Replacing Tears With Smiles

by Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz

Our people have a tortured history. We have been buffeted about, chased from place to place. We have known deprivation and tragedy. The flow ebbs and increases. Some times are better than others. For a while, we were living in what has to be classified as one of the better periods in our history. We were living comfortably, blessed with economic and social success and peace.

It appears, though, that things have taken a turn for the worse, chas veshalom. War seems to be just over the horizon. An increasing number of people can’t make ends meet. Children can’t find suitable schools, too many kids are at risk, and tragedies abound. People are sick, bewildered, abused and lost. They become anonymous globs in masses of groups desperate to stand out and secure a future in which they can feel that they are contributing to the common betterment.

There is no krechtz that can adequately express the depth and intensity of our communal suffering during the past few weeks. We’ve been hit on so many levels. From our generals to our humble foot soldiers, we’ve sustained losses all around.

We lost gedolim batorah, such as Rav Chaim Pinchos Scheinberg zt”l, gedolei ovdim such as the Vizhnitzer Rebbe zt”l, gedolei gomlei chassodim such as Reb Shloime Gross zt”l, and, most chilling of all, gedolei amcha bais Yisroel, a young, sincere, talented talmid chochom, who sought only to influence others and bring them close, killed along with three beautiful children, two of them his own. Hashem yinkom domom.

Two weeks ago, we shared a thought of chizuk from Rav Klonymus Kalman of Piacetzna. Once again, we find ourselves turning to the Aish Kodesh - a holy fire ignited during the darkest, most painful period in recent history, a fire which refused to be extinguished, not by bloodshed, hunger or loneliness; a fire that illuminated the despair of the Warsaw ghetto - for words of chizuk on coping.

The rebbe wondered about an interesting passage in the Haggadah. The Baal Haggadah quotes a posuk: “Vayarei’u osonu haMitzriyim, vaya’anunu.” Simply put, the Mitzriyim oppressed us.

The Haggadah goes on to state that we cried out to Hashem and he heard: “Vanitzak el Hashem... Vayishma Hashem ess koleinu... Vayar ess onyeinu, ve’es amoleinu, ve’es lachatzeinu.”

The posuk which refers to the enslaved Jews crying out for salvation simply uses the word “vanitzak.” The posuk states that Klal Yisroel shouted out to Hashem, without explaining the reasons for their cries. Yet, when the posuk relates that Hashem heard the cries, it breaks down the cries into various types of suffering - onyeinu, amoleinu, lachatzeinu.

Shouldn’t the different types of oppression inflicted upon the Jews be recounted when the posuk tells of how the Mitzriyim caused the Jews to cry out, rather than when the posuk tells of Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s reaction?

The Piacetzna Rebbe explains that sometimes a person suffers so terribly that he only knows one thing: “I am hurting. I need help.” He is beaten so badly that he is numb to the various methods of oppression to which he is being subjected. All he knows is that he is beaten down and needs to be rescued.

The Yidden in Mitzrayim only knew to scream. They were abused to the level that they couldn’t take it anymore. They could no longer identify all the forms of torture to which they were being subjected. All they knew was that it hurt and they needed it to stop.

Hashem, however, had a specific cheshbon for each blow. Each dose of suffering was metered out and part of the Divine plan. Hashem was counting each lash. He was adding up all the pain they suffered, all the inui, amal and lachatz. He felt and measured it all.

The Piacetzna Rebbe told the broken people gathered around him to see from this that there is a plan for every little bit of suffering a person endures. There is a cheshbon for each rough moment and an exact calculation of when it will end.

The rebbe didn’t tell his people not to mourn their losses. He didn’t deny the immense sadness that surrounded him. But he was mechazeik the broken people by reminding them that nothing that happens is random. He told them to be heartened by the awareness that there is a plan.

The past couple of weeks have been rough. The pictures of the pure face of Rabbi Yonatan Sandler and the sweet children are haunting. The vacuum left by the passing of a rosh yeshiva, who through hasmodah in learning ascended the heights of gadlus, raising many talmidim and answering the simplest halachic shailos with the same respect as he did the sophisticated ones, has left us in grief. We mourn that we are bereft of the shining nobility of a rebbe who reshaped a Chassidus after the war. And we grieve over the gaping void left by a beloved friend who shared whatever he had with whoever needed it.

Hakadosh Boruch Hu counts the blows. He sees the suffering and the pain and He keeps precise cheshbon of how much, to whom, and for how long. And when it is over, bechipazon, in the greatest of hurries, we will be rushed out of golus to happier times.

Until that day comes, we have to face the trials and tribulations and use them as springboards to grow. We need look no further than the example of Rav Chaim Pinchos Scheinberg.

As a child, he met hunger for breakfast and again for dinner.

