The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread, Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf
the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

R. Hirsch Leib of Ulik left home as a young man to live in “exile” (to connect with and understand the exile of the Shekhina) with only a poor bundle on his back. He met a farmer who asked, “Where are you going, young man?” “I’m going to look for work,” he replied. The farmer responded, “Is there no work in your village?” “It is hard to find it,” said R. Hirsch Leib. “You are mistaken,” said the farmer. “A determined person who is not lazy will find work even in his home.”

Later in life, when R. Hirsch Leib became a recognized rebbe, he would tell this story to his hasidim. And, he would add, “When a Jew truly, deeply desires to serve God, it is possible to find this work even at home.”

- exile
- Shekhina
- home
- where are you going?
- work/avodah

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

Copyright 1997 by Coleman Barks. From The Illuminated Rumi.