The fifth and final volume of the Oleinu Leshabeiach
series (in Hebrew), on Devorim, was published last
year. Written by HaRav Yitzchok Zilberstein, this one, like
its predecessors, was prepared for publication by R' Moshe
Michoel Tzoran. This entire series, which was received most
enthusiastically by the Torah world, incorporates messages of
mussar and chizuk, accompanied by stories,
facts, insights and vignettes on the leaders of this and
recent generations.
Here are unpublished stories written in a clear, interesting
style. Great educators have testified that the approach is
most suited to this generation, mainly because the pieces
speak directly from the heart.
We bring here, in Yated, several stories and facts
from that volume:
What Did Maran HaRav Yosef Sholom Eliashiv Rule to Young
Girls Who Harassed their Friend?
Chazal bring many stories relating the punishments visited
upon those who hurt a friend and cause him emotional pain.
Insulting someone is so severe a sin that even if one did so
unintentionally, the sinner is harshly punished.
To what can this be compared? To someone who accidentally
came in contact with fire. This is something that anyone can
readily comprehend as being painful. And even if a person
accidentally thrust his hand into fire, it will be burnt. No
excuses in the world will help that "I didn't mean to do it"
or "I didn't realize that the fire was hot."
This is because fire is a reality, an inescapable fact, and
one cannot argue with a tangible, physical fact.
It is in this selfsame manner that one must regard insulting
another person. One must be so cautious, so alert, that even
accidentally or incidentally one will never hurt another.
It once happened that a student in a girls' educational
institution developed minor emotional problems. Her
classmates teased her incessantly and being so vulnerable,
her condition deteriorated rapidly. She repeatedly begged her
classmates to leave her be, even did so publicly, but they
continued to mock and torment her. As her condition worsened,
she kept on pleading with them to desist, but they persisted,
taking pleasure in taunting her all the more.
Her pleas fell on deaf ears.
One gloomy morning, the terrible news broke: the girls'
classmate had gone mad. Instead of the minor emotional
problems she had suffered from, she now had totally collapsed
and had a full-blown case of insanity which necessitated her
to be placed in a mental hospital.
The doctors who treated her said that in their professional
opinion, she was incurable. She would have to spend the rest
of her life institutionalized.
Her former classmates were in shock. Only now did they begin
to grasp what they had done. Who, better than they, knew who
was to blame!
They were beside themselves with remorse and self
recrimination. Each girl would have liked to go personally
and ask the classmate's forgiveness for what she had done,
but they realized that in her mental state, this was
impossible. She was incapable of forgiving them at this
point.
The girls sent a messenger to Maran HaRav Eliashiv to find
out if there was any possible way for them to ask forgiveness
and to get atonement.
HaRav Eliashiv listened to the story and struck his hands
together in dismay, saying, "There is nothing to do! All
those who insulted and harassed this poor girl will simply
have to wait until she dies and then bring a minyan to
her grave to ask forgiveness according to the Shulchan
Oruch."
This particular messenger, who happened to be a Torah
scholar, asked R' Eliashiv if the girl's state at the
present, while she was alive, was maybe worse than it would
be after she died! If one could ask forgiveness from a
departed person, why not from one who had gone mad?
Maran repeated what he had said previously, that the
classmates would have to wait until she died. He
differentiated between the state of the soul within a living
person who had gone mad, in which case one could not ask
forgiveness — and the state when the soul had already
separated from the body after death, when one could, and was
obligated, to ask forgiveness.
The girls heard the ruling and were very frightened. Who
knows if they would ever succeed in asking for pardon? As one
girl put it, "From now on, I will have to spend the rest of
my life in remorse, my conscience berating me for what I did.
And the worse thing is that I may never find the opportunity
to ask forgiveness!"
The only thing that one could say to them — those
unfortunate classmates who so tormented her and ignored her
recurrent pleas to desist — is: "You should have
thought about it beforehand!"
The Officer Gave the Woman a Wagonload of Flour
Sacks
A most pious couple, R' Eliezer and Sheine Feige Goldschmidt,
lived in the village of Soparslav, near Bialystok. This
village had a large forest nearby which served the students
of Yeshivas Novardok (among whom was also the Steipler Rov
ztvk'l) for their periods of seclusion and
introspection, where they made their cheshbon
haneffesh.
The Novardok students used to eat `days' by the villagers,
but their chief host was the Goldschmidt couple. They owned a
bakery in the center of the village and every family that
agreed to take on students for meals was allowed free bread
and cakes.
The Goldschmidts hoped, in this manner, to raise the prestige
of the yeshiva students in the eyes of the villagers and to
encourage them to be partners in their holy Torah study.
R' Eliezer and his good wife saw, however, that the villagers
did not do justice to these dedicated scholars. They would
belittle them and not show them the deference they deserved.
At one point, the concerned couple decided to provide for the
boys themselves. They arranged for a cook to set up a kitchen
at the bakery itself and had the students come to the bakery
for all their meals.
It was not long before all the students were coming three
times a day to the bakery, all at the expense of the
Goldschmidts.
