A bachur from a Chareidi family in B’nei Brak unfortunately left Jewish fold and went to live with his nonreligious cousin. His spiritual health deteriorated to the point where he was ready to marry a non-Jewish girl. Doing so would disconnect him from his friends and family.
His cousin convinced him that even if he was going to do so, he should at least go home and tell his parents in a frank, face-to-face conversation about his intentions. The young man agreed and invited himself to spend Shabbos with his parents “on his own terms.”
On Shabbos afternoon, his father told his son that he was going to a shiur given by Rav Aharon Leib Steinman, and the father asked his son if he’d like to join him. Surprisingly, the bachur agreed. After the shiur, his father brought him to Rav Steinman to say “gut Shabbos.” He mentioned to R' Steinman that, sadly, his son was no longer keeping Shabbos.
Rav Steinman looked at the young man and asked him, “How long have you not been keeping Shabbos?”
“Two years,” the son answered.
“And during that time, did you ever think about doing teshuvah?”
“Yes, about four times.”
“And for how long did you think about teshuvah on each of these occasions?”
“For about ten minutes, I guess,” the young man said.
“Ah, so it adds up to a total of about forty minutes over the last two years that you had hirhurei teshuvah, and during that time you were ‘in the place where baalei teshuvah stand’ — a place where ‘tzaddikim gemurim cannot stand.’ I envy you for that. Gut Shabbos.”
After Shabbos, when the bachur returned to his cousin’s apartment, Rav Steinman’s words continued to haunt him. He was so shaken by the gadol’s words that he broke off his engagement and changed his life for the better. Today, b”H, that young man is a Torah-observant Jew.
Later, he was asked what made him choose to go to that shiur. He’d stop observing Torah and mitzvos, and suddenly he was willing to go hear a shiur?
He answered that when he was in cheider, in fourth grade, his class went to Rav Steinman to be tested. The melamed had requested that the Rav make the questions easy, and Rav Steinman accommodated. Each boy, in turn, received a candy from the Rav upon answering the Rav’s question. Only one boy couldn’t answer the question he was asked — this very bachur. Rav Aharon Leib asked the boy an easier question, and again, he didn’t know the answer. Seeing that learning was hard for this boy, the gadol asked him an even easier question, but even then, the boy couldn’t answer.
At the end of the bechinah, every boy had a candy except for this boy. As the whole class filed out of the room in awe, Rav Steinman motioned to that boy to come to him. When they were alone, the Rav said to him, “For Torah and Yiddishkeit, we receive a reward according to how hard we try, not according to the results. All the other boys tried hard to answer one question, so they got one candy. But you tried hard to answer three questions, so here you go — three candies for you.” And with a smile, he handed him three candies.
That’s the story. And in the fullest sense, that’s the whole story — of how a man became a gadol ha’dor, rabban shel kol b’nei ha’golah. What’s our knee-jerk response when we encounter shortcomings in ruchniyus? We can blame and smash, but that’s not R' Steinman’s response. He saw through him. He saw a beautiful neshamah shining forth, and didn’t get bogged down by the external. Shining forth, this light brought this boy back to observing His mitzvos and eventually to building a Torah home.
