Close To Torah

by Rabbi Shlomo Price

A certain teacher, Mr. Schlatter tells of an experience he had early in his career.

He had a student, who was very troublesome. He was a bully, a thief and always getting suspended. Everyday, Mr. Schlatter would have the class memorize some famous inspirational sayings and repeat them at roll call. Among them were, “If you can see the obstacles, you’ve taken your eyes of the goal.”, “There is no failure except in no longer trying.” This troublesome student complained the most about this routine until he was expelled from the school. They lost touch for five years when all of a sudden the student called Mr. Schlatter.

He was at a special program at one of the neighboring colleges and had just finished parole.

He told Mr. Schlatter, that after being sent to different prisons for his antics he had become so disgusted with himself that he had taken a razor blade and cut his wrists.

To see the amazing ending of this story continue reading:                       

One of the Torah thoughts that I like to say about Purim is from the sefer “Drash Moshe” in Hebrew, p. 67, by Hagaon Rabbi Moishe Feinstien, z.t.l. (also cited in Artscroll Megillah on this verse from “Bastion of Faith”)

He discusses the name of the holiday “Purim” because of the pur-the lot that Haman drew in order to decide which month to annihilate the Jews (Esther 9:26).

He asks, “…the name (of a Holiday) teaches us the main concept of the Holiday, and this concept of the lots is not a major theme of Purim, (so why is the name Purim)?

Evidently, the lesson from this is, that a person shouldn’t think that when Hashem has already given him good fortune and blessing that it’s already in his hand (guaranteed) and there is no longer any need to seek Hashem’s salvation.

Rather he should feel that just as he must pray to Hashem before he gets it, so too must he pray even after Hashem has given it to him, for one does not know what his lot is. We see this from Haman. Even though his lot (in the beginning) was for his benefit, later it was for his detriment and for the benefit of the Jews. This is a very important principle in Belief of Hashem that we should learn from this Holiday. That is why this name (Purim) is the most befitting of all.”

Of course we see this lesson in everyday life how very wealthy people can overnight lose their fortune to the whims of the stock market (which of course is just one of the messengers of Hashem to give or take away sustenance)

We also see the other side of the coin in Purim, how a situation that looks so bleak and desperate can all of a sudden, make a “turnabout” and be a tremendous benefit for its recipient. As it says in the Megillah (Esther 9:1) “… and there was a turnabout that the Jews dominated over their enemies.”

A few years ago I was privileged to attend a Bar Mitzvah in St Louis that brought this point home. It was of a boy who came to live with his uncle in St. Louis, at the age of 11 1/2 and didn’t even know Aleph Beit. Yet here he was, a mere year and a half later, a true Ben Torah who lained the Torah and Haftorah and spoke beautifully about his yearnings to be a true Ben Torah.

Before I left to St. Louis from Israel, I was informed by the guys in the Yeshivah (Neveh Zion) that the St Louis Rams had just won the Super Bowl. This was news to me on two accounts. First of all, I thought the Rams were in Los Angeles. Second of all, I didn’t know that the Super Bowl had been played. See what you miss by moving to Israel.

Anyway when I arrived in New York before going to St. Louis I visited the Yeshiva “Shaar Yoshuv” in Far Rockaway to see some of the Neveh Alumni. Over there, as Hashgocho would have it, I was told by one of our alumni, Gershom Paretzky, the amazing dismal history of the St Louis Rams of yesteryear and their miraculous turnabout this year. Of course, he also briefed me on the no less amazing biography of their quarterback, Kurt Warner.

Armed with my new vital information, when I spoke at the Bar Mitzvah I made use of it. I mentioned how “… St. Louis is a land of miracles and heroes as we see from the Rams, Kurt Warner, and of course, who can forget Mark McGwire? In case you did, he hit 70 home runs for the St. Louis Cardinals in 1998.

