One finds among those who seek wealth that one person attains all that he desires of it through the means we have mentioned another attains it through inheritance and the like and each thinks that it is the means that made him acquire acquire it without the means he would not have attained it Hence he exalts the means and not the cause
He is much like a man in the desert suffering from thirst who, upon finding brackish water in a pit, greatly rejoiced and quenched his thirst with it When he continued a little further, he found a spring bubbling with fresh sweet water and regretted that he had drunk of the brackish water and slaked his thirst with it
pg 415
Once, on a Motzoei Shabbos, the chasidim were sitting in the bais medrash of the Ruzhiner Rebbe zy”a for Melave Malka. Suddenly, the Rebbe opened the door of his room next to the bais medrash, stood at the entrance, and said, “The Baal Shem Tov was not a deity, and the zaida, the Magid, was not just an ordinary wagon driver. And once, when the holy Baal Shem Tov prayed, his talis fringe fell out of his gartel and dragged on the floor. The Magid approached, picked it up, and put it back in the gartel, but he was trembled with such tremendous fear that he fainted and his life was in danger. They were compelled to rouse the Baal Shem Tov from his deep dveikus in order to calm him.” He then added, “I told you that the Baal Shem Tov was not a deity and my zaida, the Magid, was no wagon driver. Still and all, when he touched the Besht’s garment, he fainted from fear. The entire world is Hashem’s garment. How much fear must we feel to touch this world!” May the memory of the...