His shver, Rav Yaakov Yosef Herman, selected him as a husband for his daughter and then promptly shipped the young couple across the sea to Mir, where the basic comforts that Americans took for granted were unheard of.

Together with so many others, he shteiged there, amidst privation and want. He, and the wife who would support, encourage and stand by him for eight decades, developed in that climate of doing without.

After returning to America during the years of World War II, the Mirrer masmid taught here and there, delivering shiurim between Minchah and Maariv instead of chaburos to gedolei olam. He once confided to a talmid that later on, when he arrived in Eretz Yisroel in 1963 to help get Kiryat Mattersdorf off the ground, he saw how native Israelis made do with very little.

“But poor?” the rosh yeshiva continued. “Poor is what we were back in America, in the late thirties, when we had mamesh nothing. I learned all day and my rebbetzin somehow managed to feed the family. I don’t know how. In Eretz Yisroel, I saw poverty, but they had more than we had back in America in the early years.”

The product of that hunger?

Classic seforim such as the Taba’as Hachoshen, Chiddushei Rav Chaim Pinchos and Mishmeres Chaim. Thousands of talmidim, and their talmidim.

Hardships don’t have to break a person. They can build, too.

We can take the sadness and pain and use it to grow.

We can fight pain by seeking to gladden the hearts of others and by reaching out to the ill, infirm or lonely, looking to brighten their days.

And even the darkness of true wickedness, the evil of the rasha in Iran and the resha’im all around us, can be combated with love.

In the heart of Yerushalayim there is a charming neighborhood called Botei Broida. To most people in the Holy City, the enclave is a secret. Few realize that just minutes from downtown Yerushalayim and directly behind the hubbub of Machaneh Yehudah sits a little island where the sanctity and holiness of one hundred years ago still exists.

The people of Botei Broida are tzaddikim, serving Hashem with joy and greeting friend and stranger alike with pleasantness and warmth. One of its notable residents was Rav Yitzchok Nosson Kuperstock, who passed away just a few months ago.

A great gaon, author of seforim and one of the revered figures at the Tchebiner Yeshiva, Rav Kuperstock was sought out for brachos by all sorts of people, which each of them received with his beautiful smile.

Once, while sitting in the holy chotzeir of Botei Broida, he told a story of another chotzeir, the legendary courtyard of Chotzeir Strauss, a neighborhood in the Old City where he’d grown up. The neighborhood was a hub of baalei mussar, led by the great talmidim of Rav Yisroel Salanter.

Rav Kuperstock related what he’d heard from Rav Avrohom Broide, who lived in Chotzeir Strauss. Late one night, Rav Avrohom noticed one of the great souls of the neighborhood, Rav Tzvi Hirsh Weissfish, standing by the communal bulletin board, reading the signs posted there.

It was astonishing to see a tzaddik and masmid like Rav Tzvi Hirsh, who didn’t waste a moment, standing and reading the various posters and signs which announced the goings-on and happenings all over the city. Rav Avrohom came closer and saw that Rav Tzvi Hirsh was reading a poster detailing an event, a show of some sort at a theater.

Intrigued, he waited until morning and he asked the tzaddik to explain the strange behavior.

Rav Tzvi Hirsh shrugged him off, but Rav Avrohom persisted until he got his answer.

“No one knows about our little chaburah, but since you ‘caught’ me, I’ll share the secret with you,” said Rav Tzvi Hirsh. “A group of us decided that since there is so much tumah around us, we must combat it. So every time there is a moment when the yeitzer hara seems to be in control, pulling people after him and his distractions, we fight extra hard through limud haTorah.

“We have a schedule, and each person takes a turn when they need to check the bulletin board for announcements. If there is anything going on that involves a lack of tznius or apikorsus, we make sure that one of us is learning Torah with great fervor and concentration during that time. Last night was my turn, so I checked the signs to know who my enemy was.”

We look at our sign-boards and see the signs everywhere - signs of distress, of strife, of struggle. We remind ourselves that each one of us has a mission to fight the darkness, to ignite the me’at min ha’or, the little bit of light that can drive choshech away, and to carry the message that just like b’Nissan nigalu, so too b’Nissan asidin lehigael.

The hill is so hard to climb. We fear setting out on the trek lest we not be able to reach the goal.

Rav Nosson Tzvi Finkel, the recently departed Mirrer rosh yeshiva, whose life’s work was celebrated this past Sunday at the massive Yeshivas Mir-Yerushalayim dinner in New York, once went to Bnei Brak to ask Rav Elazar Menachem Man Shach a question: Did he have to go to chutz la’aretz to raise money for the yeshiva? He didn’t have the strength, he said. Rav Shach told him that he should go and Hashem, the nosein layo’eif koach, will give him strength.

