By Dovid Zaklikowski for COLlive and Hasidic Archives
The elderly Chassid Rabbi Shmuel Betzalel Sheftel, known as the Rashbatz, was employed by the fifth Chabad Rebbe, Rabbi Sholom Dovber Schneersohn (Rashab), to educate his son.
As the Rebbe was busy with his communal duties, the Rashbatz spent much of the day with Yosef Yitzchak and often put him to sleep at night.
It was his practice to tell the boy a story each night, and one night, he related a parable about a wagon driver and his teenage son:
The two would wake up early every morning to take the locals to the train station. During the summer months, when the sun rose early, they would first go to morning prayers, then eat breakfast and prepare the horses.
On the fast day of the 17th of Tammuz, which marks one of the stages in the destruction of the Holy Temple, the father told his son that they would be skipping their morning meal.
At first, the hunger did not bother the young man. But in the afternoon, he became irritable and began asking his father when he would be allowed to eat. By the time the fast ended late that evening, he was ravenous, and angry with his father for making him suffer the whole day without nourishment.
The next morning, when his father tried to wake him up, the son said, “I have no will to wake up. I am scared that you will not let me eat again.”
“No, no, wake up!” his father said, “Today is not yesterday!”
These words could be applied equally to one’s service of G-d, the Rashbatz told the young boy, who would become the sixth Chabad Rebbe. “Wake up, wake up! Today is not yesterday!”
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