By Rabbi Yosef Farhi
Rabbi Chaim Zaid
Here is a bittersweet story that I heard this week from Rabbi Chaim Zaid, a well-known speaker in Israel. He went to speak to the dislocated families in the North. “I spoke two weeks ago in the Leonardo Club in Tiveria. They had their displaced citizens. It is not normal when someone needs to live so long in a hotel, away from home. Exile is one of the hardest things in life. It looks nice that they are in a hotel, but they want more than anything to go back home, and back to their private lives.
I spoke there, giving them Hizuk, some Emunah, trying what I could. I told them, guys, I love you... There was a young girl there, who sat in the front rows, that raised her hand. I said, yes, Tzaddeket. She said, “Rabbi, all of us here,... we love you too!”
How Did You Merit Having Such a Girl?
Wow! This girl spoke to my heart. I spoke to the father of this child. I asked the father, How did you merit having such a girl?
He said, Rabbi, you tell a lot of stories. I will tell you a story that in your life you never heard. He said an incredible story. “I am Bucharian. I live in Kiryat Shemoneh. Rabbi, 25 years I did not have children. More than that, after 22 years, I found out, with my wife, that we have no chance of having kids. It was a very hard year to accept this, but after we accepted it, we got used to it, to live without kids. The Hazon Ish did not have kids. His students were his children. What can we do?... I had a neighbor that lived nearby, a man who has a son and daughter. Yosef and Dinah. How nice. I was good friends with this neighbor. His son Yosef eventually went off the beaten path of religion, as a rebellious teen. He also started using all types of drugs, going to all types of bad places, and Dinah was following in his path.
My neighbor came to me and said, “You don’t have kids; I do have kids, but it is like I am living without kids, for they are not going in my path. What is life worth having kids like this? Maybe it is better not to have kids at all! Who says that life is worse without kids?”
I Will Take Care of Your Kids
This was so painful to hear. I told him, your kids are like my kids. I said, I will take care of your kids. He went to Yosef and said, “Tell me what type of car you want. Any car. I will buy it for you.” Yosef said, are you serious? I said, yes. I had money saved up, because I never had to support any kids. I told him, I will buy you a convertible Porsche, I will give you whatever you want, even a card for unlimited gas. (Cars in Israel are much more expensive to buy than USA. Partially because the taxes are high, to pay for the tolls. In USA, you pay for tolls when you drive, but here you pay for tolls, in the taxes of the original purchase. Also, gas here is much more expensive.) I just want you to stop doing all your craziness, using drugs and visiting inappropriate places. Deal?”
The boy stopped all the things he was doing and started learning with this childless man. He brought Yosef back, he had the time to deal with him. Not only did Yosef start praying and keeping Shabbat, the boy also started learning every day a little bit of Gemarah, G-d’s holy Torah. After about a year, they finished together Massechet Taanit. He said, we are going to do a Siyum Massechet, and your parents will come, to give them some Nahat. In the meantime, because of this, Dinah also started coming back.
Yosef Asks for His Parents’ Forgiveness
The siyum Massechet they did in Chazor Haglilit, next to Kiryat Shemoneh. They took a small hall, and Yosef got up to speak. He said, “I want to tell everyone here that I am now asking from my parents’ forgiveness for causing them so much pain.” He cried. He asked forgiveness from Hashem, for doing what he did. He thanked this childless neighbor for trusting in him, for buying him all that he bought him. It was very emotional, and when he finished speaking they all danced with him.
The next day, Yosef was driving his Porsche, and a truck ran over him and killed him. Decrees of Heaven, we just don’t understand. Just like we don’t understand how a country with the highest intelligence in the world, can’t figure out where 180 hostages are for 100 days?!? The highest-ranking people in Israel security are saying nothing is making sense; it is all G-d’s Hand. Simhat Torah taught us the biggest lesson: that everything is G-d.
The father of Yosef sat Shivah, and also, the spiritual father, this childless man, also sat shivah and did Kriah, as if he was an adopting father. At the end of the Shiva, the two fathers went up to the Kever. At the Kever, the real father cried and said kaddish, and said, Master of the World, you took my son from me! One request I have from you! Take that Neshama and give it to my friend, give him a child! A year and a month later, after 26 years of childness, miraculously, this man had a child, and he called him Yosef.
A Very Emotional Brit
It was a very emotional Brit. And the father of Yosef came to get a blessing from this new father, as he was the Sandak. The father of Yosef said, “You not only deserve a Yosef, for saving my son Yosef, you also deserve a Dinah, because my Dinah returned to religion because of your helping Yosef. You should merit to have a daughter as well, and fulfill the Mitzvah of Pru Urbu, to be multiplying and fruitful.” A year and a half later, they had a girl and called her Dinah.
After telling me his story, he said to me, “These are Yosef and Dinah that you see here. These two kids are very high Neshamot! They sit in the front row of every class, and Dinah prays in the Ezrat Nashim while Yosef is praying beautifully in the men’s section.”
Sometimes, you need to separate yourself emotionally from your child to help them, in the sense that you have to look at your child as if he were the neighbor’s child. Your child is living his own world, and his Neshama is on its own path, nothing to do with you. Almost every great man in history had trouble with his kids. Adam, Noach, Avraham, Yitzhak, Yaakov, King David, King Solomon, Eli Hakohen, Shmuel, Hizkiyahu, Shimon Hatzaddik...
We all have different mountains to climb in our life. Sometimes, people fall and tumble down. But as a parent, you need to stay climbing on your own mountain. Your child is on his/her own mountain.
Reprinted from the Parashat Bo 5784 email of Rabbi David Bibi’s Shabbat Shalom from Cyberspace.