If you doubt that Hashem provides the strength that one needs, take a look at the Torah institution that Rav Nosson Tzvi built. Look at the amount of superhuman strength the ailing rosh yeshiva was blessed with and what he was able to accomplish with it. Look at the empire of Torah he built. Hanosein layo’eif koach is not allegorical, it is real.

I found the following story in the sefer Yissochor Zevulun, written by Rav Aharon Tawil and printed 99 years ago in Yerushalayim. The sefer was recently republished by Rav Yaakov Hillel.

The Arizal was once sitting in his home learning with his talmidim when a very young Rav Shmuel Ozidah (who went on to write the sefer Medrash Shmuel) entered to discuss something with his rebbi. When the Arizal saw him come in, he immediately rose and said, “Boruch habo.” He took him by his hand, sat him down on his right, and spoke to him. After Rav Shmuel’s questions were answered, he rose and left.

Rav Chaim Vital was intrigued and apologized for asking, but he couldn’t control himself. “Rebbi,” he said to the Arizal, “why did you rise for that young man and why did you extend to him the greeting of ‘Boruch habo,’ something you have never previously done?”

The Arizal told him that he did not rise in respect for the young talmid, nor did he say “Boruch habo” to him. “I was being mechabeid Rav Pinchos ben Yair, who arrived with him. His neshomah was nislabeish in this bochur today because he performed a mitzvah that Rav Pinchos ben Yair was accustomed to performing, and therefore his neshomah came to him today to be mechazeik and to help him.”

The Arizal continued: “That is the sod, the explanation, of Chazal’s statement that ‘Habo letaheir mesayin oso - One who seeks to increase his holiness through his enhanced observance of mitzvos receives assistance” (Yoma 38b), for as soon as a person thinks about doing a great mitzvah, the neshomah of a tzaddik from the other world who excelled in that mitzvah comes to help him, and through that he is able to properly perform the mitzvah. If not, the yeitzer hara would overpower the person and scare him out of doing the great mitzvah.”

We are scared of undertaking great commitments. We look at all the work that there is to do to prepare the world for Moshiach and we shudder. We look at all the people who need help and give up before we even get started. We look at all the people who are removed from Torah and we wonder how it is possible to reach them. We look at the size of Shas and are frightened away from attempting to learn through it. We want to be better Jews and study Shulchan Aruch, but we are scared away by the complexity of it. We need not be.

Hanosein layo’eif koach. It is our duty to begin the process, to try to improve ourselves, and to try to make a lasting mark on transforming the world into a better place. We have to start. We have to show a willingness to learn better and to assist others, and the help will come from Above.

Habo letaheir mesayin oso. We have to begin. We have to show the willingness to undertake improvements and we will be granted the strength and ability to fill the vacuum in our world. We have to do what we can to repair the breaches and to replace tears with smiles, sadness with happiness, and tumah with taharah. The tzaddikim whose losses we mourn will help us, the tzaddikim of the ages will help us, and Hakadosh Boruch Hu himself will come to our assistance.

If we do, we can replace golus with geulah. It can happen this year, this Nissan, this chodesh hageulah.

We pray that the Aibishter, Who is keeping cheshbon, will decide that we have suffered enough, so that the tears will be wiped away, the tragedies will end, the suffering and deprivation will stop, and we will finally return home, kimei tzeischa mei’Eretz Miztrayim, arenu niflaos.

Replacing Tears With Smiles

by Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz

Our people have a tortured history. We have been buffeted about, chased from place to place. We have known deprivation and tragedy. The flow ebbs and increases. Some times are better than others. For a while, we were living in what has to be classified as one of the better periods in our history. We were living comfortably, blessed with economic and social success and peace.

It appears, though, that things have taken a turn for the worse, chas veshalom. War seems to be just over the horizon. An increasing number of people can’t make ends meet. Children can’t find suitable schools, too many kids are at risk, and tragedies abound. People are sick, bewildered, abused and lost. They become anonymous globs in masses of groups desperate to stand out and secure a future in which they can feel that they are contributing to the common betterment.

There is no krechtz that can adequately express the depth and intensity of our communal suffering during the past few weeks. We’ve been hit on so many levels. From our generals to our humble foot soldiers, we’ve sustained losses all around.

We lost gedolim batorah, such as Rav Chaim Pinchos Scheinberg zt”l, gedolei ovdim such as the Vizhnitzer Rebbe zt”l, gedolei gomlei chassodim such as Reb Shloime Gross zt”l, and, most chilling of all, gedolei amcha bais Yisroel, a young, sincere, talented talmid chochom, who sought only to influence others and bring them close, killed along with three beautiful children, two of them his own. Hashem yinkom domom.

Two weeks ago, we shared a thought of chizuk from Rav Klonymus Kalman of Piacetzna. Once again, we find ourselves turning to the Aish Kodesh - a holy fire ignited during the darkest, most painful period in recent history, a fire which refused to be extinguished, not by bloodshed, hunger or loneliness; a fire that illuminated the despair of the Warsaw ghetto - for words of chizuk on coping.

