Acting Neighborly
My dear disciple, Lyron Elbaz, lives in Lyon. His home is near that of a fierce anti Semite. One day, my disciple told me, “Rebbi, I have no doubt that this man is from the seed of Amalek. Whenever my family celebrates a Jewish holiday, he protests vociferously with his virulent vilifications.”
“Can you give me an example?” I asked.
“Certainly,” was his immediate reply. “Every Shabbat, as we sing the Shabbat zemirot at the meal, he bangs on our mutual wall and shouts at us to pipe down.” Then he continued, “Honored Rav, this is but one example out of many. My non-Jewish neighbor eschews anything tinged with holiness. I am certain he is descended from Amalek.”
“This is your opinion. If you were to ask me, I think your neighbor is actually a Jew. If any sign of Jewishness evokes an attack of anger, it is only due to the Jewish spark hidden in his soul. As it senses anything Jewish, this spark begins to grow. But before it has a chance to become fired up with a Torah life, the Yetzer Hara becomes enflamed and injects his neshamah with revulsion and repulsion for all things Jewish. This is why he openly demonstrates his objection to anything having to do with religion.”
My disciple was dumbstruck at this interpretation of events. But I was not finished yet.
“What I would advise you to do,” I said, “is to go over to the man and cordially ask whether or not he is Jewish. You may be very surprised by what you hear. Come back to me with his answer.”
He was taken aback at my words, but agreed to do as I had instructed. He later reported the following: He had approached his neighbor in a pleasant manner, and related that he wanted to improve relations between them. At first, the man was skeptical, if not suspicious. But he finally acquiesced to my pupil’s request and invited him into his house. When my pupil asked whether he was a Jew or gentile, he roundly asserted that he was a true-blue Frenchman. He assured my pupil that no Jewish blood ran through his veins.
They entered into a friendly conversation, and then, in a confidential tone, the man said, “I have a piece of paper with writing, which my mother left me before her death. But it is written in a strange language. Therefore, I was never able to read it. Maybe you can decipher her last will to me before she died?” He put the page in front of him.
My disciple’s surprise at this man’s openheartedness only matched his shock to discover the message written in – Hebrew! His mother bequeathed to her son the missive that he was a Jew. She signed her name Liba, a common Ashkenazi name.
When the neighbor realized he was a Jew, he began unwinding the thread of his life-story. He said that he was the son of Holocaust survivors and had never been informed of his Jewish ancestry.
After some investigation, the man discovered that he was truly a son of the Chosen Nation. With time, he became closer to his heritage. He recognized his Creator and ceased his denunciations of his fellow Jew’s customs. It was in the merit of his neighbor that this man returned to his roots.
Mishlei (3:17) states, “Its ways are ways of pleasantness and all its paths are peace.” Only with words of Torah, words of pleasantness and peace, was this man saved from his attitude of anger. And his soul was saved from spiritual assimilation and annihilation.
A Case of Heavenly Protection
My holy father, Rabbi Moshe Aharon, zy”a, was once on his way from Morocco to Eretz Yisrael. He suddenly realized that his suitcase, containing his money and passport, was missing. He was greatly distressed by this.
He immediately turned to Hashem in supplication. He asked that the merit of his father, Rabbi Chaim Pinto, should protect him, and his suitcase should remain untouched.
His prayers were heeded. Father retraced his steps and found his suitcase intact, resting exactly where he had left it.
Years later, I found myself traveling by train to Paris. As I was disembarking, there was a great tumult. Many people wished to get on the train, and there was a lot of pushing. As I tried to make my way off the train before the doors closed. I forgot my valise, which contained my divrei Torah, as well as money, passports, and official documents which were necessary for my journey.
I only realized a while later that I was missing my valise. I became very distraught. I was upset about losing the copious handwritten divrei Torah, into which I had invested tremendous effort. It is the spiritual acquisitions which I amass in this world that will escort me on my final journey and speak in my defense in the World to Come. In contrast, the loss of money and passports would prove a headache and inconvenience merely in this world.
As my father before me, I turned to Hashem, asking Him to allow me to find my valise, in the merit of my holy ancestors. I returned to the place where I thought I had left it. It was safe and sound, waiting patiently for my return.
My companions had already given up on ever finding the lost valise. They had told me there was no chance I would ever retrieve it. Imagine their surprise at seeing it in my hands. They thought their eyes were playing tricks on them. Finding the valise amid all the chaos of the train station was nothing short of a miracle of the highest order.
I, too, was stunned by this turn of events. The train station is a place abuzz with humanity, as thousands pass by every hour. How is it possible to locate a lone valise amidst all the hubbub and hullabaloo there? And how could it be that no one else noticed a forsaken valise?
We must train ourselves to believe, unquestioningly, that Hashem can do anything, even that which contradicts the normal course of events, rendering the seeing blind, if He is so disposed, as the pasuk states, “They have eyes but cannot see.” In this manner, I reclaimed my valise and continued on my way.
Many years after my father’s passing, I found a note among a pile of papers he had left behind, in my sister’s house in New York. It said, “The secret of Moshe Rabbeinu was revealed to me from Heaven.” When I read this, I nearly keeled over. I never knew that my father had merited a Divine Revelation. Now, years after his death, I discovered this revealing note.
There is no doubt that had father told me in his lifetime that he merited a Divine Revelation, I would have been skeptical. Therefore, Hashem arranged things so that I should find this note only years later, when I was capable of appreciating another aspect of Father’s greatness.
