There is an old Hasidic tale about a holy rabbi who lived in a tiny Russian village. The villagers were very proud of their rabbi and prone to brag about him. One day a stranger came to their village, and hearing the lavish praise about this local rabbi offered a scornful reply. But the villagers insisted that their praise was justified. They even went on to claim something truly extraordinary about their beloved rabbi. “Our rabbi,” they said, “ascends to heaven every Friday morning to talk to God.” The rabbi disappeared each Friday morning, you see, and the villagers had begun to believe that ascension to heaven was the only explanation for his regular absences.
Well, this provoked the interest of the stranger. Of course such talk was simply nonsense. Not even Moses himself, who may have climbed mountains for an interview with the Almighty, ever actually ascended to heaven in his lifetime. And so the stranger decided to debunk the foolish legend of heavenly journeys. He would secretly observe the rabbi’s every move on the next Friday morning, so as to determine his true weekly destination.
The stranger hid behind the rabbi’s house before dawn, waiting for him to emerge. Soon the rabbi left his house and headed into the woods, carrying an axe, a coil of rope and a basket. The stranger followed at a distance, watching. When the rabbi reached the thickest part of the woods, he stopped to chop down a stout tree. He split the wood, bundled it with his rope, and hoisted the load across his shoulders. The rabbi walked further into the woods with his heavy load until he came to a small cottage of a very ill, old woman. The rabbi took the firewood into her home, cooked her a meal with food he had brought in his basket, swept her floor and finished her chores. Then the rabbi headed back through the woods to his own house to prepare for the Sabbath.
The stranger who watched this process was stunned by the humble service that was provided by this rabbi, week after week after week. He stayed in that village in order to learn from this wise and generous man. And in years to come, when he heard the villagers brag that their rabbi regularly ascended to heaven, you could hear him murmur, “or even higher.”
We love to return to that story from time to time as a reminder to ourselves that any aspirations we may have for lofty goals should be tempered with a good dose of humility. The simplest, quietest and most unpretentious things we accomplish for others may in fact draw us closer to God’s purposes and be more reflective of heaven-bound lives than are our most notable achievements.
We hope you are making regular journeys of humble service, loving kindness, simple faithfulness and practical grace. Such travels will take you heavenward – or even higher.