Why were you not Zusya

A rabbi on his deathbed is afraid of the wrong question, then of the right one.

By Sovandarapor (James) Kong · 2026-08-22 · Nondual

Chapter 10 of 12 in The masters were funny

Rabbi Zusya of Hanipol is dying, and he is frightened, and his students find this alarming because he has been a good man his whole life. They ask what he is afraid of.

He says: when I get there, they will not ask me why I was not Moses. I could answer that one. They will ask me why I was not Zusya.

This is Hasidic, eighteenth century, and the story is usually used as an argument for authenticity, which is a fine use and slightly smaller than the story.

Notice the first half. Why were you not Moses is a question he can handle, because he can point at the obvious: I did not have Moses's gifts, his job, his mountain. Every comparison to somebody else comes with a built in defence, which is why comparing yourself to others is so comfortable. There is always an excuse in the frame.

Why were you not Zusya has no defence in it at all. Nothing was withheld. He was fully equipped to be Zusya from the first day, since it required no talent he lacked.

Where this touches everything else on this page: the thing you cannot be excused from is the one thing you never had to become. There is no acquisition step. That is exactly why it is missable, because everything we know how to want is at a distance and this is not.

I do not want to convert a dying man's fear into a slogan about being yourself. The story is uncomfortable on purpose. His whole life of study did not settle the one question that was his, and he says so out loud in front of his students, which is a strange and honest way to go out.

And the tradition kept the story, rather than the tidier one where he dies serene. That tells you something about what they thought was worth passing on.