Rebbe Meir was a student of Rebbe Mordechai of Lechovichi. And he had a business partner - Rabbi Gershon, an ardent misnaged (opponent of Hasidism).
Meir continually invited him to visit his rebbe-mentor, but Gershon, who hated Hasidism with all his soul and did not want to get acquainted with the Hasidic sage, each time found reasons why he supposedly could not go to Lekhovichi.
Meanwhile, one day it turned out that both friends had to arrive there at the same time on their business affairs. Having learned that Gershon would also be in the shtetl, Meir once again invited him to visit his rebbe. Gershon realized that with another refusal he would completely offend his friend, and was forced to accept the invitation.
When they entered the house of Rebbe Mordechai, they were led into the dining room, where the teacher was just starting his lunch meal. Meir urged his friend to talk to the rebbe, ask something, say at least a word, but Gershon remained silent, and, apparently, being in a state of ecstasy. A few minutes later they left the rebbe's house.
-What happened to you there? - asked Meir.
“I saw that your rebbe was eating with such piety that only the Kohen HaGadol could have shown,” Gershon answered.
Shocked, Meir left his friend on the street, returned to his rebbe’s house and asked him:
“Rebbe, I come here whenever possible, but I have never seen you serve the Almighty at a meal, may He be blessed.” And my friend - a misnaged - came in for just a minute, almost under duress, and saw a miracle in your behavior at the meal. Is this fair?
“Justice has nothing to do with it, my friend,” said Rabbi Mordechai. - The fact is that your partner is a misnage. He needs to see the truth with his own eyes. And you are a Hasid. You must believe.
Commentary by Rami Shapiro What did Gershon see? That Rebbe Mordechai eats with such awareness of God's Presence that only the Kohen HaGadol, the High Priest of ancient Israel, could have demonstrated. What did Meir see? Same thing, but didn't find anything unusual here. The point is not that he turned out to be blind and deaf to Rebbe Gershon, who revealed himself, - he simply did not consider it something unusual. However, realizing how touched his comrade was by what seemed quite ordinary to him, Meir began to doubt the depth of his own vision. Then Rebbe Mordechai drew Meir's attention to the difference between seeing and believing.
Faith concerns the unknown; vision - of the famous. If you see a bus coming, you don't say, "I believe the bus is coming here"; you say, “Look, the bus is coming.” There's no point in believing what you know. Faith has meaning only in relation to the unknown. Thanks to this, she is spiritually higher than sight, but at the same time more dangerous.
Albert Einstein said that the most important question we must ask the Universe is: is it friendly towards us or not? This question cannot be answered in advance, once and for all. All that remains for us is to conduct an experiment that will last the length of our own lives. Any meaningful experiment begins with a hypothesis. In this case, the hypothesis is that the Universe is friendly, that is, favorable for human life, love and self-realization. To test such a hypothesis, you need to live your life as if this were the case and see what happens. You have to believe that your hypothesis is true and expose yourself to the consequences of it being false. This is why spiritual life is so dangerous. Living a spiritual life means living on the cutting edge of faith.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru