Rabbi
Doniel Staum, LMSW
Rabbi,
Kehillat New Hempstead
Rebbe/Guidance
Counselor – ASHAR
Principal
– Ohr Naftoli- New Windsor
STAM
TORAH
PARSHAS BEHAR
5776
“CHARITY OF TIME”
The Gold family was sitting shiva for their
revered father, Mr. Jack (Yaakov) Gold in October 1976. Rabbi Yaakov Pollack,
Rabbi of Congregation Shomrei Emunah in Boro
Park and a Maggid Shiur at Yeshiva University
“Many years ago an Orthodox Jewish man was driving
in Queens near a Jewish cemetery when he
noticed an elderly lady standing under a bus shelter. He pulled over and asked
her in Yiddish where she was heading. She answered that she was going home to Brooklyn , and she told him where she lived. He replied
that he was heading to the same neighborhood and he would be happy to drive her
home.
“During the drive to Brooklyn
she explained that she had yahrtzeit and had come to the cemetery to daven. She
had been waiting for the bus to take her home. They cordially conversed until he
dropped her off in front of her home.
“Almost a year later the man called the elderly women,
“Since we both have yahrtzeit on the same day and we live so close to each
other I’m going to pick you up on the yahrzeit and we’ll go to the cemetery
together, and then I’ll drive you home.”
“The scene repeated itself for a number of years
until the elderly women passed away.
“Before she died, the women mentioned the story to
her son and told him the name of the man who drove her to the cemetery every
year on the yahrtzeit.
“The elderly women in the story was my mother, and
the man was your father. So when I heard he passed away I came to express my
gratitude and to tell you how special your father was.”
The mourners were moved by the story, but they realized
that the story was far greater than he had realized because their father had
not lived anywhere near her, nor did he have yahrtzeit on the same day as she
did.
It is one thing to do a
chesed for someone one time or to do a chesed when it is convenient. But for a
person to go a few hours out of his way every year for a stranger demonstrates
incredible selflessness. And what’s more amazing is that he never told anyone –
not even his own family – about the story. Were it not for the fact that Rabbi
Pollack told the Gold family the story, no one would have ever known. If Jack
Gold did such clandestine chessed, there must have been many other stories that
we will never know of[2].
“If your brother
becomes impoverished and his means falter in your proximity, you shall
strengthen him – proselyte or resident – so that he can live with you.”
The gemara[3] quotes Rabbi Yitzchak who said,
“Anyone who gives a perutah (small copper coin) to a pauper is blessed with six
blessings… and anyone who comforts him with words is blessed with eleven
blessings.[4]”
Why is one who
encourages a poor person considered so much greater than one who actually gives
money to a poor person?
Rabbi Yisroel Yaakov
Lubchansky zt’l explained that time is the most precious commodity we possess
in the world. Time contains potential and opportunity for anything we want and
hope to accomplish.
Someone who is willing
to give up of his precious time to lend an ear and to give his attention and
heart to another has given away of his most precious commodity in the world,
and that is the highest level of charity.
When Moshe Rabbeinu
ascended Sinai the Torah states, “Moshe arrived in the midst of the cloud and
ascended the mountain; and Moshe was on the mountain for forty days and forty
nights.”
Ibn Ezra comments about
those forty days in which Moshe did not eat or drink that “this was a great wonder;
there was none like it before.”
Although Moshe’s
ascension to heaven and his abstention from eating and drinking for forty days
was surely a great miracle, was it greater than the miracles in Egypt
Rabbi Chaim Kreisworth
zt’l[5] explained that during those
forty days Moshe became a quasi-angel, and that is why he did not need to eat
or drink. During that time he did not have the challenges and struggles of this
world because he was living an ethereal existence. However, if he did not have
the struggles of this world he also could not obligated in the daily
performance of mitzvos as they apply to mortals. He could not receive reward
for his actions because he did not have to overcome his free choice in order to
perform them.
The fact that Moshe
Rabbeinu, who understood the unimaginable reward for the performance of every
mitzvah better than anyone else, was willing to give up forty days of that
reward so that he could learn and teach Torah to Klal Yisroel is absolutely
incredible. It is about that uncanny altruistic sacrifice that Ibn Ezra writes
was a greater wonder than anything that occurred until then.
One of the hallmarks of
our Torah leaders is their profound understanding of the value of time. They
are people who optimize their every minute and never have enough time for Torah
study and their other various efforts on behalf of their people. Yet perhaps
the most common feeling expressed by those who have the opportunity to spend
even a few minutes with such leaders is an awed appreciation of how he made
them feel special. “He spoke to me like there was nothing else in the world
that mattered, like my issue was paramount in his mind.”
Rabbi Reuven Feinstein
shlita related that he once came to discuss a pressing matter about the yeshiva
with his illustrious father, Rabbi Moshe Feinstein zt’l. Before he had a chance
to begin a well-dressed woman entered Rabbi Moshe’s office and began pouring
out her troubles. It was quickly apparent that the woman was deranged. She related
to Rabbi Moshe her harrowing experiences with aliens pursuing her. After a
half-hour Rabbi Reuven prepared to stop her for his father’s sake. Rabbi Moshe
stopped him and said, “Zee hot keinem nisht ihr ois tzuheren azeleche zachen
– She has no one who will listen to her tell of such things.”
She continued talking
for an hour and a half and only stopped because it was almost nightfall and
that was when the aliens came out[6].
This all from a man who
literally valued every moment of his life.
“You shall strengthen
him”
“Anyone who comforts
him… eleven blessings”
[1] “Console the mourner”
[2] I am deeply
grateful to Rabbi Noach Sauber (a rebbe and mentor from Camp Dora Golding) who
related this story to me. I am particularly grateful because Jack Gold is my
great-uncle (father’s mother’s oldest brother). I verified the details of the
story with my cousin, Rabbi Avie Gold, a noted writer.
[3] Bava Basra 9b
[4] Tosafos note that one who gives
a pauper both money and encouragement merits all seventeen blessings
[5] Quoted in Ohel Moshe (Rabbi
Moshe Sheinerman)
[6]
From “Reb Moshe” by Rabbi Shimon Finkelman
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