The Chofetz Chaim Heritage Foundation shared a story.
Rav Yankele of Pshevorsk went to visit an elderly Chasid during Chol HaMo’eid Succos. The man lived with his wife on a high floor of an assisted living facility, and his declining health made it difficult for him to leave the apartment. When the Rebbe arrived at the door, the Chasid’s wife greeted him.
She urged, “Please, Rebbe, don’t tell him it’s Succos. If he knows, he’ll insist on going downstairs to the Succah, and it’s simply too much for him.”
The Rebbe readily agreed to keep the secret. As he entered the apartment, the Chasid’s face lit up with pleasure. “Shalom Aleichem!” he said, and then, turning to his wife with the alacrity of Avraham Avinu serving the Malachim, he said, “Please bring the Rebbe some fruit!” His wife had expected this request. Soon the Rebbe’s attendant was entering the room with a grand platter filled with beautiful fruit.
The Chasid asked the Rebbe, “Please make a Brachah on a fruit as a Zechus for me.” Now the Rebbe found himself in a dilemma. He had never taken a bite of food or a sip of a drink outside the Succah on Succos. Even when he was imprisoned in a Siberian labor camp, he had fasted most of the day and saved his rations for the few moments he was able to sneak into a tiny Succah that he had constructed out of a pit in the frozen earth and covered it with some twigs.
The Rebbe peeled the apple and shifted it from hand to hand, trying to stall and distract the Chasid with conversation. However, the Chasid held onto his hope to hear the Rebbe’s Brachah. “Please, Rebbe, I need the Zechus of your Brachah!”
At last, the Rebbe cut off a tiny piece of apple (Halachically permissible) and recited a loud Brachah on it, to which the man answered with a resounding “Amein!” Later, the Rebbe’s attendant asked why, if Siberia hadn’t broken his determination to eat only in the Succah, this elderly Chasid’s pleading was able to do so.
The Rebbe answered, “In Siberia, I was willing to sacrifice myself for the Mitzvah of Succah. But to sacrifice another Yid? This I simply cannot do!” In the Rebbe’s eyes, he had not abandoned a stringency. Instead, he had chosen to sacrifice one stringency in order to perform another. It was Ahavas Yisroel, his love for a fellow Yid at the highest level!
Reprinted from the Succos 5785 email of Rabbi Yehuda Winzelberg’s Torah U’Tefilah.