The rebbe wondered about an interesting passage in the Haggadah. The Baal Haggadah quotes a posuk: “Vayarei’u osonu haMitzriyim, vaya’anunu.” Simply put, the Mitzriyim oppressed us.

The Haggadah goes on to state that we cried out to Hashem and he heard: “Vanitzak el Hashem... Vayishma Hashem ess koleinu... Vayar ess onyeinu, ve’es amoleinu, ve’es lachatzeinu.”

The posuk which refers to the enslaved Jews crying out for salvation simply uses the word “vanitzak.” The posuk states that Klal Yisroel shouted out to Hashem, without explaining the reasons for their cries. Yet, when the posuk relates that Hashem heard the cries, it breaks down the cries into various types of suffering - onyeinu, amoleinu, lachatzeinu.

Shouldn’t the different types of oppression inflicted upon the Jews be recounted when the posuk tells of how the Mitzriyim caused the Jews to cry out, rather than when the posuk tells of Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s reaction?

The Piacetzna Rebbe explains that sometimes a person suffers so terribly that he only knows one thing: “I am hurting. I need help.” He is beaten so badly that he is numb to the various methods of oppression to which he is being subjected. All he knows is that he is beaten down and needs to be rescued.

The Yidden in Mitzrayim only knew to scream. They were abused to the level that they couldn’t take it anymore. They could no longer identify all the forms of torture to which they were being subjected. All they knew was that it hurt and they needed it to stop.

Hashem, however, had a specific cheshbon for each blow. Each dose of suffering was metered out and part of the Divine plan. Hashem was counting each lash. He was adding up all the pain they suffered, all the inui, amal and lachatz. He felt and measured it all.

The Piacetzna Rebbe told the broken people gathered around him to see from this that there is a plan for every little bit of suffering a person endures. There is a cheshbon for each rough moment and an exact calculation of when it will end.

The rebbe didn’t tell his people not to mourn their losses. He didn’t deny the immense sadness that surrounded him. But he was mechazeik the broken people by reminding them that nothing that happens is random. He told them to be heartened by the awareness that there is a plan.

The past couple of weeks have been rough. The pictures of the pure face of Rabbi Yonatan Sandler and the sweet children are haunting. The vacuum left by the passing of a rosh yeshiva, who through hasmodah in learning ascended the heights of gadlus, raising many talmidim and answering the simplest halachic shailos with the same respect as he did the sophisticated ones, has left us in grief. We mourn that we are bereft of the shining nobility of a rebbe who reshaped a Chassidus after the war. And we grieve over the gaping void left by a beloved friend who shared whatever he had with whoever needed it.

Hakadosh Boruch Hu counts the blows. He sees the suffering and the pain and He keeps precise cheshbon of how much, to whom, and for how long. And when it is over, bechipazon, in the greatest of hurries, we will be rushed out of golus to happier times.

Until that day comes, we have to face the trials and tribulations and use them as springboards to grow. We need look no further than the example of Rav Chaim Pinchos Scheinberg.

As a child, he met hunger for breakfast and again for dinner.

His shver, Rav Yaakov Yosef Herman, selected him as a husband for his daughter and then promptly shipped the young couple across the sea to Mir, where the basic comforts that Americans took for granted were unheard of.

Together with so many others, he shteiged there, amidst privation and want. He, and the wife who would support, encourage and stand by him for eight decades, developed in that climate of doing without.

After returning to America during the years of World War II, the Mirrer masmid taught here and there, delivering shiurim between Minchah and Maariv instead of chaburos to gedolei olam. He once confided to a talmid that later on, when he arrived in Eretz Yisroel in 1963 to help get Kiryat Mattersdorf off the ground, he saw how native Israelis made do with very little.

“But poor?” the rosh yeshiva continued. “Poor is what we were back in America, in the late thirties, when we had mamesh nothing. I learned all day and my rebbetzin somehow managed to feed the family. I don’t know how. In Eretz Yisroel, I saw poverty, but they had more than we had back in America in the early years.”

The product of that hunger?

Classic seforim such as the Taba’as Hachoshen, Chiddushei Rav Chaim Pinchos and Mishmeres Chaim. Thousands of talmidim, and their talmidim.

Hardships don’t have to break a person. They can build, too.

We can take the sadness and pain and use it to grow.

We can fight pain by seeking to gladden the hearts of others and by reaching out to the ill, infirm or lonely, looking to brighten their days.

And even the darkness of true wickedness, the evil of the rasha in Iran and the resha’im all around us, can be combated with love.

In the heart of Yerushalayim there is a charming neighborhood called Botei Broida. To most people in the Holy City, the enclave is a secret. Few realize that just minutes from downtown Yerushalayim and directly behind the hubbub of Machaneh Yehudah sits a little island where the sanctity and holiness of one hundred years ago still exists.

