A Blessing for Life

There is a custom among Zanz-Klausenberg Chassidim that the Rebbe throws apples to his followers, and it is said that the one who catches one is blessed with immense riches for the coming year.

Understandably, the large crowd of Chassidim who push to get an apple creates a potentially dangerous situation.

One year, the son of the Divrei Chaim of Zanz asked his father to abolish this custom. After refusing to uproot a custom that was kept for so many years, the son asked that the Rebbe at least announce that whoever will push, will receive ten years of poverty R”L instead of a blessing for riches. Again, the Rebbe refused. “The Chassidim come to be for Brochos, and I will give them the opposite?”

In the end, the Gabbai announced that from now on, there should be no pushing, and whoever will push to get an apple will instead receive a “blessing” for ten years of poverty.

No one stirred.

Suddenly from a back corner of the Shul a Chossid pushed his way to the front to catch an apple. The Gabbai asked him, “Did you not hear the warning?” To which the Chossid replied, “I am very old... For me, ten years of poverty is a blessing!”

The old Chosid’s response, while humorous, is actually a profound and powerful response to life’s challenges.

The Chosid knew full and well that the “extra” ten years of his life may be years spent in poverty R”L, yet, to  him having another ten years of life, however difficult, was a blessing. He knew how to accept what Hashem gives him, the good and the (seemingly) bad, by focusing on the blessing in every situation.

May Hashem bless us with only revealed good, and to have the courage and strength to stay strong even when we cannot see it.