God loves stories

We have a beautiful phrase in Afrikaans: om tot verhaal te kom. If you had a very difficult time, or had a crisis or an illness that caught you off guard and disrupted your life and now, gradually, things are returning to normal, that phrase is often used. Someone will ask: “How are you doing?” And you’ll say: “I am not over it yet but at least I’m busy om tot verhaal te kom.(I am busy regaining my strength, I’m busy regaining my balance).”

I think that in order to become whole and integrated again, to regain our overall balance in life (om tot verhaal te kom) it is important to move in this case from the figure of speech to the literal sense. It is important for us om tot verhaal te kom. It is important to return to stories, to create a space for them and invite them into our lives. Constantly. Stories heal.

If there is a people who understand and apply this, it is the Jews. Some of the deepest, most beautiful stories are found in the Jewish tradition. Maybe because they needed to recover and regain their balance so often in their own history.

They even have a story about the healing power of story!

The Rebbe of Helish was once asked to tell a tale. He said, “A person should tell a tale in a way that the telling itself saves. My grandfather, who was a disciple of the Baal Shem Tov, was lame. When he was asked to tell a story of his master, he began to tell them how the holy Baal Shem Tov leaped and danced when he prayed, and as he recounted what he had seen, he stood up. The story so aroused his fervor, that he began to show them by his own leaping and dancing how his master did it. That moment he was cured of his lameness and became a healthy man.”

That is why they can have a story like this one:

When the founder of Hasidic Judaism, the great Rabbi Israel Shem Tov, saw misfortune threatening the Jews, it was his custom to go to a certain part of the forest to meditate. There he would light a fire, say a special prayer, and the miracle would be accomplished and the misfortune averted.

Later, when his disciple, the celebrated Maggid of Mezritch, had occasion, for the same reason, to intercede with heaven, he would go to the same place in the forest and say: “Master of the Universe, listen! I do not know how to light the fire, but I’m still able to say the prayer,” and again the miracle would be accomplished.

Still later, Rabbi Moshe-leib of Sasov, in order to save his people once more, would go into the forest and say: “I do not know how to light the fire. I do not know the prayer, but I know the place and it must be sufficient.” It was sufficient, and the miracle was accomplished.

Then it fell to Rabbi Israel of Rizhin to overcome misfortune. Sitting in his armchair, his head in his hands, he spoke to God: “I am unable to light the fire, and I do not know the prayer, and I cannot even find the place in the forest. All I can do is to tell the story, and this must be sufficient.”

And it was sufficient.

For God made man because He loves stories.

In all probability, that is why we read in Mat 13:34 in the Message: All Jesus did that day was tell stories--a long storytelling afternoon.

And thereby hangs a tale.

George