Just All Good

“According to Martin Buber in Tales of the Hasidim: Early Masters, “one cannot consider Rabbi Pinhas apart from his most distinguished disciple, Rafael of Bershad. In the whole history of hasidism, rich in fruitful relationships between master and disciple, there is no other instance of so pure a harmony, of so adequate a continuation of the work. In reading the records, we sometimes hardly know what to ascribe to R' Pinhas and what to R' Rafael, and yet we have a number of utterances of the latter which bear the stamp of independent thinking. But more important than his independence is the matter-of-course devotion with which the disciple embodied his master’s teachings in his life and—according to tradition—even in his death, which quietly and solemnly sealed the proclamation of the commandment of truth, for which the master had striven for so many years.”

Elul is the yahrzeit of Rebbe Pinchas of Koretz, one of the early disciples of the Ba’al Shem Tov. He was born in Shklov, White Russia (now Belarus), in 1726. His father was Rabbi Avraham Abba Shapira, the descendant of an illustrious line of Talmudic scholars. R' Pinchas received a thorough Torah education and studied the Tanach and Talmud as well as the writings of the great medieval Jewish philosophers. In his youth, he gained fame for writing Talmudic dissertations and halachic novellae. When his father was falsely accused of a crime, the family was forced to escape from Shklov, and they eventually settled in Miropol in Volhynia, the westernmost province of the Ukraine. While living there, his father, who had been a firm opponent of Chassidism, visited the Ba’al Shem Tov and decided to join the new movement. He encouraged his son, R' Pinchas, to become a follower of the Besht as well.

R’ Pinchas established himself in Koretz, surrounded by his own group of disciples, foremost among whom was R’ Raphael of Bershad. They studied the Torah and Zohar for many hours every day and strove to achieve perfect truthfulness and to conquer all traces of vanity. The Ba’al Shem Tov is reported to have said about R’ Pinchas, “a soul such as that of R’ Pinchas comes down to this world only once in 500 years.”

According to Martin Buber, R’ Pinchas was a teacher “in a small closed circle which developed Hasidic wisdom along its own, independent lines…. Rabbi Pinhas’ circle had no great influence on the outside world, but such as it is, it represents a unique and invaluable phenomenon, for its members were distinguished by the simple honesty of their personal faith, the unrhetorical telling of their teaching, a telling even tinged with humor, and by their loyal readiness to satisfy the demands put upon them, at the cost of their very lives.”

After 20 years in Koretz, R’ Pinchas moved to Ostroh. In 1791, he decided to go to Tzfat, Israel, but he became ill and died along the way in the town of Shepetovka. In 2004, the burial site in Shepetovka was restored by Rabbi Yisroel Meir Gabai, and an ohel was constructed over the tomb). After the death of R’ Pinchas, most of his followers became the disciples of R’ Raphael of Bershad.

R’ Pinchas did not write any books, but his teachings were widely quoted by other rebbes and compiled as the Midrash Pinkhas, Nofeth Tzufim, and Pe’er LaYesharim. A manuscript that survived the Holocaust was published by Rabbi Elimelech Elazar Frankel in 2003 as the Imrei Pinchas HaShalem. The two volumes contain a collection of the writings of R’ Pinchas and R’ Raphael, arranged in the order of the weekly parsha. They also include stories about the lives of these tzaddiks as well as biographical material on the rebbes and their families, information on their minhagim, reproductions of handwritten documents, ornate title pages of printed treatises, and photos.

Milton Aron, in Ideas and Ideals of the Hassidim, says, “In his teachings, R. Pinkhas preached universal love, even love of the most sinful people in humanity, because only such love can hasten the coming of the Redeemer.”

“One must love even the sinful, but must hate their actions. Although it is forbidden to be close to the wicked, one must still love them, so that perhaps they will return to the path of the Torah.”

“One must love every individual of Israel, and when you see that someone hates you, you must love them more, for Israel is a Throne for the Shechinah (Presence of G-d) and for holiness.”

The first step of any kind of healing is “to be concerned not only with yourself but with everything that goes on around you; help others and you will help yourself. You want to serve G-d? Start with serving G-d’s children.”

R’ Pinchas often said, “A man's soul will teach him… There is no person who is not incessantly being taught by his soul.” One of his students asked, “If this is so, why don't people obey their souls?” R’ Pinchas replied, “The soul teaches without ceasing, but it never repeats.”

