Written by R’ Avrohom Hillel Reich based on a lesson and story by Harav Ben Tziyon Sneh Shlita
Everything seems trivial these days. It’s been almost a year since our world changed forever. Lately the generations have been changing over too quickly for me. Too many levayas lately. There are those I’ve attended physically but many more that I’ve shared in spirit through early morning tears. Good friends leave only good memories behind and hundreds of families in Eretz Yisroel are orphaned daily.
Since I’ve moved to Florida it seems like it’s either a ticket on Spirit or a journey in spirit reconnect with my world up north. All this adds up to the big question: Yes, the one we all have to answer after 120 years, the one alluded to by the frailty of the Sukkah. The Talmud tells us, we are all sitting in one big sukkah, all of us- and we ultimately need to “learn how to live together.”
The midrash adds another question to the famous list, one we may not be familiar with. “Himlachta es Chaverecha?” Have you done everything you could to make your friends and family feel your love for them? Have you spent time thinking- what can I do to make their lives better? Have we removed ourselves from the proverbial house of mirrors that we get stuck in far too often?
Rabbi Zilbershtein gives us a glimpse into the world of his youth where he himself witnessed a strength of spirit we can only dream of. The Tefelik Rov of Yerushalayim spent weeks in a search for the best esrog. In Yerushalayim during World War Two, esrogim were simply not available. Yet, persistence and a strong desire to fulfill this holy mitzvah led to him achieving the impossible.
The day before Yomtov, through the walls, the Rebbe heard a woman yelling loudly at her young child, followed by non stop sobbing. Sending the Rebbetzin in to check out what was happening, she returned with the following report. The head of the household had spent a small fortune securing the finest esrog in the city. It was a second marriage for the couple and her young son from her first husband was playing with the esrog, that morning and broke the pitum! Fear gripped her and wouldn’t let go as she first yelled at her son loudly and then hit him, immediately regretting her actions- and they both sat there sobbing. The scene that she witnessed, couldn’t have been sadder. The Rebbe himself decided to go and knock on the neighbors door, bringing his own esrog with him. Examining the damaged esrog carefully, he told the forlorn woman to please give her husband this other esrog, because his was found to be slightly blemished, but in a way that he couldn’t make a brocha on it!
The next day in shul, the Rebbe turned to one of his chasidim before Hallel and asked if he could borrow his esrog to make a bracha. He returned it to him with a smile and the angels wept.
