The Privilege of Wealth
Reb Ezra Weiss, who was a meshamesh of the Imrei Chaim of Vizhnitz, related:
A pleasant breeze blew on Ahavas Shalom Street in Kiryat Vizhnitz, Bnei Brak. The Rebbe was sitting on his porch, learning Torah in the fresh air. Suddenly, Reb Shmuel passed by.
“Shmuel merited wealth because of his kibbud av!” the Rebbe remarked, to the surprise of all those who heard it.
Uniqueness
What was unique about his kibbud av that it caused Reb Shmuel to merit such great wealth?
It can be defined in one phrase: utter submission to his father. Reb Shmuel Daskal was known internationally and his name held a lot of clout. This was in strong contrast to his father, who was not at all well-known, and was a simple, G-d-fearing man. Despite the disparity, he submitted himself completely to his father in every way. He didn’t act this way just for external appearances, so that people should see and notice his great kibbud av. His actions stemmed from a genuine purity of heart.
He was very grateful to his father for his strong upbringing in Torah and chassidus, for the dveikus to Hashem that he learned by example, and for giving him a Torah chinuch al pi taharas hakodesh.
Reb Shmuel’s personal status didn’t make him arrogant, and he always treated his father with the greatest deference and respect. He admired his father greatly for his exceptionality in the realm of ruchniyus. He recognized that spirituality and yiras Shamayim are the true telling qualities of a person, and he knew that his father had both of these middos in abundance.
Wealth is a gift. When the Imrei Chaim saw that Reb Shmuel gave tzedakah far beyond what is natural for a person to give, he perceived it as a segulah and cited it as the reason for Reb Shmuel’s extraordinary wealth, middah kenegged middah, measure for measure.
In His Youth
Reb Shmuel once told his children:
When I was a little boy of nine, my father got sick with typhus. The burden of parnassah fell on my shoulders, and I supported my father and mother by selling crackers during the war years. Not only then, but throughout my father’s life, I carried the burden of his parnassah — despite the fact that he worked hard for a living.
Until my marriage, I gave my father almost everything I earned. I didn’t think of myself at all. I didn’t save a penny to eventually establish a business, because that’s how I had been raised — that my first obligation was to my parents. After my marriage, I supported my father with a monthly stipend that was more than enough to live comfortably.
Spare the Rod and Spoil the Child — Not with Hitting!
Reb Shmuel once saw a man beating his child vigorously. He was very distraught over the scene, and in his storm of emotions, he shared some more experiences from his youth with his children:
My father never hit me. He didn’t consider hitting a way of chinuch. It was enough for him to assume a stern expression, and I immediately understood that I hadn’t behaved properly.
Once, I did not act as I should have. I hoped my father wouldn’t find out about it, but he did. He called me over, sat me down beside him, and didn’t say a word. He looked at me with tears in his eyes and with a loving expression on his face. He stroked my cheek over and over again, and tears began to run from my eyes as well. I expected him to hit me. It would have been easier for me to accept the slaps than the strokes, because through the strokes I felt his pain.
Each time he told his children about this incident, Reb Shmuel would become emotional all over again. Even sixty years later, tears would choke his throat and he could not finish telling the story.
Waiting for Him with a Chair
Reb Michoel Schreiber of Kiryat Vizhnitz related:
Reb Shmuel’s father would return from his work at city hall exhausted. In those years, there was no bus all the way to the Neve Achiezer neighborhood. I will never forget how Reb Shmuel would take a chair and bring it to the bus stop. He’d wait for his father and then walk home with him slowly. Every few feet, he would tell his father to sit down to rest.
He didn’t do this just once — it was an everyday occurrence!
Because of His Father
Reb Yitzchak Beirach Daskal related:
“You have no idea how much I love Yerushalayim,” my father once told us. Before we were able to ask the inevitable question, he pre-empted us and said, “I always wanted to live there. As a bachur, I worked in Yerushalayim and wanted to settle there. The Holy City of the Mikdash is very close to my heart, but my plans did not come to fruition because I did not want to leave my parents themselves in Bnei Brak.”
