An area that will build our children’s inner soul is to help them realize that Am Yisrael are one. We are a family. We are all responsible for one another.
A couple once came to Rav Shimshon Pincus for shalom bayis counseling. In the course of the conversation, it emerged that one of the things that bothered the wife was that her husband wouldn’t eat all the food she worked hard to cook for him.
Asked the Husband Why He Wouldn’t Eat His Wife’s Food
When Rav Pincus asked him, in private, why he wouldn’t eat her food, he sheepishly explained that he had neglected his teeth for many years, and they had decayed to the point that he simply couldn’t chew certain dishes she prepared.
“Why don’t you fix your teeth?” Rav Pincus prodded.
“I don’t have money,” the man replied.
Rav Pincus was not a rich man by any stretch, but he took all the money he had at hand and gave it to this man. “Go get your teeth fixed,” he said.
Somebody heard about this and just couldn’t understand why Rav Pincus would squander so much money to get this man’s teeth fixed. “Rabbi, you don’t even have enough money for your own family,” he exclaimed. “How could you give so much money to a person you barely know?”
“If this man would be my son,” Rav Pincus replied, “would you ask me why I’m giving him money to fix his teeth? Of course not! So, what’s the difference if it’s my son or someone else’s son — we are all Hashem’s children.” We are all banim l’Hashem, we are all one family.
Reprinted from the Parashat Re’eh 5784 edition of At the ArtScroll Shabbos Table. Excerpted from the ArtScroll book – “The Power of Tranquility” by Rabbi Meyer Yedid.
