By Rabbi Nachman Seltzer
Rabbi Aharon Pessin
I have a close friend, Rav Aharon Pessin, who travels frequently to America, and when he is there, he davens in one of two nearby cities. He told me something fascinating.
In one of the cities, every time he arrives, there is always a minyan. Without fail. Morning, afternoon, evening, there is a minyan.
In the other city, he says, it is almost impossible. He would come to shul and simply wait. No minyan. Agan, and again. He found it baffling. How could it be that in a Jewish community, there is consistently no minyan?
One day, as he sat waiting in shul, he overheard two men talking. One said to the other, “Did you try the new kosher restaurant in town?” “Yes,” the other replied. “It was excellent.” Rav Aharon thought to himself: Wait a second. You have enough Jews to sustain a kosher restaurant, but not enough to form a minyan for Mincha?
So, he went over to the gabbai and asked him directly. “How is it possible that there are enough people to support a kosher restaurant, but not enough people to make a minyan?”
The gabbai answered, “Let me add to your question. We don’t have one kosher restaurant. We have two.” “Then what is going on here?” Rav Aharon said.
The gabbai said, “It all goes back to a curse of a rav.”
Many decades earlier, over a hundred years ago, there was a rabbi in that city, one of the early rabbis in America. He was a true European-style rav, uncompromising in halachah. He founded one of the first yeshivos in the country and insisted on proper standards of kashrus. The butchers of the city despised him. He demanded real supervision, real integrity, and they did not appreciate it.
Eventually, they decided to take revenge. On Purim, they sent a beautifully wrapped mishloach manos to the rabbi’s home. The rebbetzin opened the package, unaware that inside were starving, crazed rats that had been trapped together. They began attacking each other. The shock was unbearable. She suffered a complete breakdown and had to be hospitalized.
When the rav saw what had been done to his wife, broken and devastated, he cried out in anguish: “I curse this city. It will never be a makom Torah.” And according to the gabbai, that curse came true.
People tried to start yeshivos, but nothing lasted. People tried to build Torah institutions, but no success. Even a minyan could not reliably exist.
Rav Aharon asked the gabbai, “Did anyone ever go to the rav’s grave to ask mechilah?” “We tried,” the gabbai said. “Every time we attempted to organize a group, something stopped us. Once, we planned a trip, and the biggest storm in twenty years hit the East Coast. You can look it up. Everything fell apart.”
“I’m in America for a few more days,” Rav Aharon told him “Here’s my number. If you manage to gather a minyan to go, call me. I want to join.” The call never came.
Rav Aharon returned to Eretz Yisrael and raised the question to Rav Elyashiv zt”l. Does the city have an obligation to ask forgiveness, given that it was their grandparents who committed the offense?
Rav Elyashivz wrote back a responsum. He ruled that technically there was no absolute halachic obligation because these were not the same individuals. However, there had been a profound disgrace to a Torah scholar. And therefore, the right and proper thing to do was for the community to go to the cemetery and ask mechilah.
The psak was sent to the gabbai. This time, not just a minyan, but a large group went together. They traveled to the cemetery, recited Tehillim, davened, and asked forgiveness from the rav. Rav Aharon later returned to the city after a few weeks had passed. He walked into shul, and there was a minyan. Not barely. Comfortably. The curse had been broken.
In a moment of pain, in a moment of anguish, a rav uttered a single sentence. One sentence. And its impact lasted over a hundred years. Words are not light. Words carry power. We sometimes say, “That was long ago,” or, “That was generations back.” But this wasn’t 2,000 years ago. This was a century ago. And the power remained, until it was addressed.
Before we speak, it takes only a moment to pause and ask: “Should I say this? Should I not?” “Maves v’chayim b’yad halashon—Death and life are in the hands of the tongue” (Mishlei 18:21). Words build worlds. And words can destroy them. We must choose them with care.
Reprinted from the Parashat Beshalach 5786 edition of TorahAnyTimes as compiled and edited by Elan Perchik.