“Usually, persons asking for advice have already solved their own problem without knowing it.”

“Man was created last for the following reason: If he is deserving, he shall find all of nature at his service; if he is undeserving, he shall find all of nature arrayed against him.”

“There are no words which, in themselves, are useless. There are no actions which, in themselves, are useless. But one can make useless both actions and words by saying or doing them uselessly.”

“It’s possible for a person to be created and live an entire lifetime just for the sake of uttering one word or making a single gesture that he performs for the Holy One.”

“Choose your words and deeds with care for they are of momentous importance.”

“A man should believe that even a piece of straw that lies on the ground does so at the decree of G-d. He decrees that it should lie there with one end facing this way and the other end the other way.”

“The world is like a book that can be read in either direction. There is the power of creation, to make something of nothing. And there is the power of destruction, to make nothing from something.”

“Until the birth of the Baal Shem Tov, the Jewish people always looked backward: How many years has it been since the destruction of the Temple? From the birth of the Baal Shem Tov onward, the clock has been ticking toward the future. With each new year, we look forward, realizing how much closer we are to the Redemption.”

“The world was created in such a way that a new entity can only arise by destroying what existed previously. The chick only emerges from the egg after the shell has broken, and the stalk of wheat only germinates after the seed kernel has decomposed. In the same way, the ‘light of Moshiach’ that will illuminate in the Messianic era was concealed within the destruction of the Holy Temple; the only way Moshiach could be revealed was for the previous Holy Temple to cease to exist.”

“Every sin is linked to a reason, good or bad—with the sole exception of vanity, which needs no reason to grow and grow. If someone finds it necessary to honor me, that means he is more humble than I. Which means he is better and saintlier than I. Which means that I should honor him. But then, why is he honoring me?”

R’ Raphael complained to his teacher that he could not eliminate feelings of vanity. R’ Pinchas replied, “Character development does not come overnight, regardless of how much effort you exert. Eradication of stubborn character traits takes time as well as effort. Today you achieve a little, and tomorrow you will achieve a bit more. You are frustrated and disappointed because you have not achieved character perfection as quickly as you had wished. Continue to work on yourself. Pray to G-d to help you with your character perfection. It will come in due time, but you must be patient.”

“For many years I wrestled with my Anger, until finally I conquered him and placed him in my pocket. Now I take him out only when I need him. But I am so angry with him, that I do not ever want to take him out again!”

R’ Rafael related: “I complained to my teacher that in adversity it is very difficult to retain perfect faith in the belief that G-d provides for every human being. It actually seems as if G-d were hiding his face from such an unhappy being. What shall he do to strengthen his faith? R’ Pinchas replied: ‘It ceases to be a hiding, if you know it is hiding.’ ”

“I thank G-d every day that I was not born before the Zohar was revealed, for it was the Zohar that sustained me in my faith as a Jew.”

“We learn in the Zohar that everyone has a light burning for them in the world above, and everyone’s light is unique. When two friends meet, their lights above are united, and out of that union of two lights an angel is born. That angel has the strength to survive for only one year, unless its life is renewed when the friends meet again. But if they are separated for more than a year, the angel begins to languish and eventually wastes away. That is why we bless the dead upon meeting a friend we have not seen for more than a year, to revive the angel.”

R’ Rafael asked his teacher, “Why is no face like any other?” R’ Pinchas replied, “Because Man is created in the image of G-d. Every human being sucks the living strength of G-d from another place, and all together they make up Man. That is why their faces all differ from one another.”

“Joy is on a higher plane than grief. Even with the newborn child, tears come first and smiles only later. Joy constitutes a higher stage, for it springs from higher worlds, from G-d.”

Per Milton Aron, R’ Pinchas was very fond of song, believing that if the pious sang beautifully, it would be possible to influence G-d to leave Heaven and make His abode among human beings on earth.

“Alone I cannot lift my voice in song—Then you come near and sing with me. Our prayers fuse, and a new voice soars. Our bond is beyond voice and voice. Our bond is one of spirit and spirit.”

“Jews eat lots of lokshen on Shabbat because noodles are symbolic of the unity of the people of Israel: They are so entangled that they can never be separated.”

“When you believe that everything is from Hashem, blessed be He, then there is no evil or bad at all—there is just all good.”

~ A Simple Jew, (Shoshana (Bershad))