There was once a Hasidic man. He went to his Rebbe (rabbi) and said, “Rebbe, people have gotten a chance to see Eliyahu HaNavi (Elijah the Prophet). I want to see Eliyahu HaNavi. How do I get to see Eliyahu HaNavi?” So the Rebbe said, “I’ll tell you what to do. Take a basket. Fill up the basket with bread and wine and meat and chicken and crackers and fish, cakes. Put it in the basket. Go into the forest. There’s a hut in the forest, a simple hut, and leave the basket by the door on Thursday night, and you’ll see Eliyahu HaNavi.” He’s all excited. That’s all it takes to see Eliyahu HaNavi. He fills up the basket with the wine and the meat and the fish and the bread and the cake, and he pulls up the baskets, all excited. He tiptoes to the door on Thursday night, leaves it there, puts it down, and looks around. “Where’s Eliyahu HaNavi?” He says, “I thought I was going to see him. I don’t see him.” He comes back to the Rebbe and says, “Rebbe, I don’t see Eliyahu HaNavi.” The Rebbe says, “You know what? You have to do it again.” He says, “Okay, I’ll do it again next Thursday night.” He fills up a basket with the meat and the fish and the bread and the cake. And everything, wine, and he fills it up. Drinks—beautiful—and he tiptoes to the house. He puts it by the front door and again looks around. Nobody’s there. There’s a family in the house, but there’s no Eliyahu HaNavi anywhere. He’s like, “I don’t understand.” He goes back to the Rebbe and says, “Rebbe, I want to see Eliyahu HaNavi.” The Rebbe says, “Do it again.” He says, “Okay, I’ll do it again.” He fills up the basket with everything I just said and starts tiptoeing his way in the forest towards the house. As he’s getting closer to the house, the window is open, and the child says to the mother, “Mom, we have no food. Shabbat is coming. How are we gonna get food?” And the mother says, “Don’t worry. Just like last week and the week before, Hashem sent Eliyahu HaNavi. He’s gonna send Eliyahu HaNavi this week too.” Then he puts down their basket. He says, “Oh, I just realized it. I’m Eliyahu HaNavi. I could be that Eliyahu HaNavi.” For somebody, Eliyahu HaNavi is not some vision I have to see. It’s a person I can be.
I said, “Everyone in this room came to Morocco to get closer to Hashem, to find Hashem, to build a relationship with Hashem.” I said, “You already have that relationship with Hashem. You already have that relationship in your home in Brooklyn, in Chicago, in Israel, in Australia and Lakewood, wherever you live. You already have Hashem with you because you’re living that kind of life.” I just spent these past two days with you, and I can see the kind of people you are. I’m not in awe, and I’m not feeling bad. We’re in this together, and we have to look at it that way. When you see a person who’s going through a unique challenge, sometimes it means they have a unique relation with Hashem, and sometimes you have to say, “I’m not sure that I measure up.” Not, “I am luckier.” I have some smirk in my brain, some egotistical, I think, obnoxious little thought in my head that I’m a lucky person. That is so dangerous and so catastrophic. So yes, you’re going to talk to a lot of people today, tomorrow, the next day. You’re going to talk to people, and some will be in the exact same situation as you. But most won’t. Most will have something you don’t or not have something you do. In both cases, whether they have what you don’t have or you have what they don’t have, your mentality has to be the same. Don’t feel small next to someone else who has something you don’t. And don’t feel big next to someone else who doesn’t have something that you do. We’re all in this together.
The message of the Eglah Arufah (the heifer whose neck is broken) is: You want to know why this man was vulnerable and even got killed? Because he was treated like he was different. He wasn’t treated by the elders properly. He wasn’t escorted properly. And therefore, we send a message to these elders who now have to break the neck of a calf. And the message to these elders is that just like that person might be missing something now, you’re also missing something too. There’s no difference between you. I can’t tell you the words to use. I can’t tell you the innuendo. I can’t tell you the joke you could crack. I can’t tell you the information you could share or what you cannot share. I could just tell you what has to be in your heart and in your soul. In your heart and in your soul, there’s no smile, there’s no smirk, there’s no lucky, there’s no blessed, there’s no better, there’s no worse. We are all the same.