A gitte voch! This previous Shabbos was the yuhrtzait of the hailige B’Nei Yissoschor. In many kehillos it is the minhag not to say Tachanun because of this. B’H, the yuhrtzait fell out on Shabbos this year so there could be no problems brought by those who dislike skipping Tachanun.
Just in short, I saw brought up by the Kalever rebbe shlita of Williamsburg some interesting stories about the B’Nei Yissoschor sometime last year in the gilyon they send out. One that got my attention is how the rebbe davened. If someone walked into the beis midrash of the B’Nei Yissoschor in Dinov to daven Shachris and asked where the rebbe was holding, a chussid there could answer which word he was holding on because the rebbe took such a long time with each word.
It is easy to read such a sort of story and say “Wow, the rebbe, the Tzaddik, performed such a sort of avodah. This means that in order to be truly holy I have to be exactly like this also!” It says in Keser Shem Tov in the name of the Baal Shem though that every person must serve Hashem according to his own nature, to his own level. Not every Tzaddik serves Hashem the same way: some Tzaddikim daven for an incredibly long time; others daven very quickly like the Kotzker zt”l. Rebbe Nachman even teaches in one of his later Torahs that one who has attained the level of Mochin D’Gadlus (broad-mindedness in the Kabbalistic sense) can daven quickly since such a person can daven with real kavana even rapidly. Coming into this week, we should remember and strive to serve Hashem to the best of our capability in the unique way that the Aibishter created us to serve Him.
Yismach Lev 