The people of Botei Broida are tzaddikim, serving Hashem with joy and greeting friend and stranger alike with pleasantness and warmth. One of its notable residents was Rav Yitzchok Nosson Kuperstock, who passed away just a few months ago.

A great gaon, author of seforim and one of the revered figures at the Tchebiner Yeshiva, Rav Kuperstock was sought out for brachos by all sorts of people, which each of them received with his beautiful smile.

Once, while sitting in the holy chotzeir of Botei Broida, he told a story of another chotzeir, the legendary courtyard of Chotzeir Strauss, a neighborhood in the Old City where he’d grown up. The neighborhood was a hub of baalei mussar, led by the great talmidim of Rav Yisroel Salanter.

Rav Kuperstock related what he’d heard from Rav Avrohom Broide, who lived in Chotzeir Strauss. Late one night, Rav Avrohom noticed one of the great souls of the neighborhood, Rav Tzvi Hirsh Weissfish, standing by the communal bulletin board, reading the signs posted there.

It was astonishing to see a tzaddik and masmid like Rav Tzvi Hirsh, who didn’t waste a moment, standing and reading the various posters and signs which announced the goings-on and happenings all over the city. Rav Avrohom came closer and saw that Rav Tzvi Hirsh was reading a poster detailing an event, a show of some sort at a theater.

Intrigued, he waited until morning and he asked the tzaddik to explain the strange behavior.

Rav Tzvi Hirsh shrugged him off, but Rav Avrohom persisted until he got his answer.

“No one knows about our little chaburah, but since you ‘caught’ me, I’ll share the secret with you,” said Rav Tzvi Hirsh. “A group of us decided that since there is so much tumah around us, we must combat it. So every time there is a moment when the yeitzer hara seems to be in control, pulling people after him and his distractions, we fight extra hard through limud haTorah.

“We have a schedule, and each person takes a turn when they need to check the bulletin board for announcements. If there is anything going on that involves a lack of tznius or apikorsus, we make sure that one of us is learning Torah with great fervor and concentration during that time. Last night was my turn, so I checked the signs to know who my enemy was.”

We look at our sign-boards and see the signs everywhere - signs of distress, of strife, of struggle. We remind ourselves that each one of us has a mission to fight the darkness, to ignite the me’at min ha’or, the little bit of light that can drive choshech away, and to carry the message that just like b’Nissan nigalu, so too b’Nissan asidin lehigael.

The hill is so hard to climb. We fear setting out on the trek lest we not be able to reach the goal.

Rav Nosson Tzvi Finkel, the recently departed Mirrer rosh yeshiva, whose life’s work was celebrated this past Sunday at the massive Yeshivas Mir-Yerushalayim dinner in New York, once went to Bnei Brak to ask Rav Elazar Menachem Man Shach a question: Did he have to go to chutz la’aretz to raise money for the yeshiva? He didn’t have the strength, he said. Rav Shach told him that he should go and Hashem, the nosein layo’eif koach, will give him strength.

If you doubt that Hashem provides the strength that one needs, take a look at the Torah institution that Rav Nosson Tzvi built. Look at the amount of superhuman strength the ailing rosh yeshiva was blessed with and what he was able to accomplish with it. Look at the empire of Torah he built. Hanosein layo’eif koach is not allegorical, it is real.

I found the following story in the sefer Yissochor Zevulun, written by Rav Aharon Tawil and printed 99 years ago in Yerushalayim. The sefer was recently republished by Rav Yaakov Hillel.

The Arizal was once sitting in his home learning with his talmidim when a very young Rav Shmuel Ozidah (who went on to write the sefer Medrash Shmuel) entered to discuss something with his rebbi. When the Arizal saw him come in, he immediately rose and said, “Boruch habo.” He took him by his hand, sat him down on his right, and spoke to him. After Rav Shmuel’s questions were answered, he rose and left.

Rav Chaim Vital was intrigued and apologized for asking, but he couldn’t control himself. “Rebbi,” he said to the Arizal, “why did you rise for that young man and why did you extend to him the greeting of ‘Boruch habo,’ something you have never previously done?”

The Arizal told him that he did not rise in respect for the young talmid, nor did he say “Boruch habo” to him. “I was being mechabeid Rav Pinchos ben Yair, who arrived with him. His neshomah was nislabeish in this bochur today because he performed a mitzvah that Rav Pinchos ben Yair was accustomed to performing, and therefore his neshomah came to him today to be mechazeik and to help him.”

