Short Story: Rabbi Anton Brushnev remembers his own Rabbi

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Rabbi Brushnev's own teacher, and mentor, Rabbi Lievie Gertruno, had died nearly 20 odd years ago now. Every year, though, Rabbi Anton lit a candle for him, and prayed, as he had done every year, since the death of his beloved teacher. "Bless me, as l live, and l bless you too, where you live now." "Love me, as l love you." And he smiled happily, as he remembered fondly his old teacher. He remembered as a young student, his own father had said this to him, and he had asked his Rabbi, and teacher about it. "Life is largely a life of wasted time, and effort for us, as we have no memory of most of our life experiences at all." "Our first 5 years, are mostly lost, our next five, we might remember one, or two incidents, at most, and so on, right to where we are now." "Life only makes sense then, if it is not really us living it here. It is our soul, the real liver, and all of our experiences are being recorded by it, which finds meaning from it, life, for itself, and grows in its understanding of God's meaning for its own existence too, as soul." His Rabbi had countered this idea with this answer of his own: "Is God living as God? Yes, and with no separation." "So it is with you too." "Live as you, as much as you can, and do not worry about too much which part of you it is; all works for you in the end. Love from where you are now, not from where you think that you might be, or be coming from, nor from who you think that you might really be, either now, or in any future to come too." Photo Credit: The photo used in this article was sourced from the free media site, pixabay.com The Rabbi was a scholar, with a lot of books in his library. But, he valued the words of his old teacher more than he valued the words in any of these books.