A Listening Ear

Sometimes, the story behind a story is remarkable in its own right.

We were sitting around the Yom Tov table on Shemini Atzeres when a neighbor unexpectedly knocked on the door. He could hardly contain his excitement. Something extraordinary had just happened to his father, and he simply had to share it.

As developed the custom of spending Sukkos grandchildren, and great-grandchildren in different communities. That year, he spent the first days of Yom Tov with one of his sons in Freehold, New Jersey.

During his visit, his son hosted a Simchas Beis HaSho’eivah that drew people from throughout the community. Among the many guests, the father noticed an elderly gentleman sitting off to the side, seemingly alone. Few people appeared to be engaging him in conversation, and the father felt compelled to approach him.

There was just one difficulty. The father himself was hard of hearing, and his hearing aids were not functioning properly. Carrying on a conversation, especially amid the noise of a large gathering, would be challenging. He hesitated, wondering whether he would even be able to understand what the man was saying.

Nevertheless, he decided to try.

He sat down beside the elderly gentleman and struck up a conversation. Although he struggled to follow much of what the man said, he listened as attentively as he could, offering warmth, interest, and companionship. He knew he could not give the man the kind of conversation he would have liked, but at least he could make him feel that someone cared.

When they parted, he thought little more of the encounter. It had been a small gesture, nothing

his

father

grew

older,

he

visiting

his

children, extraordinary.

For the second days of Yom Tov, the father traveled to Lakewood, New Jersey, to spend Shemini Atzeres and Simchas Torah with another son. On Shemini Atzeres morning, as he entered shul, he stopped in astonishment.

There, directly before him, stood the very same elderly man he had befriended in Freehold!

The two greeted each other warmly and exchanged a few words. During their brief conversation, the elderly gentleman expressed how much their earlier encounter had meant to him.

Only afterward did the father learn just how unlikely their second meeting had been. The elderly man was a chaplain in Freehold who had never married and had no family of his own. For the second days of Yom Tov, a family in Lakewood had invited him to stay with them.

Of all the places he could have gone, and all the shuls he could have attended, he had ended up in the very same shul as the man who had taken the time to befriend him.

For the father, the message was unmistakable. He had initially felt that his act of chessed was inadequate. He had barely been able to hear the man’s words and had struggled to carry on a proper conversation. Yet what he considered a small, imperfect gesture had meant far more than he realized.

Hashem had arranged for their paths to cross once again, allowing him to see that his effort had not gone unnoticed.

A listening ear need not hear every word to make someone feel heard. Sometimes, the greatest kindness is simply making another person feel that he matters. And no act of chessed, however small, is ever forgotten, neither by the person who receives it nor by Hashem, Who sees it all.