father, he refused and said that he would not forgive his father until he would come, dead or alive, to ask his forgiveness for having rejected him. Years went by and he forgot all about this statement, though not about the pain and the feeling of rejection which surrounded him for the rest of his life.

He has a heart condition now, and no matter what the doctor tried, he was unable to help him. On the Monday before he came to see me, he decided to go to see the doctor again, having been unable to sleep. He took the bus downtown, stopped at the big Hudson 's Bay store to rest a while and, feeling faint, he went to the water fountain to drink some water and sat down. The whole load of his life weighed down on him, and burying his head in his hands, he began to weep. A man with a beard and payoth and old-fashioned clothes then asked him in Yiddish if he might sit down next to him. Gruffly our Shimon answered, "It is a free country, do as you please." The man went over to wash his hands at the fountain, then sat down next to Shimon and said, "I will not address him in the second person singular and not in the second person plural (Ichvell tzu zey nit zuggen Du und ich vell zu zey nit zuggen Ihr, ich len nur zuggen 'zey' tzu zey)", and now he began to tell Shimon such things about Shimon's life that he was amazed that any other mother's son should be aware of them. He was about to interrupt him and ask him how come that he knew all these things, when he said to him "Don't interrupt, for then I might have to leave; but when I am through, you will know who I am and why I speak to you. (Now comes a bunch of stuff that may seem insignificant at first, but it makes part of the story in a very important way) "I know that you are about to see the doctor", the stranger continued. "I also know that you have no Emuna in him and now (this is significant because our Shimon has a rather limited vocabulary of words like Emuna and others that were used are unknown to him) you go to his office and you will complain and he in turn will say that there is nothing he can do for you. When you will suggest that he send you to the hospital, he will refuse saying that there is nothing the hospital can do for you in your condition. When you further press him to give you some help, he will rummage in a closet and find nothing. When you press him further "Efshar hat Ihr fort epes ", he will go rummaging in another closet, where he will find a little brown bottle in which there are 27 pills. These will help you and you will be able to sleep. When you call the doctor later, he will rejoice and say that if you were helped he is glad and that he has to write this up.

I tell you all this, so that you will see that our encounter is not an empty event. I am your father. For many years now I have had no rest. I have suffered a great deal for all the wrong that I have done, but I cannot go on to the good which is in store for me unless you forgive me. I want you to tell this, after all I have told you about will have come true, to your friend who is closest to you, who has helped you often in the past, and he will take you to someone who will tell you what to do." (That friend being Re'uven, who once a week comes to visit him and helps him, on Tuesday afternoon though it was not his regular visiting day, he came again, feeling as if he were tugged at his heart to visit Shimon, who told him the whole story, prefixed by the remark that surely G-d had brought him there in response to his sighs.) Now Shimon's father repeated the instructions not to tell about this to anybody except to his trusted friend, that if he told it to someone else, they might say this is a hallucination and assured him that this is not a dream, that this is as real as a fact, that he sat there and that he will see all the things predicted come true. He said that his Yahrzeit was on this and this day and that he must give Tiqun in order that he may have a Tiqun (again, as I mentioned to you before, our friend Shimon is not familiar with the meaning of the word Tiqun).

So there the two sat in the office. I asked Reuven to be a witness together with me to Shimon's declaration of forgiveness to his father. Shimon cried and explained that he cannot do so, because...and here he recounted his deal of woe again. After some time had passed, he finally agreed. "It is difficult, but I forgive him." We then arranged for the observance of the Yahrzeit, reciting the letters of his father's name, in Psalm 119. I took some of the Rebbe's Mashkeh-Vodka and a cookie and I gave it to Shimon and they left.

Now, I often tell people Hassidic Meisses and I have a special fondness for telling people stories which shake their materialism and point out that there is a Judge and judgment and an afterlife, and that this world and the other world are constantly interrelated, but to have a Meisse of this sort walk into my office is again a strange experience.