Rav Elchanan Wasserman, zt”l, once traveled to America to raise the much-needed funds for his yeshiva. At one of the shuls there, in front of an audience of potential donors who had the means of donating generously, he delivered a passionate speech about the value of supporting Torah. The entire congregation was visibly moved.
The rabbi of that shul, however, was from a different school of thought, and after Rav Elchanan’s speech, the rabbi added a few words, saying that even a few dollars would suffice, since this was not a very worthy cause.
With those words, the crowd went from potentially giving thousands of dollars to not even giving a total of one hundred dollars. Afterward, the rabbi was worried that Rav Elchanan was angry at him, and he thus went over to R’ Elchanan to apologize. However, Rav Elchanan told him that what the rabbi had done didn’t bother him in the least.
“When Hashem commanded Moshe to build the Mishkan,” Rav Elchanan said, “Hashem told him that the actual builder would be Betzalel ben Uri ben Chur from shevet Yehudah. Moshe then went to search for him. He must have gone to the tribe of Yehudah and asked the first person he saw, ‘Are you Betzalel ben Uri?’ If the man said no, Moshe would then have gone to another person and asked him if he was Betzalel ben Uri. And if that man said no, Moshe would have continued until he found the person he was looking for.
“If those people replied they were not Betzalel, did Moshe get angry at them for not being the person he was looking for? Of course not. Those people were not zocheh to be Betzalel.
“The same applies here,” continued R’ Elchanan. “I came to America looking for Betzalel ben Uri to support my yeshiva. There are certain people who will be zocheh to be the Betzalels and support the yeshiva, and others who won’t. It is clear that the members of your congregation are not from those people who are going to be Betzalel ben Uri. Should I be angry at that? For that reason, when you told the congregants that this was an unworthy cause, I understood that the listeners were undeserving, and I thus have no reason to be agitated or disturbed.”