The Arizal continued: “That is the sod, the explanation, of Chazal’s statement that ‘Habo letaheir mesayin oso - One who seeks to increase his holiness through his enhanced observance of mitzvos receives assistance” (Yoma 38b), for as soon as a person thinks about doing a great mitzvah, the neshomah of a tzaddik from the other world who excelled in that mitzvah comes to help him, and through that he is able to properly perform the mitzvah. If not, the yeitzer hara would overpower the person and scare him out of doing the great mitzvah.”

We are scared of undertaking great commitments. We look at all the work that there is to do to prepare the world for Moshiach and we shudder. We look at all the people who need help and give up before we even get started. We look at all the people who are removed from Torah and we wonder how it is possible to reach them. We look at the size of Shas and are frightened away from attempting to learn through it. We want to be better Jews and study Shulchan Aruch, but we are scared away by the complexity of it. We need not be.

Hanosein layo’eif koach. It is our duty to begin the process, to try to improve ourselves, and to try to make a lasting mark on transforming the world into a better place. We have to start. We have to show a willingness to learn better and to assist others, and the help will come from Above.

Habo letaheir mesayin oso. We have to begin. We have to show the willingness to undertake improvements and we will be granted the strength and ability to fill the vacuum in our world. We have to do what we can to repair the breaches and to replace tears with smiles, sadness with happiness, and tumah with taharah. The tzaddikim whose losses we mourn will help us, the tzaddikim of the ages will help us, and Hakadosh Boruch Hu himself will come to our assistance.

If we do, we can replace golus with geulah. It can happen this year, this Nissan, this chodesh hageulah.

We pray that the Aibishter, Who is keeping cheshbon, will decide that we have suffered enough, so that the tears will be wiped away, the tragedies will end, the suffering and deprivation will stop, and we will finally return home, kimei tzeischa mei’Eretz Miztrayim, arenu niflaos.

The Gentle Giant

by Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz

The sudden passing of Reb Shloimy Gross z”l this past Erev Shabbos shook up many thousands of people.

He was the most normal fellow, beloved by all, the toughest yet the softest, the one who lit up a room, always had a nice word for everyone; was so full of life and charm.

If you would have asked anyone in Flatbush, “Who is the go-to person for someone in need? Who is the person who will help anyone, anytime, without asking questions?” the answer would have been, “Shloimy Gross.”

The way he lived his life offers a demonstration on how a Jew should live and how much good every one can do and accomplish.

The mesholim of the Dubno Maggid, classic and timeless, are part of the inheritance of Klal Yisroel. Like Torah itself, they are understood on many levels and everyone can relate to them. To young people hearing them from their rabbeim and moros in school, they are entertaining, delightful and intriguing. In their minds, youngsters visualize the scenes he paints with his brilliant, yet simplistic, words. Older, more mature people view the mesholim as weighty and substantial.

Sophisticated ovdei Hashem recognize his parables as reflective of his own greatness in Torah and avodah. They perceive that the man selected by the Vilna Gaon to give him mussar was a giant in his own right, not merely a spinner of tall tales.

The Kotzker Rebbe lauded the insights of the Maggid and pointed to several mesholim which he considered to definitely be “Toras emes,” the correct interpretation of a posuk.

One of the explanations that he certified as capturing the true essence of the posuk is the Dubno Maggid’s peirush on one of the opening pesukim in this week’s haftorah.

The novi Yeshaya admonishes the Jewish people, “Velo osi karasa Yaakov, ki yagata bi Yisroel - But you did not call to Me, Yaakov, for you grew weary of Me, Yisroel” (Yeshaya 43:22).

To explain the posuk, the Dubno Maggid tells a moshol of a person going to visit his out-of-town friend. He packs his suitcase, takes the train, gets off at the local station and makes his way to his friend’s home. When he arrives, he is greeted warmly and, after an exchange of pleasantries, the host insists that they sit down to a lavish meal. During the meal, they will catch up on what is going on in each other’s lives.

The table is set and the food is brought out. The two friends who haven’t seen each other for a while sit down and survey the table. All of a sudden, the visitor jumps up and exclaims loudly, “Oy vey. I forgot my suitcase at the train station. I must go run and fetch it before it gets lost.”

The host assures his guest that his son, who is young and strong and knows the way, will run down to the station and retrieve the suitcase while they continue their meal.

The visitor gives the young man the identifying details of his suitcase. The dutiful son dashes off to the station and returns, huffing and puffing, shlepping a large brown suitcase behind him.

The visitor looks at the anguished boy drenched in sweat, then looks at the suitcase, and shakes his head.

“I’m so sorry about all the bother and hard work, but that suitcase isn’t mine. It’s the wrong one,” says the visitor.

“How do you know it’s not yours?” asks the boy. “You can’t even see it from where you are sitting. This suitcase I just shlepped is a large brown bag with gold clasps, just how you described it. Maybe you should first open it and look inside to see if it is yours or not.”