Not only that, he continued living in Neve Achiezer, on the outskirts of Bnei Brak, even when most of the residents had moved into the city itself. This, too, was because he didn’t want his father to endure the exertion of moving. His father lived close to him and changing his place of residence would have been very difficult for his father.
Not More Honorable Than My Father
Reb Yehoshua Klein of Neve Achiezer related:
“Reb Shmuel, your place should be at the mizrach wall!” the gabbaim of the local shul in Neve Achiezer said. Reb Shmuel shook his head adamantly and refused to change his makom kavua. “How can I sit in a more honorable place than my father?”
Reb Yona Fuchs of Kiryat Vizhnitz related:
It was for a good reason that the revered Rav of the Neve Achiezer neighborhood, Harav Avraham Tzvi Weiss, told Reb Zalman Fuchs, one of the residents, “I’m sure that Reb Shmuel became wealthy because of the mitzvah of kibbud av that he performed with such hiddur.”
Dedication to His Father
When his father grew older and became a widower, Reb Shmuel hired a frum caregiver for his father, who slept with him at home. On Tuesday and Shabbos, Reb Shmuel would take over for the caregiver.
Reb Shmuel spent the entire Shabbos with his father. He brought him to shul, slept beside him, and cared for him with utmost dedication, love, and extraordinary respect. The residents of the neighborhood marveled at his kibbud av, and even many years later, recalled it with great admiration.
Reb Yona Fuchs related:
Anyone who did not see it cannot fathom the honor, awe, and devotion with which Reb Shmuel cared for his father throughout Shabbos; how he tended to his every need at every moment, like a father taking care of his beloved only child.
Mishnayos in Memory of His Father’s Soul
Reb Shmuel’s son, Reb Yitzchak Beirach related:
After my grandfather’s passing, my father expressed his gratitude to the caregiver and hired him to work in the diamond factory.
But that was not enough. Each day, he would pick the caregiver up from his home and drive him to work, purely out of hakaras hatov for his devotion.
He also paid the caregiver for the first year after his father’s passing to learn Mishnayos each day as an aliyah for the neshamah. In addition, he would learn Mishnayos with him each day for an hour, in memory of his father’s soul.
A Unique Contract
Reb Shmuel once related:
My father worked for the Bnei Brak municipality. When he reached retirement age, he received a dismissal notice. This pained him deeply. For him, it was a terrible verdict and he did not know how he’d be able to handle it. I asked him to come work for me at the factory. Of course, I did not intend for him to polish stones; I thought I’d find him a task that would help him feel fulfilled. I knew he wanted to work and would never be able to sit idle, so in this way, I could support him with dignity.
My father realized my intent and flatly refused. “Find me real work. If I don’t work, I won’t be able to live,” he pleaded. “I have always worked and I want to continue working.”
I know that no one would hire a person of his age for work, so I appealed to the mayor and said, “Please continue to employ my father as though you are paying him and I’ll pay his salary to the municipality every month.” The mayor agreed, and we wrote up the agreement in a contract.
Aliyah for Chamishi on Yom Kippur
The mispallelim of the large shul in Kiryat Vizhnitz already knew that Reb Shmuel Daskal always bought the most important aliyah on Yom Kippur for his father — chamishi, the aliyah before that of the Rebbe, the Imrei Chaim.
Other wealthy people tried to compete and attempted to outbid him by offering unbelievable sums of money to acquire this aliyah, but Reb Shmuel always offered more than everyone else and purchased it for his father.
“My father was thrilled with the aliyah,” he explained enthusiastically. “Because of it, he was able to stand next to the Rebbe, who was called up for shishi. After he made a Mi Shebeirach for the Rebbe, the Rebbe blessed him with a ‘yasher koach.’ My father would often say, ‘The Rebbe’s yasher koach gives me the strength to get to the end of the fast.’”
