An Unorthodox Approach to Fundraising
Lanus, Argentina was home to only Reform Jews for many years. Finally, an Orthodox Jewish family settled there. With great mesirut nefesh, they changed the face of the place. The citizens became transformed, slowly but surely, into a cohesive unity of Orthodox Jews, lovers of Hashem and His Torah. Even the Reform leaders changed their color, and today they send their children to Torah-true centers of learning.
When I was invited to visit Lanus, I eagerly anticipated a grand welcome, and hoped that I would be successful in raising funds for our institutions. Imagine my disappointment at being met by an impoverished community. I was even approached with the request to help their Torah institutions.
At first, the Yetzer Hara attempted to prevent me from agreeing to this. But I overcame him, and, with siyata di’Shemaya, we managed to collect a respectable sum from the public. When my Yetzer Hara tried to step in, convincing me that certainly our institutions deserved a cut of the profits in lieu of the efforts I had exerted, I declared before the audience, “Rabbotai! I am not satisfied with the money that came in. I would therefore like to add my own contribution of five thousand dollars!” I did this in order to infuse myself with true love of my fellow Jews. Didn’t their institutions also contribute much Torah learning to the world?
True love has the power to repair the breaches wrought by baseless hatred, the cause of all our suffering until this very day.
