Rav Joey Haber shared a story. The Yeshivos in Europe were unlike the Yeshivos in our days. Today, the Yeshivos take full care of all the needs of the Bachurim, but it wasn’t so in Europe. The Yeshivos didn’t have dormitories. Most Bachurim were away from home, and the boys would sleep on the benches in the local Shul. Even then, the benches weren’t enough for all the boys. Often, only the older Bachurim had the privilege of sleeping on a bench, while the younger Bachurim slept on the floor.
The Enticing Telegram from the Boy’s Uncle
There was one particular thirteen-year-old boy who was having a hard time sleeping on the floor, and he was getting tired of being in Yeshivah. One day, he got a telegram from his elderly uncle. It read, “We are offering you to take over our successful business. We don’t have any descendants to continue it, and you’re the most capable relative to continue it, so please come and we’ll set you up.”
This boy was very tempted by the offer. Sleeping on a cold stone floor on a wintery night wasn’t so enjoyable, and with uncomfortable sleep every night, he asked himself what he was really getting out of Yeshivah anyway. He thought to himself, “I can’t continue like this. Enough is enough. I’m going to take my uncle up on the offer,” and he decided to leave Yeshivah.
The night before he left, the door of the Shul opened, and a woman who had just lost her husband walked in with a stack of blankets. Her husband had owned a blanket shop, and she was giving the Bachurim what she hadn’t sold from the business. All the Bachurim, especially this boy, happily took her gift.
Asked His Grandson to Drive Him to the Haifa Levayah
Many years later, in 1976, the Rosh Yeshivah of Ponovezh, the great Rav Elazar Menachem Mann Shach, zt”l, called his grandson into his office. He told him, “We need to go to Haifa today. There is a woman who passed away, and I want to be at her Levayah.”
The grandson complied, and they drove through the rain to the cemetery in Haifa. However, the grandson was surprised to see how few people were there, and Rav Shach and he were needed to complete the Minyan. This made the grandson very curious, and he wondered why his Zaide was partaking in this Levayah. The rain persisted through the Levayah, and after the Kevurah, everyone quickly made their way back to their cars.
The grandson escorted Rav Shach to the car also, but Rav Shach didn’t immediately get in. Instead, he stood out in the rain for a little while longer. Eventually, Rav Shach got into the car, and they drove back to Bnei Brak. Rav Shach was aware of his grandson’s confusion, and he explained himself.
Owes His Spiritual Success to the Woman Who Died
“This woman was responsible for making me who I am. If not for her, I wouldn’t have continued in Yeshivah, and I wouldn’t have become the Rosh Yeshivah I am now. This lady was the woman who gave us the blankets that night long ago, when I was ready to leave the Yeshivah. I had been so cold and so tired, and I was ready to take up my uncle’s offer to work in his business. When she arrived that night and gave us those blankets, it gave me the Chizuk to stay in Yeshivah, and I declined my uncle’s offer.”
The grandchild asked, “But what was the reason that you stayed out in the rain when we had gotten back to the car?”
Rav Shach said, “I wanted to remember how it felt laying on the cold stone floor every night during those freezing wintery nights, and what her gift had spared me from feeling. That way, I can properly appreciate what she did for me!”
Reprinted from the Parshas Vayishlach 5785 email of Rabbi Yehuda Winzelberg’s Torah U’Tefilah.
