A child's call of "Father, Father"

From the diary of Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok, the Previous Lubavitcher Rebbe

It is an hour since I returned from visiting the abandoned old park and its ancient trees. The walks between the rows of trees are overgrown with thorns and nettles, and wherever you turn in the park and square -- desolation and ruin.

Little wonder that the hamlet of Serebrinka, and its park in particular, are extremely precious to me, for many are the pleasant memories from the summer of 5660 when we lived in Serebrinka, as recounted in my journals of that year. How pleasant it is to stroll along the walks and trails which we then walked, to sit on the benches on which we then sat, for only they can evoke many details of the talks that I heard at the time from father--the nuances of the heart cannot be captured in writing.

So, immediately upon our arrival here today at six-thirty in the evening, I yearned to visit the park.

For an hour and a half I luxuriated in strolling through the park, sitting on its benches, gazing at the sky, and drowning in memories--until I heard the voice of my three-year-old daughter Chana, may she live, calling to me: "Father, Father, where are you...? Father, Father, answer me...," repeating her call twice and three times.

Her call interjected most aptly into my thoughts: At that very moment I had been thinking about my father's discourse of the past Sabbath, entitled "G-d Descended Upon Mt. Sinai." In it, Father [Rabbi Shalom Dov Ber, fifth Rebbe of Chabad] cites a metaphor to explain the difference between the Divine flow which comes in response to one's Torah study and observance of mitzvot, and G-d's response to one's 'service of the heart,' one's prayer.

The service of Torah and mitzvot draws a Divine response comparable to a father's pleasure in a son who toils in his father's business to increase his father's wealth. But the response evoked by prayer is like a father's response to his small child who yearns for him and cries: "Father, Father, answer me..."

Hearing my own daughter's cries, I sensed in myself how a child's call of "Father, Father" awakens an inner delight that is incomparably greater than the pleasure accorded by the older son's most impressive accomplishments.

The calling continued: "Father, Father, where are you? Father, Father answer me, hug me." I followed her voice and she hugged me and told me that grandfather, grandmother and mother were all waiting for me for the evening meal. She, too, will eat with us, she said with pride, but her younger sister, Chaya Mushka, (may she live) is already asleep -- in fact, she slept through the entire trip from Lubavitch and doesn't even know that we have arrived in the country! --and she laughed in delight.

Reprinted with permission from Once Upon A Chasid, by Yanki Tauber