The Hasidic Parable

That Each Occasion Be like the Very First

That Each Occasion Be like the Very First lovely parable ascribed to the Besht [the Baal Shem Tov]. A king had in his employ a man who excelled at playing the violin, a person who, in his playing, attained the far reaches of beauty, and the king especially loved one particular melody that he played. The king would command the musician to perform that melody for him in his palace every day, even several times a day. And the musician would do exactly as the king requested. But after a while the melody grew old and stale in the eyes of the musician who no longer found the same desire and awakening in playing the melody as he once did. What did the king do to restore to the musician an inner awakening of desire and love for that melody? Each time he wished to hear that melody in which he so delighted, the king would call in a new person whom he found in the marketplace, one who had never before heard that melody. That person was hearing it for the very first time, and the musician's playing of the melody in his presence restored vitality and enthusiasm to his performance. The king continued in that practice over a long period of time. 29 That Each Occasion Be like the Very First lovely parable ascribed to the Besht [the Baal Shem Tov]. A l~ing had in his employ a man who excelled at playing the violin, a person who, in his playing, attained the far reaches of beauty, and the l~ing especially loved one particular melody that he played. The l~ing would command the musician to perform that melody for him in his palace every day, even several times a day. And the musician would do exactly as the l~ing requested. But after a while the melody grew old and stale in the eyes of the musician who no longer found the same desire and awal~ening in playing the melody as he once did. What did the l~ing do to restore to the musician an inner awal~ening of desire and love for that melody? Each time he wished to hear that melody in which he so delighted, the l~ing would call in a new person whom he found in the marl~etplace, one who had never before heard that melody. That person was hearing it for the very first time, and the musician's playing of the melody in his presence restored vitality and enthusiasm to his performance. The l~ing continued in that practice over a long period of time. 29 30 THE ttAflDIC PA~ABLE Sometime later, the king took counsel concerning what else he might do with the musician because it was troublesome for the king each time to have to invite a new person from the marketplace in order to rekindle enthusiasm in the musician. And the king was advised to blind the eyes of the musician so that the latter would never again be able to discern the image of a person. And every time the king desired to hear that melody he would simply inform the musician, "Behold a new man has now corne who has never heard your melody," and renewed delight would be kindled in the musician. For having no eyes to discern the figure of a person, he really believed that new persons were constantly corning [who had never before heard the melody]. (Or ha-me 'irY In his homily, Ze'ev Wolff of Zhitomir related the above parable to the jew's reciting formulary prayers before God, with the danger that with repetition, the act of prayer, like the violinist's melody, can become stale and lose its inner vitality. The parable is one expression of an ongoing and deep-rooted tension in jewish worship between keva and kavvanah, between accepted form, structure, and expression on one hand and spontaneity in prayer on the other. Recognizing this tension, Ze'ev Wolff of Zhitomir asserted that each act of prayer has its own experiential context according to each person's unique experience at that particular moment, and the uniqueness of the present moment enables a person to pray as though he had never prayed those words before. They become, in effect, as new words. While the story's jarring conclusion might perhaps belong to an older, independent tale, the parable with its explication insists that the familiar words of prayer must...