“I know it’s the wrong one,” explains the visitor, “because you are exhausted from shlepping it here. My suitcase wasn’t heavy. If you are wiped out from carrying it here from the station, then it’s clearly not mine.”

In the aforementioned posuk, explained the Dubno Maggid, Hakadosh Boruch Hu tells His people, “Velo osi karasa. Whatever it is you are pulling and shlepping and are occupied with, it’s not Me. It isn’t My Torah and it isn’t My mitzvos, because they aren’t heavy. Ki yagata bi Yisroel. You have grown tired, Yisroel. If it’s exhausting you, it isn’t Mine.”

Avodas Hashem invigorates, enlivens and reenergizes. It doesn’t wear a person down. Everything else in the world breaks a person, while those who pursue His will remain “deshainim vera’ananim, fresh and new.”

It’s like that with true talmidei chachomim and ovdei Hashem. It is evident from their smiles, their warmth and their freshness.

It’s true for all good Jews. Their avodas Hashem energizes them, investing them with strength, stamina and resolve.

Like our dear friend, Reb Shloimy Gross. He epitomized that. He was so vibrant, full of energy, and ready to undertake any task. Whenever you met him, he was spirited and full of life. He may have been in shul with a long line of people waiting to ask him for a donation, yet he didn’t grow tired and he didn’t speak down to anyone. He never referred to the people who begged from him as shnorrers.

The burden was never heavy. It was always joyful. He shlepped the pekel with simcha. It was always light and it was always a pleasure. Always with a smile, a word of chizuk, and a check to back it up.

His final moments came much sooner than anyone expected. It was not only in the prime of his life, but also the prime of activity as well, as he was helping others at an unprecedented pace and level. He was inundated with phone calls and visits. Requests for help from beleaguered individuals and mosdos came at him from all directions.

He was never too tired, never too worn down to help.

He never saw communal responsibilities as the lot of others. He never viewed the struggles of the Olam HaTorah as someone else’s problem. He searched for opportunities to ease the burden of gedolei Torah, until he himself developed into a gadol in hachzokas haTorah.

He was devoted heart and soul to Torah and to Jews in general. He loved everyone and everyone loved him. He never turned anyone down. He helped so many thousands of people. Is that possible? Yes, it is. Is it possible to be a regular, normal fellow and yet do so much chessed and spend such phenomenal amounts of time and money on strangers? Yes, it is. Shloimy proved that it is.

Shloimy Gross represented a unique new type of ben Torah. He was not destined to be a rosh yeshiva or a rov, but he taught everyone what it means to give and what it means to get. He taught how to learn, when to learn,and how to respect those who learn. He showed by example what it means to grow in Torah and avodah.

At an early age, he was drawn into the real estate business. While he could have easily drifted off into a world of self-indulgence and mockery of talmidei chachomim, he went the other way.

He was devoted to his rosh yeshiva, Rav Shmuel Berenbaum zt”l, and every ben Torah he came to know. The stories of those he secretly supported, the chasunos he paid for, and the medical treatments he arranged are only now starting to emerge. They all have a common thread: Shloimy deemed it a privilege to help people, all the while maintaining the dignity and respect of the recipient.

People who were once wealthy and had lost their money were able to maintain a facade of dignity thanks to the funds that Shloimy regularly placed in their pockets. Roshei yeshiva who required money for their personal needs knew that Shloimy was someone they could count on. Yesomim looked to him as their father. Thousands perceived him as a friend. Dozens thought he was their single best friend.

Reb Shloimy had that rare ability to see straight through the chaff, peel it away, and zero in on the essence.

He was once davening at the kever of Shimon Hatzaddik and saw a Yerushalayimer Yid crying bitterly. He realized that the man needed help, but he didn’t want to embarrass him, so he pulled out a few hundred dollars from his pocket, handed them to a man standing next to the Yid, and asked the person to pass it along.

There was nothing in it for him. It was all for the other guy. And that’s how he lived his life.

I was once davening Maariv on a Motzoei Shabbos in Zichron Moshe. Reb Shloimy was there, surrounded by a circle of all types of Yidden who frequent that hallowed bais medrash. They all knew him and he knew them. They all loved him and he loved them.

A Yerushalayimer gabbai tzedakah related that when there was a tzarah and an asifa was called to try to determine where money would come from to support a poor family, to marry off yesomim or to fund medical treatments, and there was nowhere to turn and no one to ask, Reb Shloimy would call in and say, “Don’t worry. Allai. It’s on me.”

Hashem blessed him and he was very successful in the financial world. He was involved in all sorts of projects, yet rather than assuming the haughtiness which usually accompanies financial success, he carried himself the way he always had.

He always conducted himself that way. He was strong. He was majestic. He always had something smart, nice and encouraging to say. At the same time, he was so gentle, so sweet and so full of charm.

He never lost his simplicity and his character. As big, strong and successful as he was, he remained humble. He was a humble giant.

