A TALE OF A MENORAH*
RABBI NAKHMAN OF BRATSLEV
A young man left his father's home and spent a long time traveling in
other countries and visiting foreign nations.
After a while, he came back to his father and boasted that, while abroad
he had learned a great craft: How to make a highly artistic menorah.
And he told his father to gather all the men who practiced the craft
of menorah-making, and he would show them his great ability.
The father did his son's bidding. He gathered all the men who practiced
this craft so that they might see his son's ability and see what he had
accomplished while living among foreign nations.
When they had all gathered together, the son took out a menorah that
he had made.
It looked very ugly to all the people who were present.
His father went around and asked all of them to tell him what they
thought.
They were obliged to tell him the truth, namely that it was very ugly.
But the son kept boasting: "Just look at my great craftsmanship."
So his father told him that the menorah was not considered attractive
by anyone.
To which the son replied: "That's the proof of my craftsmanship. For
I showed each man his own failings. This menorah contains the failing of
each one of those craftsmen. You can see that this part is ugly in this
man's menorah, whereas another part is very beautiful. But with another
man, the exact opposite is true: The part that's so ugly in his friend's
menorah looks marvelously beautiful in his eyes. But how is it really?
That part is ugly. And the same holds for all of them. What one of them
finds so beautiful, another finds ugly. And the other way around. My menorah
consists only of failings so that everyone will see that they do not command
perfection. Everyone has a failing, for whatever he considers beautiful
is ugly in the eyes of others. In reality, however, I can make the menorah
as it should be."
If a man knew all the failings and imperfections of a thing, he would
know the very essence of that thing even though he had never laid eyes
upon it.
No two people are alike.
All miseries were contained in Adam, His very name contains all miseries.
All lights were included in the word light.
And thus, too, all things of creation, even the leaves of a tree, for
one leaf is like the next leaf.
  
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