The Abbot and the Rabbi
The monastery that had fallen upon hard times. Once a great order, as a
result of waves of anti-monastic persecution in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries and the rise of secularism in the nineteenth, it had become decimated
to the extent that there were only five monks left in the decaying mother
house: the Abbot and four others, all over seventy in age. Clearly it was
a dying order.
.
In the deep woods surrounding the monastery there was a little hut that
a Rabbi from a nearby town occasionally used for a hermitage. Through their
many years of prayer and contemplation the old monks had become a bit psychic,
so they could always sense when the Rabbi was in his hermitage.
.
"The Rabbi is in the woods, the Rabbi is in the woods again," they would
whisper to each other. As he agonized over the imminent death of his order,
it occurred to the Abbot at one such time to visit the hermitage and ask
the Rabbi if by some possible chance he could offer any advice that might
save the monastery.
.
The Rabbi welcomed the Abbot at his hut. But when the Abbot explained
the purpose
of his visit, the Rabbi could only commiserate with him.
.
"I know how it is," he exclaimed. "The spirit has gone out of the people.
It is the same in my town. Almost no one comes to the synagogue anymore."
.
So the old Abbot and the old Rabbi wept together. They read parts of the
Torah and quietly spoke of deep things. The time came when the Abbot had
to leave. They embraced each other.
.
"It has been a wonderful thing that we should meet after all these years,"
the Abbot said, "but I have still failed in my purpose for coming here.
Is there nothing you can tell me, no piece of advice you can give me that
would help me save my dying order?"
.
"No I am sorry," the Rabbi responded. "I have no advice to give you. The
only thing I can tell you is that the Messiah is one of you."
.
When the Abbot returned to the monastery his fellow monks gathered around
him to ask,
.
" Well, what did the Rabbi say?"
.
"He couldn't help," the Abbot answered. "We just wept and read the Torah
together. The only thing he did say, just as I was leaving - it was something
cryptic- was the Messiah is one of us. I don't know what he meant."
.
In the days and weeks and months that followed, the old monks pondered
this and wondered whether there was any possible signifi cance to the Rabbi's
words. The Messiah is one of us? Could he possibly have meant one of us
monks here at the monastery? If that's the case, which one?
.
Do you suppose he meant the Abbot? Yes, if he meant anyone, he probably
meant Father Abbot. He has been our leader for more than a generation.
.
On the other hand, he might have meant Brother Thomas. Certainly Brother
Thomas is a holy man. Everyone knows that Thomas is a man of light.
.
Certainly he could not have meant Brother Elred! Elred gets crotchety at
times. But come to think of it, even though he is a thorn in people's sides,
when you look back on it, Elred is virtually always right. Often very right.
Maybe the Rabbi did mean Brother Elred.
.
But surely not Brother Phillip. Phillip is so passive, a real nobody. But
then, almost mysteriously, he has a gift for somehow always be there when
you need him. He just magically appears by your side. Maybe Phillip is
the Messiah.
.
Of course the Rabbi didn't mean me. He couldn't possibly have meant me.
I'm just an ordinary person. Yes supposing he did? Suppose I am the Messiah?
O God, not me. I couldn't be the Messiah, could I?
.
As they contemplated in this manner, the old monks began to treat each
other with extraordinary respect on the off chance than one among them
might be the Messiah. And on the off, off chance that each monk himself
might be the Messiah, they began to treat them selves with extraordinary
respect.
.
Because the forest in which it was situated was beautiful, it so happened
that people still occasionally came to visit the monastery to picnics on
its tiny lawn, to wonder along some of its paths, even now and then to
go into the dilapidated chapel to meditate.
.
As they did so, without even being conscious of it, they sensed this aura
of extraordinary respect that now began to surround the five old monks
and seemed to radiate out from them and permeate the atmosphere of the
place.
.
There was something strangely attractive, even compelling, about it. Hardly
knowing why, they began to come back to the monastery more frequently to
picnics, to play, to pray. They began to bring their friends to show them
this special place. And their friends brought their friends.
.
Then it happened that some of the younger men who came to visit the monastery
started to talk more and more with the old monks. After a while one asked
if he could join them. Then another. And another. So within a few years
the monastery had once again become a thriving order.
.
Thanks to the Rabbi's gift, the monastery once again became a vibrant center
of light and spirituality in the realm.
~ From the preface of "A Different Drum" by Scott Peck ~
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Inspiration
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