A man came to see Rabbi Moshe Yechiel Epstein, the Ozrover Rebbe at his home in the Bronx. He told the Rebbi that some years back, he had donated large sums of money to build the local Synagogue. The beautiful Shul attracted a nice crowd. He was the unanimously elected as the President.
However, lately, new families had joined the Shul and they were interested in making changes, one of them was elections for a new President. They had their candidate and made a lot of propaganda for his support. To make things worse, they were telling false tales about him, ignoring his efforts he had invested for so many years, trying every way for him to lose his position. The man asked the Rebbi for his support, advice and blessing.
The Rebbi sighed; he felt the pain of his visitor. The man stood quietly waiting for the Rebbi to speak.
“What am I doing in America,” asked the Rebbi?
“What,” asked the man?
“Maybe you can explain what I am doing living in America?”
“I don’t understand what the Rebbi means.”
The Rebbi continued, “let me explain. I arrived here long ago from Poland before the Holocaust, when European Jewry and Judaism was thriving. I arrived in America that was a spiritual desert. There were nearly no Yeshivos, no Jewish schools, no Chassidic courts. So why did I emigrate here?”
“I have no clue,” replied the man.
“You’re right, not many people know the real reason, but I will tell you.”
“My grandfather was the third Grand Rabbi of the Ozrov dynasty. My father was the town’s Rabbi. My grandfather passed away, my father was appointed as the new Rebbi and I was appointed as the town’s Rabbi. I opened a Yeshiva, organized Torah classes; it was a prime era just before the First World War. I was offered the position of Rabbi in Radom at the age of 24, I was offered the position as Rabbi in Pintchov, Head of the Beis Din in Lodz, Rabbi of Apta, but I refused them all. I preferred to keep the position of my father and my ancestors.”
“Then the First World War broke out. Ozrov changed hands back and forth like a ball game. Each new ruler was worse than the one before him. The local community suffered terribly. Finally the Russians exiled all the Jews from the town. We all took a small bag with our precious belongings. On our way we saw the locals heading into town to loot everything we had left behind. As we continued walking and crying we smelled smoke, our town was on fire, I don’t know how it started, but all the town’s houses were burned into ashes. The Russians left us and we headed back to our destroyed town. It was in ruins. I convinced our community to rebuild, I made appeals in neighboring cities and bit by bit we started to rebuild our town. Then we were hit by a plague and my wife and three children died from typhus. The same year my parents passed away. I don’t know where I got the energy, but I rebuilt the town. A new Shul, Mikva, Yeshiva. I was appointed as the new Grand Rabbi by my father’s Chassidim and followers. The war was over, the wounds healed and Ozrov was a thriving town once again.”
“Now you are surly asking yourself why did I leave and come to America,” asked the Rebbi?
“In Ozrov I had an elderly relative who had a small group of followers. They felt that he deserved to be the town’s Rabbi and Grand Rebbi too. They were a minority and besides I had been appointed as Rabbi by my father and recognized by the local authorities as the town Rabbi.”
“But as soon as I smelled Machlokes – dispute and controversy, I dropped everything and fled as far as possible, so no delegations could reach me, no begging would seduce me, all the way to America.”
The Rebbi continued in a choked voice as hot tears started rolling down his angelic face.
“And now Ozrov once again was destroyed. The Nazis entered the town. They rounded up all the Jews into two lines on either side of the street. They took my elderly relative, the Rav out on to the street. They took out the Aron Hakodesh together with all the Sifrei Torah, loaded it on his back, made him run on the street until he collapsed and was buried alive under the Aron Hakodesh, may Hashem avenge his blood.”
“My dear friend, go home, think over the story I just told you. If you want we can continue to discuss your problem tomorrow.”
The next day the man handed in a letter of resignation.
There is a very interesting topic in this week’s Parsha. An elderly member of the Sanhedrin that his mind has begun to fail and he has forgotten some of his Torah knowledge. He is one of the leaders of the Jews. He is so sure that he is right and everyone else has made a mistake. It may even be that he is right. But if all his colleagues disagree with him, and he does not give in, he can get the title of a Zaken Mamrei and even receive a death penalty. Better give in, even if you’re right and stay away from Machlokes.
All the more so when it comes to us, that have our opinions that differ from our friends, differ from our Rabbis. Are we willing to forgo our ego to avoid the fire of Machlokes?
