By Rabbi Elimelech Biderman
Reb Mendel Futerfas (who lived in Russia) told about a melamed who was arrested and sent to Siberia, because he was caught teaching Torah to Jewish children. One Shabbos afternoon, the melamed heard someone singing Yedid Nefesh in the distance. He followed the voice and found a Yid with long hair, singing the song emotionally, with his eyes closed. The singer didn’t realize that the melamed was watching him. When he opened his eyes, they hugged each other. The man said, "I am living here for twenty years, and you are the first Yid I see."
The melamed asked, "Do you have any Jewish articles; a sefer, a shofar, tefillin, something?"
"Nothing at all," the man replied. "I tried to bring everything you mentioned, and more, but they took everything away from me. All I have left is my emunah and the Shabbos zemiros... What about you? Do you have anything?"
"I have tefillin shel yad. They confiscated my tefillin shel rosh, because they saw it on my head, but they didn’t know that I was also wearing tefillin under my sleeve."
The man was overjoyed. "Tomorrow I will be able to put on tefillin! Tomorrow morning will be the first time, in twenty years, that I will wear tefillin."
The entire night, he prepared himself, and anticipated the mitzvah. In the morning, he put on the tefillin, said kriyas Shema, and soon after died.
Reb Futerfas said to his students, "If we wouldn't have sefarim or mitzvos for twenty years, and we wouldn’t see the face of a Yid all this time either, would we be singing Yedid Nefesh on Shabbos afternoon? Would we be taking every opportunity to observe the few things that we can do? However, we do have mitzvos; shouldn’t we take advantage of them?"
This story is repeated to remind people to grab every opportunity they have to do mitzvos. The story also reminds us of the privilege, and joy, to keep the mitzvos.
Reprinted from the Parshas Terumah 5784 email of the Torah Times. Copied with permission from Machon Be’er Emunah - [email protected]
