The now classic Mishnah Torah Rambam Frankel Edition
Rav Shabsi Frankel was a Holocaust survivor who moved to America, and he made it his mission in life to provide clarity on essential Torah texts to the Jewish People. Therefore, he invested a significant amount of money to employ a team of Talmidei Chachamim, who would research and examine the works of the Rambam. This team would compare different versions of the Rambam to make sure that the end product was the most accurate version available, and provide extra sources for further research.
Today, the set they published is known as the Frankel Rambam, and is a monumental contribution to the Torah world. At one stage in the research, Rav Frankel found out that the Cairo Genizah had a rare handwritten section of the Rambam for sale. Agreeing on a sum of hundreds of thousands of dollars, the sale was confirmed, and the rare, old manuscript was sent to Rav Frankel in America.
It was preserved in a casing, and when it arrived in his office, Rav Frankel carefully took it out of the casing for his researchers to examine. Each one was in awe at the new manuscript, and eagerly looked forward to a chance to inspect it at greater length.
However, a tragedy unfolded. As one of the researchers was making his way across the room to view the manuscript, he tripped. Ordinarily that would have been fine, but he was holding a cup of coffee at the time, and the coffee spilled all over the new manuscript! Since it was so old and fragile, the manuscript completely disintegrated, and it was now entirely useless.
This researcher feared the worst. He thought he would face some kind of punishment, or perhaps get sued, and likely be publicly embarrassed. Rav Frankel calmly exited the room and said nothing. He returned a minute later holding a cup of coffee and simply remarked to the embarrassed researcher, “I noticed you spilled your coffee. Here is another one.” And that was it. The episode ended there!
Years later, when Rav Frankel passed away, his team of researchers came to see the family during Shivah. The researcher who spilled the coffee told this story to the family, and he was shocked to find that nobody had heard about it before.
Not only did Rav Frankel have the self-control to not snap at this researcher for his mistake, he restrained himself from ever telling anyone about the incident, even his own family! He learned from this that sometimes one can achieve a lot by speaking up. But sometimes one can achieve a lot more by knowing when not to say something!
Reprinted from the Parshas Noach 5785 email of Rabbi Yehuda Winzelberg’s Torah U’Tefilah.
