I am a melamed in a cheder. One child in my class was scholastically very weak. His memory was not good, he didn’t understand basic things, and the more things that were explained to him, the less, it seemed, he understood.
We learned mishnayos Yoma until Pesach, and he didn’t understand anything – as if he was groping in the dark. But after Pesach we started learning mishnayos Tamid, and then we discovered that this child understands very well and remembers everything he was taught! He knew and succeeded like one of the better boys!
I was truly amazed, and the boy noticed my amazement. “Is Rebbi surprised?” he asked me, and I answered that I was indeed surprised.
“It really is something special that Hashem opened up my eyes,” the child said. “When we were learning mishnayos, Rebbi told us about the holy Tanna Rabi Masya ben Charash and asked who heard about him. A few boys in class said that their mothers lit a candle in the zechus of Rabi Masya ben Charash, but Rebbi explained that Rabi Masya is not candles, he is a great Tanna who withstood a huge nisayon in shemiras einayim and burned his eyes so as not to stumble and see any forbidden sight, and then Hashem made a miracle for him and healed his eyes.
I thought to myself that I also need to safeguard my eyes. Across from the bus stop where I wait for the bus every morning is a school for nonreligious girls. At the exact time when I wait there, they come to school. Since Rebbi spoke about Rabi Masya ben Charash, I started to guard my eyes and not to look at all at the school and at who was walking there. I just started guarding my eyes and not lifting them in that direction at all, and while I do this I daven to Hashem that He should enlighten my eyes in His Torah, that I should understand what we’re learning, and that I should be able to be on the same level as the other boys in the class.
“And that’s it. Hashem heard my tefillos!”
I was shocked by the child’s story, the child who, until the time he stopped looking at what was happening across from the bus stop, was considered weak in learning. This is a child who proved what true strength is all about, and he was zocheh to see tangibly Hashem’s yeshuah.
How much strength is there in the words we say to our talmidim in class, and how much strength does a Yid have!
