Entry Four
THE MASTER OF PRAYER, excerpt from book title "The Tales of Rabbi Nachman" by Martin Buber
There is Another Meaning
there is another meaning, and its way leads to another goal. To us, however, his views and his will are dark, although in all this time a love for our lord has touched our hearts and made us see,
so that in many things we see what formerly was closed to us, and the world seems to us broader and brighter."
When the master had heard all, he asked to be conducted to the hero. When the two men met, they recognized and embraced each other.
But the anguish for the lost ones hovered over them. "When I returned at that time from my journey after the storm had laid waste the world," spoke the hero of his fate,
"I found my house deserted and all my dear ones vanished from me. Then my steps no longer obeyed the way, but strayed about at random.
As I roamed thus, I came to a place where I was certain in my heart that the king must be tarrying, but I could not find him. Then I went further.
Another time I sensed the nearness of the queen. And so on my way I have set foot on the abodes of all my dear ones without finding one.
But your place l have not seen, and my step has not crossed yours."
"I too," answered the master, "have gone over all the places where those who are dear to us paused to lament, and in each place the lament had lodged in the branches of the trees and in the throats of the birds, and so they rustled and sang it down to me.
And over your place too have I been. "For on a hill there lay spread a golden glaze that did not vanish even in the twilight, and the glaze painted on the stony summit of the hill
the shape of a crown.
Then I knew that the king had lingered here, and here had lain beside him his crown, which cannot stay at any place without leaving it its image. And from round about there came to me out of the air the mighty and lonesome laments.
But I could not find the king's track.
"Farther on I went over a sandy country. There I observed on the ground great drops of blood that stayed on the ground, did not trickle away and did not dry, and from them the glance of two eyes seemed to press upward toward me.
The Tears of the Queen
I knew that these were the tears of the queen, which she had wept out of her blood. And through the sand whispered the lament, soft and broken.
nowhere to be beheld in the wide, open plains. "l went from there, and one morning I came on a brook, over which flowed a thin milky streak that did not mix with the water.
And out of the brook there hummed forth, softly and tenderly, a gentle, lamenting cradle-song that never ended, and flowing in even measure seemingly without change, still gave birth to ever new sounds.
And I knew that the milk had sprung from the breast of the king's daughter as she stood there and pined for her child.
But she herself was not there.
"Later I came upon a gigantic stone in a heath. sat down next to it and perceived that it was covered with signs. I recognized lines and paths similar to those that were engraved in the mysterious hand that belonged to the king. Here the wise man of the king had been and had sought to imitate some lines from the tablet of the worlds.
And also from the dumb stone the lament spoke with soundless voice.ā
"Another time I walked up a steep grade and reached a place where an abyss opened sightlessly down into the darkness.
But the Darkness was not Empty
But the darkness was not empty; rather, a lamenting tone hovered therein, swung back and forth in the space, entangled itself in the limitless and returned.
Here the singer of the king had stood, and his song had filled the abyss.
"Then I came to a meadow in which grew a single tree with widespread branches. Underneath it, the earth was rooted up, as though from the thrust of an enormous sword.
And from the cavity ascended a distant whisper of the lament.
Then I recognized your presence. "But on another day my steps led me into a forest valley. There I saw lying on gray moss a lock of sun-blond hair that shone of its own light.
Round about me between the bushes was the gentle tread of the naked feet of a child. But there was no shape amongst them.
And in the bushes was a talking, not like a lament, but like the clear and peaceful talking of a child that is certain of all the future.
But the talk came from no mouth, rather hung and fluttered over the bushes like gossamer."
"Over all these places I too have gone," replied the hero, "but by the gold hair of my child I have lingered and wept, and seven strands of it I have taken with me.
They light up in the seven colors of the rainbow and are my consolation on all my ways.
"When I arose and walked onward, I came on a band of strong people whom I have conquered and at whose head I have set myself in order to conquer the world for my king."
Then the master remembered the people in the country of wealth, and he told the hero of the madness that had befallen them, and how deeply they were possessed by their mania.
He confided to the hero that it seemed to him a sheerly impossible undertaking to change their views. "For," he said, "wherever man adheres to being something or doing something, there his roots remain in the human, and out of his roots he can become whole, and in whatever he engages himself, in knowledge or in the word, in beauty or in joy, in death or in eternal honor, he can be saved through himself and can himself establish his life.
But where man adheres to the illusion of possessing something, there he tears up his roots out of the human; they no longer draw up healing to him from out of the human earth, and I know no help for him."
"I have heard once from our king," spoke the hero, "that it is possible to liberate men from all errors save from the error of gold.
For those who have fallen into it, there is only one salvation: they must be conducted to the place from which the magic sword borrows its powers."
The sword in the stone from Arthurian legend, in a scene from the fantasy film 'Excalibur', 1981. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excalibur
[stroytelling was the ancient wisdom taught by allegory, sometimes humourous
An Hour With Dr. George M. Lamsa (DVD) https://noohra.com/product/an-hour-with-dr-george-m-lamsa-dvd/
Originally taped for TV in 1972 in Cadillac, Michigan under the title Lamsa at His Best. With the kind permission of Dr. Lamsaās niece, Mrs David (Nina) Shabaz, we are now able to share this rare event in DVD format. A wonderful opportunity to see and hear Dr. Lamsa āliveā as he answers many questions on the Bible from the Aramaic perspective
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