There is a famous though likely apocryphal story of Ernest Hemingway wagering that he could write a story in six words. As one telling goes, he responded to his disbelieving takers with a six-word story that, indeed, had a beginning, a middle, and an end. Many considered this story about Hemingway’s short story to have been spawned by a scene in John DeGroot’s one-man play Papa. The pithy story of pathos goes like this: “For Sale. Baby shoes, never worn.”

Below is another famous story. And also one that is short. It comes from the Hasidic tradition.

Once, the Hasidic rabbi Zusya came to his followers with tears in his eyes. They asked him:

“Zusya, what’s the matter?”

And he told them about his vision, “I learned the question that the angels will one day ask me about my life.”

The followers were puzzled, “Zusya, you are pious. You are scholarly and humble. You have helped so many of us. What question about your life could be so terrifying that you would be frightened to answer it?

Zusya replied, “I have learned that the angels will not ask me, “Why weren’t you a Moses, leading your people out of slavery?’ and that the angels will not ask me, “Why weren’t you a Joshua, leading your people into the promised land?’”

Zusya sighed, “They will say to me, ‘Zusya, why weren’t you Zusya?'”

~ from Tales of the Hasidim by Martin Buber