The epitome of the middah of hachna’ah, Reb Shloimy was a regular guy who achieved greatness. Being ‘one of the boys’ didn’t stop him from seeking to grow in Torah, avodah and gemillus chassodim, achieving greatness in the three prime realms of Jewish life.

We mourn his sudden petirah as much for the inspiration he provided as for the vacuum he leaves. His mother, wife and family, as well as his kehillah and friends have lost an individual who exuded a brilliant, shining light. Ki vah hashemesh batzohorayim. The sun set early and the world is much darker without him.

He taught so much to everyone who knew him. He taught to give and how to give. He taught to learn and how to learn and when to learn. He taught what it means to respect the people we learn from, as well as gedolim, rabbonim, talmidei chachomim, and stam Yidden. And he taught that avodas Hashem is light and pleasant, not cumbersome and burdensome.

This week, the Olam HaTorah is preparing to rally around one of the greatest mekomos haTorah our nation has ever known. The many talmidim of Yeshivas Mir-Yerushalayim, newly bereft of their great rosh yeshiva, will gather and pay tribute to his memory and show support to his son, the new rosh yeshiva.

They will gather and echo Rav Nosson Tzvi’s refrain: I’m not tired. I can do it. I’ll find the kochos.

The Mirrer rosh yeshiva zt”l was another person who personified the moshol of the Dubno Maggid. He was a living example of the truth of the teaching that if it’s Torah, it doesn’t tire, it doesn’t wear down, and it doesn’t break a person.

While Rav Nosson Tzvi Finkel was mechayeiv all by demonstrating that despite physical limitations and a crushing budget it’s possible to learn Torah mitoch simcha, Reb Shloimy Gross obligated all machzikei Torah not to allow business pressures or the ohl of tzorchei tzibbur to limit their activities and generosity.

Just as we need to mirror Rav Nosson Tzvi’s mesirus nefesh in support of his yeshiva, we need to perpetuate Reb Shloimy’s steady, unwavering, jovial willingness to help out. We must strive to emulate his adherence to Torah deference to those who study it; and his sterling middos.

We can’t stop. We can’t get tired.

We’ve been facing an onslaught of tzaros and bad tidings, a string of maasei Soton designed to break us at a time of year ripe with potential and possibility.

I am reminded of something that a great man, Rav Aba Dunner zt”l, used to say. He faced a period of great personal nisyonos, losing his wife and beloved son, the exemplary baal tzedakah, Reb Bentzy, within the same year that he was diagnosed with a severe illness. It was enough to break anyone, even someone with the simcha and bitachon of the legendary British askan.

Reb Aba was asked how he succeeded in maintaining his optimistic, cheerful demeanor in the face of such daunting challenges. He responded that Rav Shlomo Freshwater, rov of the Sassover shtiebel in Golders Green, told him to study the Birchos Hashachar, the daily song of thanks for our ability to see, feel and walk, and to “adopt a bracha.”

Reb Aba selected the bracha of “Hanosein layo’eif koach,” praising Hashem for giving strength to the weary. He would recite it each day as many times as he felt necessary. If, in the late afternoon, he felt himself faltering, he would stand up and say, with great kavanah, “Boruch Hanosein layo’eif koach.” He would then feel a surge of energy and vitality.

It literally kept him going.

The depth of the idea is that being an oveid Hashem is itself an antidote to weariness and fatigue. Living with d’veikus injects man with “chayim kulchem hayom,” life and vibrancy. It’s how Rav Nosson Tzvi rose above his personal battle with a broken guf and how people like Rav Dunner and Shloimy Gross kept moving forward until their very last breaths.

The Dubno Maggid’s lesson is that Yiddishkeit comes with a promise of “Vekovei Hashem yachalifu koach,” the ability to pursue His word and His will with renewed energy.

While thousands were melaveh the gentle giant from Flatbush to his final resting place, and as thousands of malochim created by his maasim tovim came to welcome him to Shomayim, we were left behind to learn from his example that we all have a role to play. We can all not only change and improve our own lives, but we each have the ability in our own distinct way of affecting the lives of thousands.

“Dodi yorad legano,” Hashem went into his garden, “liros baganim velilkot shoshanim.” He picked a most beautiful flower to bring back to Him. The flower is now where it belongs, but we in the garden are bereft.

We are all soldiers on the front lines, preparing the world for Moshiach. Shloimy made the ultimate sacrifice of “Adam ki yakriv mikem korban,” as a korban for all of Klal Yisroel. His life and his death impacted people across the world.

We are hurting from loss, numb from grief, but still battling, intent on marching forward with koach. Inspired by great men, determined to work with fervor to honor their legacy as we enter the Chodesh Hageulah, may we indeed merit the long-awaited redemption, bemeheirah beyomeinu