Lineage Is a Tool to Serve Hashem
I often meet ignorant Jews who take pride in their rabbinic lineage, as their families boast a history of rich Torah giants. This makes them secure in the belief that they will merit a portion in the World to Come. They themselves, though, don’t bother to invest in Avodat Hashem and fritter away their lives on inanities.
A man once approached me, all smiles, as though we were old acquaintances. When he saw that I did not recognize him, he asked me, surprised, “How can it be that the Rav doesn’t recognize me? I’m the son of so-and-so, a great tzaddik, the son of so-and-so, a tzaddik in his own right. These were great tzaddikim of note. Certainly the Rav knows who they were!”
I replied, “Of course I heard of your righteous father. I even knew your grandfather, who was a great Torah scholar. I knew these men by the merit of their Torah knowledge. But you, I don’t recognize at all. I never even heard about you! How do you have the audacity to take pride in the Torah of your fathers, when you do not continue in their distinguished ways?”
The Jew’s mission in this world is to exert himself in Avodat Hashem and acquire a portion in Torah and mitzvot. These merits will advocate on his behalf in Olam Haba, and his neshamah will have the honor of sitting among the neshamot of his righteous fathers. But he should not rely only on the merit of his ancestors to protect him from harm.
The maxim “When will my deeds reach those of my forefathers?” applies only to those who continue the legacy of their ancestors by serving Hashem as they should. But often, the descendants glorify themselves in their lineage and fail to uphold the connection to their exalted past. They thereby hurt and shame their holy fathers in the Upper Worlds.
Torah Is Not a Given
I was once asked to deliver an address in a yeshiva, late at night. I was very impressed to be met by four hundred young men, involved in their Torah studies. The staff members pointed out three boys who had been far from Torah and mitzvot and had merited returning to their Father. Each of these boys, they averred, was a descendant of a prominent, world-renowned tzaddik.
I had the chills as I gazed at these young men. The merit of their ancestors stood by them, bringing them back to the path of Judaism. But Torah is never a given. It does not automatically pass through the bloodstream from father to son. Every generation must pursue it on their own, acquiring it by their own sweat and toil.
What a person does inherit, after he has exerted himself in acquiring Torah knowledge, is the assistance of his righteous fathers. These three boys were a case in point. Until they took the first step of doing teshuvah, their fathers’ merits were ineffective. Once they made that daring move, returning to Torah and faith, their fathers’ merits surely helped them see blessing in their endeavors.
A Curse Laid to Rest
When I was once in Venezuela, a woman came to me, asking for a berachah. She was devastated, relating that many family members had died young, rachmana litzlan. Those who survived were very worried about their fate.
I sank deep in thought. After a few moments, I asked her whether her family was by any chance Kohanim.
“Yes,” she replied.
“If that is the case, you are likely descendants of Eli Hakohen, who were cursed by Elkanah Hanavi, and later, by Shmuel Hanavi, that they would die in their prime.”
The woman was filled with dread, mortally afraid for the rest of her family. I gave her instructions for a tikkun. Baruch Hashem, from then on, this tragic form of death stopped visiting her family.
Reports of this episode spread quickly. It proved that the words of Tanach are true and relevant in our day and age.
The Picture of Purity
When I was in New York, a Jew named Menachem T., who prayed at the Yad Avraham Beit Hakeneset, approached me, asking for a blessing for his sick father.
This story took place before Menachem was a ba’al teshuvah. His clothing attested to his detachment from all things Jewish. Nevertheless, I told him, “The fact that you came to ask for a berachah from a rabbi proves that you are a believer. It is up to you now to take that belief to the next level, strengthening your faith and knowledge of Judaism.”
I asked, “Were your parents mitzvah-observant?”
“No,” he replied, adding, “I’m not completely certain, but I am pretty sure that there were never mitzvah observers in our family.”
I replied, “Someone who looks at you would have a hard time believing that you had a righteous grandfather. I want to ask you to do something. Go to your parents’ house and look through their albums. Find a picture of your grandfather. If he had a beard and payot, it is a sign from Heaven that his merit will stand by you. If this weren’t the case, you would not have approached me to begin with. This might also be a sign that you should become a ba’al teshuvah, thereby bringing merit to your father, for a complete recovery.”
Menachem continued, “As far as I know, there were no religious Jews in my family. It is difficult to imagine that my grandfather had a beard and payot.”
“What can you lose? Please do as I ask and see what you come up with.”
Menachem’s parents lived in Netanya. He took a plane and flew over the Atlantic, in search of the picture. He rifled through their albums, until, to his utter surprise, he came upon the image of a distinguished-looking man, adorned with a full beard and payot.
Menachem studied the picture. On the back, he read one word, “Menachem.” He immediately approached his father, asking him whose picture this was.
“This was my father, of blessed memory, after whom you are named.”
At that very moment, something stirred in Menachem’s heart. The spark of Judaism, contained in every Jewish soul, was fanned into the fire of teshuvah.
After some time, when Menachem’s father began noticing the change in his son, he told him, “I can now leave this world in peace, for I know that there is someone who will say Kaddish for me.”
The man passed away that same day.
As long as the son did not do teshuvah, restoring to the family its rightful birthright, the father battled his illness, amidst tremendous suffering. His soul refused to leave its earthly abode. Once the father saw that he was leaving his family’s heritage in good hands, his soul was calmed, and he was able to rest in peace.
