G-d and Man

After the prayers were finished, the chassid went over to one of the guests and said very quickly in a soft, murmuring voice: “Werurygoigtdy?”

I seemed to spend my days ping-ponging between the cold, grueling reality of chemotherapy and an over-emotional outpouring of kindness and compassion...

"Traveling to the Rebbe gives me special powers," the chassid claimed. "I can read people's thoughts."

Dressed in the clothes of a simple wayfarer, the Baal Shem Tov would travel from town to town and from hamlet to hamlet, asking questions

"How I do kaparot?" repeated Rabbi Elimelech. "I do what everyone else does. I hold the rooster in one hand, the prayer book in the other, and recite: This is my exchange, this is in my stead, this is my atonement..."

"Why did your husband leave you?" asked Rabbi Israel. "He says that I'm ugly," said the deserted wife. "And what do you say to that?" asked the Chassidic master.

A Russian peasant once said to his friend: "You know, Ivan, I have been thinking, it is really very stupid for us to pay taxes to the Czar."

My father was so deep in meditation that he drew the attention of many passersby. Whenever I observed him in this state I yearned to know what thoughts were engaging his mind, and what world his mind was now surveying. At length a deep sigh inadvertently ...

It was obvious that G‑d was there in the room. Because she was talking to Him.

"Perhaps I can help you," said the Baal Shem Tov. On small slips of paper he wrote, in simple Yiddish, "morning prayers," "addition for Mondays and Thursdays," "for Shabbat," and inserted them in the innkeeper's siddur