I HAVE traveled and listened traveled to the Holy Land and to New York and listened to deep and different stories.
I traveled to a simcha in Israel and ended up in a shiva house in Brooklyn. An emotional roller coaster.
The first story I transmit is from Rabbi Yisrael P. Gornish, which he told last Shabbos in his shul in Flatbush, Brooklyn.
He made a point, hardly a new one, that G-d controls everything, based on Genesis 44:8, [Joseph to his brothers:] It was not you who sent me here (to Egypt), but G-d. But of course it was Josephs brothers who sold him down to Egypt! Yet, this is only on the surface. Actually, G-d controls everything. What was new here was Rabbi Gornishs illustration.
A wealthy man, with a day of important meetings ahead of him, arrived at a cafe in Jerusalem for a coffee before his day began. The line was long. He was nervous he would be late for his meetings. Somehow, a person much ahead of him in line noticed his edginess and offered to trade places. Im not in a hurry. Go ahead of me. The man was very grateful. He ordered, ate and left the cafe in short order.
About a block away, he heard a tremendous, terrifying explosion.
It was the Palestinian terrorist bombing of Cafe Sbarro in Jerusalem at the beginning of the second intifada.
Instantly, he turned and ran back to the cafe. What happened to the person who had changed places with him? He entered the smoky turmoil, amidst the severed limbs and chaos, and looked for his benefactor. He could not find him.
He then spent the next two days going from hospital to hospital.
Finally, he found his benefactor, very severely injured. He told the family: This man saved my life. Whatever he might need, do not hesitate to contact me. I can afford it. Just tell me.
He thought that it was he who was in charge of his life. How drastically, decisively and suddenly that explosion changed his perspective.
A few weeks later he received a call. A certain surgery might help restore the bombing victim to something of a normal life. The best surgical specialist was in Boston. The man covered all the expenses, gratefully and happily.
He even went to meet him when he landed in Boston. That was the 23rd of the Hebrew month of Elul. He had left his office in New York to be there at Logan Airport in Boston.
The 23rd of Elul was Sept. 11, 2001.
His office was in the first tower.
His benefactor had saved his life again.
It was not you who sent me here, but G-d.
No holds-barred Torah debate
THE second story is also from Rabbi Gornish, told at his Shabbos table. Rabbi Gornish was close to the late Klausenberger Rebbe, the chasidic leader who was a legend for his heroic efforts to restore Jewish spirits after the Holocaust.
The Rebbe, Rabbi Yekusiel Yehudah Halberstam, lost 10 children during the Holocaust and his 11th child right afterward. He was a tower of strength for hundreds of Jewish boys and girls, orphans all, many embittered, all penniless, all alone.
In one instance a girl came to him for a blessing on the eve of Yom Kippur because her father used to bless her then, and she had no father anymore. The Rebbe blessed her. Soon a line of countless young orphans formed outside his door. He blessed them all.
In another instance he saw a Jewish girl walking without stockings, and he commented to her that it was inappropriate for a Jewish daughter to walk around without stockings. She told him in her innocence, But Rebbe, I have no stockings.
On the spot, he took off his own stockings and gave them to her.
The story Rabbi Gornish told was not from the post-war period in the DP camps. It was from the Rebbes period in Union City, New Jersey, where he settled after the war. The suffering the Rebbe endured during the war did not rob him of his knowledge, nor of his thirst for more.
This is the story.
The Rebbe would deliver a Talmud lecture daily to the young, budding scholars whom he was nurturing.
The Rebbe enters the room. All of the young scholars rise in respect. They are awed by this man. It shows in their demeanor, their trembling.
Then the Rebbe opens his Talmud and begins his lecture.
Suddenly, after he begins to develop his point, he is unceremoniously interrupted. One of the young scholars sees the passage differently. The Rebbe defends his reading, and urges the young scholars to hear him out.
They do for a while.
Then another young scholar sees matters very differently.
They argue.
They shout as is customary in a Talmudic study hall.
They go at it back and forth.
One explanation.
Another.
Competing explanations.
Not only between the Rebbe and the students, but among the students.
This continues for an hour.
They are all attempting to fathom the Torah, to get the accurate reading, to get at the truth.
Its a no-holds-barred debate.
Noisy.
With attacks.
Retreats.
Reconsiderations.
Reformulations.
Rereadings.
Back and forth.
After an hour, the lecture ends. The Rebbe closes his Talmud. He stands.
They stand. In awe. Just as before. Their respect is abiding, woven into the fabric of their beings. The Rebbe leaves the room.
The holy man is one thing. The Torah the search for the true meaning of the passage is something else. The Rebbe is a holy man; the search for truth knows no rank. The students respect for the Rebbe is boundless, so is his expectation that they will plumb the words of the Torah without limitation.
Awe and stature, yes; and also, unfettered debate over the meaning of the Torah.
Inner radiance
THE third story is a glimpse into the life of my late brother-in-law, Yehoshua Monoker.
We had just finished marking the Bar Mitzvah of our oldest grandson, Eli Goldberg, in Ramat Bet Shemesh, Israel. Then the call came.
I never saw Yehoshua angry once.
I never saw him upset, no matter what.
He worked, he raised a family and relished the study of Torah.
Every free moment.
He was a straightforward man.
If humility is a straightforward trait.
If a smile that never wore off is a simple thing.
Some people, actually most people, in fact all people who attend a school and then graduate graduate. They move on. Perhaps they eventually return to the school as an instructor, but if so they are no longer students.
Yehoshua came to the Mirrer yeshiva in Brooklyn after high school and just kept studying there.
Simply, he never left the yeshiva.
Once on an international flight I saw an elderly man getting on the plane, struggling to navigate from a wheel chair to the seat. He had a radiance. I had no idea who he was but that radiance was magnetic.
After he was settled in, I approached him and introduced myself.
It was the dean, the rosh yeshiva, of the Mirrer yeshiva in Brooklyn, Rabbi Shmuel Berenbaum, an eminent person.
I mentioned that I was Yehoshua Monokers brother-in-law.
As if it were possible for that radiant face to light up even more it was possible. He unleashed a string of compliments.
I had scored.
I was related to Yehoshua Monoker.
The esteem in which this man was held was evident.
Now, after his passing, his humility, his purity, his love of Torah, lights up even more.
May his memory be a blessing.
Copyright © 2012 by the Intermountain Jewish News
