By: Michael Berg
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The Holy Homeless Man
I’m always looking for stories to inspire myself and my students, and the following is one such story. Keep it in your heart and it will push you to do amazing things:
Hundreds of years ago there was a group of homeless men that traveled from town to town in search of food and shelter. Usually they managed to scrape by, but not this one time. For weeks on end they found themselves without a morsel to eat.
One day they were sitting in the middle of the forest, brainstorming on how to find food. The head homeless man came up with an idea. At that time, it was common for famous kabbalists to travel the land in search of people in need of their wisdom and powers. And it was common that the townsfolk would receive them in a royal manner, lavishing food and gifts upon them.
He proposed to the group that they go into the nearest river, clean their clothes, and then find the closest village where they would tell everyone that the head homeless man was a great and righteous soul.
With nothing left to lose, they decided to give it a try.
They went into the river and cleaned themselves up. They then sent two of the beggars into the local town as emissaries to alert the people of the great Kabbalist due to arrive. They went into every prayer room and town hall and announced that the great so-and-so was due any minute. The townsfolk bought the ruse hook, line and sinker, so much so that the wealthiest man in the village invited them to be guests in his home.
They hit the jackpot! And so, that evening they found themselves sitting at a gorgeous, ornate table filled with food. They stuffed themselves with abandon, smug in their successful con. Towards the end of the meal, the wealthy man turned to “the righteous man” and whispered, “I have to tell you the truth. The reason why I invited you into my home wasn’t just to share with you. I have something to ask of you. My daughter has been very ill for a long time and the doctors have given up hope. When I heard such a great man as yourself was coming to town, I thought it was my last chance to save her. Can you heal her? Can you bring this miracle into our home?”
As you can imagine, the homeless men were shocked and scared. Running through their minds were the facts that not only were they liars, but now they were going to ruin this man’s hope. Not knowing what to do, they all turned to their “righteous leader.”
He picked up on their looks and turned to the father, saying “Let us go in and see your daughter.” They went in and the homeless man took a few prayer books off the shelf and then told the father to leave him alone with the young girl.
He stayed there for two hours and when he finally emerged, his face was red and his cheeks stained with tears. He turned to the father and said, “I think your daughter is going to be just fine. She already looks better. Go in and see for yourself.”
Sure enough, the father went in and discovered that the homeless man was telling the truth. She looked much better than she had looked in months, and he could tell she was already healing.
Later that evening, after the beggars left town, they all gathered around their leader and furiously pumped him for answers. “You’re no righteous man! You’re a beggar and a homeless guy like the rest of us! What went on in there?!”
He looked each of them square in the eye and said, “Of course what you say is true. I’m a nobody, a homeless liar just like the lot of you. But when I went into that room and saw the love the father had for his daughter, I broke down in tears. I found myself saying to the Creator, ‘you know who I am - a liar, a nobody. But you also know the love this father has for his child. He thinks I can help and although we both know I cannot, please, for the sake of this man, allow your healing to come into his daughter.’ I cried in that room for two hours, and the rest, well, you saw the miracle just as I did.”
All of us, to one degree or another, are this homeless man. We may think we need to be at a certain level to create miracles for other people, but our lesson here is clear: no matter how low we think we may be, we can always open a channel through which the Light of the Creator can flow.
Let this story remind us to never, ever say “I can’t” or “somebody greater than me needs to do this.” Remember the homeless man. Remember the little girl whose life he saved. Remember that through a genuine desire to help, we can all be conduits for the Light to bring great miracles into the lives of others.
