So it was that when the Hasidic pilgrims vied for those among them who had endured the most suffering, who was most entitled to complain, the Zaddck told them the story of the Sorrow Tree. On the Day of Judgment, each person will be allowed to hang one’s unhappiness and sufferings on a brach of the great Tree of Sorrows. After all have found a limb from which their miseries may dangle, they may all walk slowly around the tree. Each person is to search for a set of sufferings that he or she would prefer to those he or she has hung on the tree.
In the end, each one freely chooses to reclaim his or her own assortment of sorrows rather than those of another. Each person leaves the Tree of Sorrows wiser that when he or she arrived.