Sparks

The black coat and black hat contributed a severe aspect to the rabbis' otherwise loving and fatherly aura.  He stood behind his aged wooden desk looking approvingly at the beardless man before him only for a few moments before sitting down in a business like way behind his desk. His hands moved among the books and papers on his desk as if to convey that time was pressing, even while there was a soft light coming from the face behind his black and grey beard that said he was prepared to give the young elder before him even an eternity of time, if it was what they needed. 

What they needed was for the young elder to learn from the rebbe who sat before him whether or not he had been gathering the fallen sparks in the right way, in the best way, from the field. The rebbe’s hands stopped shuffling papers. One rested on the side of his well rounded stomach. The fingers of his other hand rested on the rim of his black hat, lifting it slightly.  The light of the soft smile of the rebbe’s face seemed to focus on the face and especially the eyes of the young elder. 

“You are doing well in gathering the sparks,” the rebbe said to the young elder. “You are doing the work in the right way.” The young elder should have been reassured by this. He should have thanked the rebbe and prepared to leave. Yet he wanted to know more. He wanted to learn and understand more. He wanted to know how he could do better. 

Time really was pressing the rebbe. As well, he really did have an eternity of time to give the young elder, if he chose. He knew what the young elder wanted. He knew that it wasn’t just reassurance that his performance was acceptable. He knew that this student had taken hold of his tsitsit in the first place in the hope of learning all that he could teach him. And now he would not be happy unless he could learn more. He knew that only when he had become exhausted from learning all that he could learn at that moment of eternity would he be ready to go back into the field and begin to gather the fallen sparks of light again. So the rebbe sat back in his chair and said, “Let me tell you a story.”