It happened one evening that the well known Master Rabbi Zusya left his home to go to the synagogue, but on the way he was stopped by a pair of suspicious policemen.

“Where are you going, old man?” they demanded roughly, for Jews were not well treated in those days.

Rabbi Zusya looked at the policemen mildly, and said, “I don’t know.”

“What? What do you mean, you don’t know? Of course you know where you are going. Tell us at once, where are you going?”

But Rabbi Zusya again said, “I don’t know where I am going.”

The policemen suspected that the Rabbi was concealing something. Who wanders around in the night without knowing where he is going? But the Rabbi always gave them the same answer. Finally, they hauled him to the police station, sat him on a chair and began to question him more intensely.

“You are not leaving here until you tell us, where are you going?”

And every time, the Rabbi would respond, “I don’t know where I am going.”

Finally, the Rabbi’s family came. When he didn’t arrive at the synagogue, they began searching everywhere for him, and they also came to the police station.

“Rabbi!” they said, “when you left home you were going to the synagogue, but here you are in the police station. What happened?”

“What?” demanded the police. “You were going to the synagogue? But why didn’t you tell us this? You said you didn’t know where you were going.”

The Rabbi smiled, and said, “I left home with the intention of going to the synagogue, but you see – I came here. The Almighty decides where we actually go.”