“For G-d has heard the cry of the youth” (Bereishis 21:17; Torah Reading, First Day)
When Rabbi Aryeh Levin was nearing the end of his life, he began to cry.
His children gathered around him, puzzled and concerned. “Abba,” they asked gently, “why are you crying? All you ever did was mitzvot. You lived a life of Torah and kindness. You have nothing to fear. Surely, in Olam Haba there’s a special seat waiting for you, carved with your name—Rabbi Aryeh Levin.”
But Rav Aryeh Levin looked at them and replied, “I’m not crying for myself.” They were quiet, perhaps thinking he was crying for them; for the children he would soon leave behind. But he shook his head.
“I’m crying for them,” he said. “For the prisoners sitting alone in jail. For the sick people confined to the contagious disease hospital. Who will be their rabbi now?”
He continued. “I was the one who would go to the prisons. I saw the humanity in those who had fallen, and tried to uplift and rehabilitate their broken lives. I was the one willing to enter the hospital wards where contagious disease ran rampant. Someone had to care for the forgotten, for the isolated, for the invisible. I was the one who would blow the Shofar for them on Rosh Hashanah.”
He paused.
“Who will be their rabbi now?”
His words pierced the hearts of those around him. They weren’t just tears of parting; they were tears for those no one else would think about. For the prisoner, for the patient, for the Jew on the margins. For those about whom the words Matir Asurim (those imprisoned) and Rofei Cholim (those who are sick) are literal.
His son, Rabbi Refael Levin, stood by his father’s bedside, moved beyond words. And in that moment, he made a promise. “Abba, every Rosh Hashanah, I will go. I will take your place and I will be their rabbi.”
Only then did Rabbi Aryeh Levin find peace.
To have such thoughts at the very end of life—not about oneself, but about others, about the downtrodden, about those who might go unnoticed, unheard—that is greatness. That is a heart which emulates Hashem Himself, the One who heals the sick, the One who frees the captive, the One who never forgets a single soul.
May we merit to have hearts like that beating within us forever.
