As a kid, I used to stare at Zalman Kleinman’s drawings and fly in my thoughts.

The chossid with a tallis folded neatly on his shoulder One hand is holding lightly his beard. Like he is טראכטינג Chassidus for endless hours, the ציור of the expected חסיד thinking chassidus before davening.

And right next to the aron kodesh, another chossid in the middle of Shemoneh Esreh. Body against the wall, talis איבער א קאפ. Nothing exaggerated. Just an 'Oyved'. You look at it and you feel like you should just focus and fly back to Lubavitch as a tomim.

As a kid, I thought:
That’s what I’m supposed to become

A muft

Mufshat from gashmiyus.
Walking around talking Chassidus and farbrenging about it.
Tracht’ing טיף sugyos in Chassidus while the world keeps moving.

As the Mitteler Rebbe said that he was wishing that when two chassidim met they would speak about יחודא עילאה ויחודא תתאה.

So in my head, being a chossid meant being removed. Elevated. a little not here.

Then I got older.

I came to mesivta.

I heard stories of altere chassidim. Pnimiusdike Yidden. Avodah’dike davening.

But I started looking around.

And I didn’t see guys walking around talking ע"ב.

I saw mashpiim. Hanholo. Heilige Yidden.

Serious real chassidim.

They weren’t acting intense. They weren’t floating. They were normal. They handled things. They talked straight. They laughed when it was right. They were involved in the velt, not detached from it.

So I started asking myself:

Am I supposed to look like the drawing?
Or is the drawing just a moment?

Because if I try to imitate that image walking slower, speaking heavier, acting deep it feels fake.

The chossid in the drawing wasn’t trying to look holy. He was just in a real moment of פנימיות. That’s different.

We just learned Rambam Hilchos Deos. The Rambam says don’t go to extremes. Not to the side of indulgence. Not to the side of extreme withdrawal. דרך האמצעית.

Maybe trying to be a “muft” is also an extreme.

To try to be completely mufshat from gashmiyus at 16 years old that’s not the derech. That’s an image.

A real chossid today in דור השביעי?

He learns seriously.
He davens honestly even if it’s not picture perfect.
He works on himself quietly.
He’s involved. He helps and takes achrayus.

He doesn’t imitate a drawing.

Maybe those pictures weren’t telling us “become this.”

Maybe they were showing what happens when a Yid works on himself for years and someone catches a second of it on paper.

So what do I tell a bochur?

Not “be a muft.”

Be real.

Build your pnimius honestly and slowly.
Stay balanced.
Be in the velt but not owned by it.

It doesn’t have to be you’re tracht’ing deeply with a tallis folded on your shoulder and someone would draw you like that, just be yourself.

In Lubavitch there were a lot of tmimim. When you open ליובאוויטש וחייליה you see pictures of tmimim from Lubavitch. Some of them are טאקע those guys, but a nice amount of them aren’t. They are businessmen in Moscow. They are the פשוטע אידן, but they do עבודת השם in any way they are able to do בכל דרכיך דעהו by the full definition.

Let the muft stay in the ציור you just be a תמים in your own מציאות.