Two Posts In One

I FEEL GOOD

What are the odds that James Brown's "I Feel Good" would come up twice in one week?

Last week Pearlies of Wisdom wrote bout hearing a James Brown song on the radio and listening to the whole song through as she recalled her wedding. In the yichud room - she revealed to the chagrin of an anonymous commenter - she kicked off her shoes and sang and danced to James Browns' "I Feel Good," truly feeling good about the whole thing.

Then on Shabbos I was told about Meir Bulman's recent dream. My dear, late friend Aaron's son dreamt that his father and another man from the community who passed away at around the same time were both on stage playing and singing, and the song they were singing was, "I feel good." Shelley took this as a nice message and hoped it brought some consolation to her mother in law who has hoped for a dream visit and not yet received one.

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ON STORIES

Why do stories get a bad rap? Isn't life a story? I recently overheard a student ask his rabbi if they'd be doing stories again and the rabbi said yes. But when I asked him happily, "I didn't know you told stories!?!" he explained defensively that these were biographical backgrounds of the rabbis of the Gemorah not story book stories. As this rabbi himself sometimes says, "what's up with that?" I told him that a story is a story, whatever the context.

Rabbi Nachman of Breslov wrote that starting with stories is so important that even G-d in the Torah started with stories. And, he said that the world tells stories to put people to sleep, but he told stories to wake people up.

Rabbi Yaakov Kranz, sometimes misunderstood and underrated because he often spoke in stories, told a tale of two close friends. One was popular, one resented. One dressed in colorful clothing, the other walked around naked. One day, upon seeing his friend feeling down, the one friend offered to lend the other some of his clothing. Sure enough when people saw the naked friend wearing beautiful silk they were attracted rather than reviled. And they came to appreciate the second friend as much as the first.

The name of the friend who liked to parade naked was Truth. And the one who lent him some of his clothing was Story. No-one likes the naked truth, but everyone likes a nice story. Truth clothed in a story becomes more palatable. So said the Maggid of Dubno (aka Rabbi Yaakov Kranz). I believe in the truth of this story.