Story Section:
Requiem for a Pretense
A Message from Gershon Winkler
Chanoch adds a message: This story is true. The fact are true. There are opinions expressed that are not my opinions. Yet the story is worth reading even if the opinions upset you. This story is designed to wake you up to evaluate the world that you live within.
Yes, I know. The world is in turmoil as madmen aim their missiles at either coast, leaving us nowhere to flee but Kansas. And all we're doing at
Walking Stick
is sending out teachings about jellyfish and matzoh, and every now and then offering a retreat or two to help you make-believe that everything is okay.
Did I ever tell you the story of the man who was reincarnated so many times and through so many forms that he finally gave up and resolved to simply enjoy the peaceful bliss of being neither dead nor alive? It's a great tale cleverly spun by the prolific 19th-century Russian Talmudist, poet and storyteller, Avraham Bear Gottlober.
You see, briefly, there was this Hassidic singer who just couldn't do life right the first time, let alone the second time, not to mention the third, fourth, fifth or sixth time, and so they kept sending him back, each time trying something different, like reincarnating him first as a horse, then as a cantor, then as a fish, then as a tax-collector, a dog, a critic, a donkey, a doctor, a leech, a moneylender, a hog, and finally as a contractor. (You have to admit, though, the leech idea was not only brilliant, but original.)
His main problem was his inability to accept who and what he was and was not and his relentless attempts at pretending he was who he wasn't or was not who he was. For instance, as a Hassidic singer, he was anything but a Hassid, let alone a singer, but pretended to be both in order to earn the esteem of the community and the local rabbi. To carry on this pretense effectively, he would drink himself into a stupor so that he instinctively bellowed out tunes and chants with such fervor and abandon that everyone thought him divinely-inspired. (I know, you're wondering, like, what's a story about a chronically reincarnated schmeggeg with issues got to do with the precarious nature of contemporary world events? - try to be patient.)
