Three weeks after his wedding, a young kollel fellow, a talmid chacham of note, decided to meet his wife during lunchbreak at her parents’ home. He arrived before his wife and, as soon as he opened the door, he was welcomed by his mother-in-law spewing a torrent of abuse. She screamed at him, calling him every negative adjective she could think of. He did not respond. He just stood there respectfully, as she continued dumping her vitriol on him.
Clearly, something was wrong with her that day. He was not going to fight with her. On the other hand, lunch was on the table; he was hungry and needed nourishment to learn. He sat down quickly, ate lunch and left before his wife arrived.
He could not reconcile himself to what had just occurred. Who knew if it would happen again? If his mother-in-law was unhinged, it could happen again in public. He decided that this marriage was not for him. Since he was, after all, a ben Torah, he decided to discuss his decision with his Rebbe, one of the tzadikim of Yerushalayim (second half of the twentieth century) to inform him of his decision.
HoRav Elya Roth, zl, listened, then asked, “Who else was in the house at the time?”
“No one,” replied the fellow.
“No one at all?” reiterated Rav Elya.
“Absolutely not a soul.”
“If that is the case,” said Rav Elya, “the entire incident was a dream, a figment of your imagination. Forget about it. It never happened.”
The fellow returned home and did not divulge anything that had occurred that day to his wife. It was just “another day.” Two weeks later, he had occasion to return to his in-laws’ home, and the only one at home was his mother-in-law. He imagined that he would now have a repeat performance of his “dream.” He was wrong. His mother-in-law was apologetic, saying that she did not know what had gotten into her that day. How could she speak so negatively and abuse a gifted talmid chacham?
“I have no idea what you are talking about. You must have dreamt this all, because I am certain that it never happened.”
The mother-in-law believed him and said, “You are correct. It must have been a dream. Something so bizarre could never have occurred.”
Sometimes it is best that we transform reality into a dream. It is healthier that way. At the bris of this “young” fellow’s great, great-grandson, the now elderly Jew related this story. He was now a grandfather to hundreds of grandchildren, great-grandchildren and had even lived to see a fourth generation. All because he had listened and did not speak, so that he transformed reality into a dream. That dream transformed his life.
Reprinted from the Parshas Tetzaveh 5786 email of Peninim on the Torah, a project of the Hebrew Academy of Cleveland as compiled and edited by Rabbi L. Scheinbaum.