After his father passed away, the Imrei Chaim gave Reb Shmuel this aliyah, and he was called up for chamishi each Yom Kippur in the big beis medrash in Kiryat Vizhnitz until his final year.
Boundless Admiration
Reb Shmuel’s kibbud av and exemplary respect were augmented by his deep admiration for his father.
He often told his children:
Throughout his life, my father followed the derech of the Rebbes of Vizhnitz with awe and purity.
He was scrupulous in all his actions, and was makpid on all mitzvos — kallah k’vachamurah — from the most minor to the most serious. In the derech of the chassidus, he immersed in the mikveh every single day.
His closeness to his Creator, even in times of fear and worry, is something that has never left my mind. Once, on a Friday night during World War II, planes were flying in the skies over Pashkan and we heard huge explosions. Everyone was terror-stricken, but my father sat and sang Vizhnitzer zemiros as if nothing was happening.
He was a baal tefillah, and he used the gift of his sweet, strong voice to honor Hashem and elevate those around him. He was a tov ayin, kind-hearted and generous, and never did anything bad to another person.
Reb Shmuel would emphasize one point about his father constantly — his simchas hachaim and acceptance of suffering with love. “You have no idea what lofty levels my father achieved in accepting yissurim, suffering,” he would say.
When he saw that we couldn’t quite comprehend this, he shared with us some of the suffering his father had endured and how he accepted it:
His first wife, Tziporah, the daughter of the chassid Rav Alter Avraham Baruch Rosenberg of Sighet, author of sefer Tzava’as Abba, passed away when he was forty, leaving him with six young orphans. His son Yaakov Yosef passed away at age seventeen, and his daughter Sarah died from poisoning. His daughter Esther perished in the war, at the age of thirty.
After he married my mother, Faiga, he lived in dire poverty, and had to move from his hometown [in Massif] to Pashkan, where he was hired as the gabbai in the big beis medrash in the town. After he merited to come to Eretz Yisrael, his son Shaul Aryeh died in a car accident in 5710 [1950].
Throughout his life, he endured penury and suffering, and although he worked hard for a living, he did not have mazel. When he received an inheritance, he lost it within a short time.
Despite all these tribulations, he was always happy, and it was a happiness from within, not just a front. He had the deepest emunah and he accepted his suffering with love.
My father repeated this sentence all the time, “Apparently I must have sinned badly in an earlier gilgul (incarnation) and I came to this world in order to rectify it all.”
Tatte, I Promise to Follow Your Path
Reb Chaim Dzialowski related:
After his father was buried, Reb Shmuel approached the fresh grave and began to weep. “Tatte, ich zug dir tzi as ich vehl gein in deine veigen!” (I promise you that I will follow in your path!)
With these emotional words, he encapsulated the essence of his kibbud av — following in his father’s ways. He fulfilled this promise for the rest of his life, raising a generation of children who followed in the path of chassidus.
Reb Yitzchak Beirach Daskal adds:
My father’s kibbud av was based purely on a deep respect for his father’s ways, not on fear or any other factors. He was actually distressed that for many years, he did not wear the chassidishe levush and did not have a beard the way his father did, and his aspiration in life was to be more like his father. Despite his status as a wealthy businessman, and being so much richer than his father, he still considered himself on a much lower level. My father’s focus in life was ruchniyus and he felt that in that, his father was much greater than him.
He Dressed His Father in the Upper Worlds
“I heard this story from a reliable source,” Harav Eliezer Dovid Friedman began when he came to be menachem avel:
Once, the sister of Harav Meir Shapiro, Rosh Yeshivas Chachmei Lublin and founder of the study of daf yomi, dreamed that she saw her mother in the Upper Worlds wearing expensive silk garments and a diamond studded crown. When asked where the clothes came from, her mother replied, “I was dressed with this garment in the Upper World when my Meir’l established Yeshivas Chachmei Lublin, and this wonderful crown was placed on my head when my Meir’l established Daf Yomi.”
With his remarkable acts of chessed, Reb Shmuel surely dressed his father in a large shtreimel and expensive silk garments!
