An elderly man, leaning on his cane, comes to Rav Chaim’s house. His back is bent, and every step is hard. He has a question, and he has come to ask it davka because he walks so slowly. He sits down in Rav Chaim’s room and tries to catch his breath.
“I was a child, and now I’m old,” he says. “Oy, how old I am! I don’t have the strength to come and go as I used to. It’s hard for me to leave my house. I can’t go to daven in shul three times a day because it’s too hard for me to get to the shul and home again. I can do it only once a day. Which tefillah should I go to? Should I daven Shacharis in shul, or Minchah and Maariv?”
“Why don’t you make a minyan in your house? If you ask people, they’ll come to your house to daven. I also asked for a minyan in my house, and we daven here every day, Shabbos and weekday.”
The elderly man is surprised at Rav Chaim’s anavah (humility). It is as if Rav Chaim sees no difference between himself and others. It is as if the minyan in Rav Chaim’s house is just a minyan for an old man, nothing more!
Reprinted from the Tzav 5784 edition of At the ArtScroll Shabbos Table. Excerpted from the ArtScroll book “Precious Moments with Rav Chaim.”
