I Am Committed

I Am Committed


My response:

If a lowly Noachide could humbly bring up a story regarding the Baal Shem Tov, I'd like to do so in defense of R' Locks and to perhaps elaborate on his concern, not that he needs defending or that I'm correctly interpreting his concern or that anyone else needs my two cents worth, because I'm just a worm. That said, I don't want any Jew out there who disagrees with R' Locks to think that I'm rebuking them, because both sides in this issue seem to be taking a stance for the sake of Heaven:

The Baal Shem Tov once arrived in the town of Konstantyn in Volhynia with his disciple, Rabbi David Forkes, and they stayed at a certain person's home. The Besht asked the shochet to come and show him his knife, to inspect it before they ate what he slaughtered. The shochet did not come promptly, however, and in the meantime the Baal Shem Tov began to pray Minha with the other men present. While this was happening, the shochet arrived but did not want to wait for the Baal Shem to finish his prayers. He angrily demanded that the householder's wife give him the chickens to slaughter immediately. She gave them to him, he slaughtered them, and left. When the Baal Shem Tov finished praying, he said, "Hasn't the shochet come yet?" "He came, slaughtered the chickens, and left," they said. The chickens were still lying there in the pan being salted. The Besht looked at them and said he would eat them, but Rabbi David Forkes said he would not. The Baal Shem Tov was not strict about this. He later said to Rabbi David, "Don't be too strict and punctilious about the mitzvot or your pious customs, because it's only a trick of the evil inclination to make you anxious and depressed." Unlike some of his contemporaries, the Baal Shem Tov did not lay great stress on stringencies in doing the mitzvot. He remarked to Rabbi Pinhas of Koretz, another of his close disciples, who was also present then, "I try not to be overly stringent in doing the mitzvot. In fact, this thought saved me when I was younger."

Taken from "The Light and Fire of the Baal Shem Tov" by Yitzhak Buxbaum, pp. 193-194; see also, ibid., pp. 92-96, the story of "Two Thrones."

I guess what I'm saying is that one should find a proper balance between "spirituality" and "physicality," in order to avoid being tricked by the Yetzer HaRa. I think this applies to Jews and Non-Jews, but ... I'm just a worm. The more I learn ... the less I know.