When the Rebbe came home one day, he noticed that his young son was crying. He stopped
and asked,
"Why are you crying, my Yankele?" With tears streaming down his cheeks, the boy
sobbed, "Because I am playing hide and seek." "But that's no reason to cry!" said the Rebbe. "Yes
it is because I am hiding, but nobody is seeking me."
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47
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"Ah yes, my Yankele," said the Rebbe
with a sigh, "So it is with the human soul which God places inside each of us. Sometimes It too
hides, and nobody seeks."
Like the Rebbe in our story, I sigh as well, whenever I reflect on the uncaring insensitive
“soul-less” behavior which I have observed so often in my thirty years as a rabbi. I regret to say
that I have seen so many of my congregants and their children desperately seeking... reaching out
and sometimes even crying out for help, only to discover that there are so many others out there
who seem to be hiding. Like little Yankele, no one was there to see their needs, hear their cries, feel
their pain.