To be sure, the quality of the Torah study soared, for now
the students studied on full stomachs. And their Torah study
had repercussions: it duly upgraded the study of the entire
village. Indeed, many great Torah scholars were produced
during this period and they would always remember their kind,
devoted benefactors of this critical time in their
development.
When the daughter of Sheine Feige later visited HaRav Avrohom
Yaffen zt'l, who had been one of those selfsame
students of that period, he rose his full height in her honor
and said, "It is my obligation to stand before you, for if
not for your father and mother, I would never have achieved
what I have achieved."
Upon a visit to Eretz Yisroel, HaRav Gershon Liebman
zt'l, rosh yeshivas Novardok in France, went
especially to pay his respects to the son of that couple,
HaRav Nochum Goldschmidt zt'l, who founded Yeshivas
Kfar Saba and later served as one of the important rabbis of
Tel Aviv.
The daughter-in-law of that famous tzaddekes tells the
following amazing story which took place during the First
World War, when there was a severe shortage of flour. Sheine
Feige was altogether distraught, not knowing how she could
possibly continue to provide bread and food for the yeshiva
students.
Then, one morning, there was a knock at the door and in
walked a high-ranking Russian officer. "I live in a nearby
town," he said, "and own a large bakery. I have just been
called up by the army for a long time and the flour in my
warehouse is very liable to spoil. I've brought a large wagon
full of flour sacks to give to you. Use it — and when I
return, you can repay me for it."
The officer told her his name and address and Sheine Feige
thanked him. She primarily thanked Hashem for this great
kindness He had shown her at such a critical time. And
thereupon, she immediately began baking bread for the hungry
students.
When the war ended, she traveled to the village to look up
the officer and pay him for the flour. She inquired here and
there, but everyone insisted that no high-ranking officer had
lived in their town, nor anyone by that name, for that
matter.
When great rabbonim heard this story, they declared that it
must have been Eliyohu Hanovi who had seen her distress and
anxiety over her inability to feed the yeshiva boys, and had
revealed himself to her in the form of the Russian officer so
that she could continue her vital work of providing the
physical needs of the Novardok yeshiva students.
The Foreman Turned White and Suddenly Burst into
Tears
A Jew sent a letter to HaRav Yitzchok Zilberstein telling a
story that had happened over half a century before:
He lived in a small settlement in Eretz Yisroel over fifty
years ago. Its residents were almost all shomrei
Shabbos and took great pains that no vehicle enter the
village from Friday sundown to Shabbos nightfall.
One Shabbos, one of the residents entered the beis
knesses all agitated. It seems that repair work was being
carried on by the railroad that ran near the edge of their
village.
The townspeople were in an uproar at this public desecration
of the holy Shabbos, especially since it was being
perpetrated by a public body that received part of its budget
from them, as well. They all stormed out en masse and headed
towards the railroad to stop the work.
They all congregated upon the tracks and would not let the
workers carry on. Part of the people demonstrated
vociferously and the others prevented the work bodily. A
small group went up to the foreman who was supervising the
repair work and demanded that he call a halt to the work.
"Believe me," he said, "that I would also like to sit in my
own home right now in peace and quiet, but what can I do that
I am under strict orders from my superiors? If you can bring
me a certification of new orders from them to halt the work,
I will release all of the workers at once and go home
myself!"
Confusion reigned for a brief spell. Then, suddenly, a very
short, emaciated man stepped out from the group of
congregants. He was known as one of the very quiet people in
their community who rarely voiced an opinion on anything and
certainly never meddled into an argument. And yet now, he
strode purposefully forward and stood staunchly before the
foreman. He rolled up his sleeve and turned to the man with a
shout: "What kind of a certification are you waiting for!"
Everyone was sure that he had rolled up his sleeve in order
to strike the foreman for daring to desecrate the Shabbos
publicly. But the short man continued to shout, "Do you need
more of a verification that we are Jews and that we were
commanded by the Torah to guard the Shabbos? Here, look at
this number on my forearm. This tattoo mark testifies more
than a thousand witnesses that we are Jews!
"This number was engraved upon my arm in Auschwitz and if
this is not enough to convince you that we must not desecrate
the Shabbos . . . " Overcome by his strong emotions, he
groped for the right words, and continued, groaning from the
depths of his wounded heart,
"Here! See this! It is written right here that we are Jews.
And Jews are obligated to honor the Shabbos!"
The people standing there were stunned by his outburst, but
what happened next surprised everyone all the more, and even
the small congregant himself, who was not expecting such a
reaction from the foreman.
The foreman turned white. He was struck dumb. He tried, but
could not utter a syllable.
After a moment or two, he recovered and burst into stormy
sobs. He rolled up his sleeve as well and displayed the
number that had been engraved in blue ink upon his own
forearm.
Then, in a spontaneous move, he fell upon the neck of the
small Jew, embracing and kissing him. And he said, "We are
brothers. Brothers of the same holy nation! I promise you,
from this day on, I will observe the Shabbos, with or without
a certification from my superiors. The only One Who is my
Superior is the Ribono Shel Olom!"
Within minutes, there was not a single person on the railroad
tracks. The two groups had dispersed and everyone had gone
home.
