Shimmy and Yitzy Greenbaum made their way home after delivering food to their Tante Chaya, who had just had a baby.
“Look, Shimmy,” Yitzy said. “That’s the Toras Avigdor building!”
The two boys looked up at the huge building towering over their heads.
“Wow, I’ve never seen it up close before,” said Shimmy. “Let’s get a closer look.”
The two boys approached the skyscraper which had the Toras Avigdor logo on top, right underneath a giant golden plaque which read “The Holtzbacher Industries Edition”. As they came closer they noticed that each floor of the building had a plaque with a sponsor’s name, and even the individual windows had sponsors.
“Yitzy!” Shimmy said excitedly, looking through a ground floor window whose plaque said that a sponsorship was still available. “That’s Aharon Spetner, the author of Toras Avigdor Junior!”
At the sound of his name, Aharon looked up from where he was working. Noticing the boys, he carefully laid down his feather quill next to the parchment and smiled at the boys. “How can I help you?” he said.
“Um...” Shimmy stammered. “Well, we were just wondering, why does Toras Avigdor need such a massive building, just to print booklets?”
“Why don’t you come inside and I’ll show you?” offered Aharon.
The two boys hurried inside the main entrance where Aharon was waiting for them in the lobby.
“Don’t you live in Eretz Yisroel?” asked Yitzy.
“I do,” answered Aharon. “But Anshel Holtzbacher flies me in each week so I can write the Junior on the Horki Rebbe’s old shtender, to make sure it has the maximum level of kedusha.”
“What’s this week’s Junior about?” asked Shimmy. “Is Tzadok Hatzadik going to be in it?”
“Well, his name will be mentioned,” Aharon answered with a twinkle in his eye. “Follow me.”
The two boys followed Aharon up a golden staircase and into a room where hundreds of people sat typing while wearing headsets.
“This is the transcription room,” Aharon explained. “This is where we listen to Rabbi Miller’s shiurim and convert them into text for the booklets.”
On the next several floors were the Yeshiva Bnei Avigdor rooms where people sat learning while a video of Rabbi Miller giving a Gemara shiur played on a giant screen. “We have a beis midrash like this for every misechta in Shas,” said Aharon.
The boys were amazed at all of the floors and rooms in the building. There was a room full of vending machines where, instead of putting in money, you just had to say something about the niflaos haborei in the food and it gave you the food for free! Of course, there was the printing room, where giant printers were spitting out Toras Avigdor booklets one after another. And there was the mail room, where thousands of booklets were being packed into boxes and being shipped all over the country.
Finally, they reached the top floor.
“This is Rabbi Pinchas Wolhendler,” Aharon said. “He is the CEO of Toras Avigdor, and the editor of the booklets. And this is Rabbi Moshe Horowitz. He is our director, who runs the day-to-day operations and helps raise the money needed to put out Rabbi Miller’s Torah.”
Rabbi Wolhendler and Rabbi Horowitz came over and gave the two boys a warm shalom aleichem.
“Who is that?” asked Shimmy, looking at a man with a long beard who was weighing golden words on a jeweler’s scale.
“Ah, that is Rabbi Amichai Markowitz. He is the founder of Toras Avigdor. His job is to measure each holy word that Rabbi Miller said and make sure that they are treated with care and put in their proper place in the booklets.”
“Amazing!” Yitzy said. “I never realized how much work goes into these booklets!”
“But kinderlach,” Rabbi Wolhendler said. “I want you to think about something. Look at everything around you. Toras Avigdor, Yeshiva Bnei Avigdor, everything here is ‘Avigdor’, and it’s reaching tens of thousands of Yidden all over the world. In this week’s Parsha it says ‘ל≈‡¿לַˆ¿ ב ם≈ ̆¿ ב 'ה ‡ָרָ ̃ ו‡¿ר - See, Hashem has called by name Betzalel’. The Torah is telling us the importance of a good name. Rabbi Miller spent his whole life devoted to teaching Yidden how to serve Hashem and now, even after his death, his name is spreading further and further throughout Klal Yisroel.”
“Let’s get practical, boys,” Rabbi Markowitz said, looking up from his scale. “Every day this week, I want you to take five minutes to think about what you are doing for Hashem and how you are making your name greater by serving him.”
“Also,” chimed in Rabbi Horowitz. “At least once a day remind your father to sign up for a monthly donation to Toras Avigdor. Even $10 a month gives you the tremendous zechus of spreading Rabbi Miller’s Torah to more and more people.”
Have a Wonderful Shabbos and a Freilichen Adar!
Let’s review:
- Why does the Toras Avigdor building have sponsors for every window?
- What can you do today to make your name greater in the eyes of Hashem?