But all of these so-called “miracles and heroism” pale in the light of the real hero that is with us tonight in St. Louis, the Bar-Mitzvah boy. In fact, as much as we all came here to inspire the Bar Mitzvah boy, there is no doubt that more than we could have inspired the Bar mitzvah boy, he has inspired us.”

A person must learn never to lose hope or give up.

In fact, I saw some beautiful stories in the book, “Chicken Soup of the Soul” which stress this point.

One is about Thomas Edison who invented the light bulb. He had tried over 2,000 experiments before he got it to work. A young reporter asked him how it felt to fail so many times. He said, “I never failed once. I invented the light bulb. It just happened to be a 2000 -step process.”

When Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone in 1876, it did not ring off the hook with calls from potential backers. After making a demonstration call, President Rutherford Hayes said, “That’s an amazing invention, but who would ever want to use one of them?”

Another story from the same book is really a story within a story. It is called “The Magic Pebbles” by John Wayne Schlatter.

This schoolteacher, Mr. Schlatter, tells how he would handle one of the most frequently uttered questions in his teaching career, “Why do we have to learn all this dumb stuff?”

He would answer by recounting the legend of “The Magic Pebbles.”

One evening a group of nomads were suddenly surrounded by a Heavenly light which gave them a special message, “Gather as many pebbles as you can. Put them in your saddle bags. Travel a day’s journey and tomorrow night will find you glad and it will find you sad.”

The nomads, who were expecting some profound message and advice, were disappointed with such a menial task that made no sense to them. However, they were so inspired by the great light that they each picked up a few pebbles and put them in their saddle bags.

They traveled a day’s journey and at night while making camp they looked into their bags and discovered that every pebble had become a diamond. They were glad they had diamonds. They were sad that they didn’t get more pebbles.

Mr. Schlatter then tells of an experience he had that illustrated the truth of that legend to him.

He had a student, early in his career, who was very troublesome. He was a bully, a thief and always getting suspended. Everyday, Mr. Schlatter would have the class memorize some famous inspirational sayings and repeat them at roll call. Among them were, “If you can see the obstacles, you’ve taken your eyes of the goal.”, “There is no failure except in no longer trying.” This troublesome student complained the most about this routine until he was expelled from the school. They lost touch for five years when all of a sudden the student called Mr. Schlatter.

He was at a special program at one of the neighboring colleges and had just finished parole.

He told Mr. Schlatter, that after being sent to different prisons for his antics he had become so disgusted with himself that he had taken a razor blade and cut his wrists.

“You know what , Mr. Schlatter, as I lay there with my life running out of my body, I suddenly remembered that dumb quote you made me write 20 times one day. ‘There is no failure except in no longer trying.’ Then it suddenly made sense to me. As long as I was alive, I wasn’t a failure, but if I allowed myself to die, I would most certainly die a failure. So with my remaining strength, I called for help and started a new life.”

At the time that he heard the quotation it was just a pebble. When he needed guidance in a moment of crisis, it had become a diamond. And so it is with all of us we should gather all the pebbles we can and we can count on a future full of diamonds. Till here is the story.

Of course, all of this may be true concerning secular wisdom, but Lehavdil elef havdolos, the words of Torah are more precious than diamonds the very moment we learn them. And if secular wisdom can help in the future, then certainly Torah wisdom will inspire and help us immediately if we only internalize them.

I will further this point with part of an article from Aish.Com about Purim from Rabbi Benjamin Bleich, called, “Modern Miracles.”

“There is a Hebrew word in the book of Esther central to the story of Purim, V’nahafoch – it was turned around. Everything that seemed like a misfortune at first was in retrospect recognized as a Divine miracle. Because there are miracles, unlike those in the Bible, that come camouflaged as seeming coincidences, as natural events, as incidents that “just happened,” but that in reality are the products of heavenly intervention in the affairs of mankind.

The very name Purim comes from the word meaning “lottery.” Some call that a game of pure luck, the winner determined by random inexplicable forces that have no rational basis. Faith however allows us to understand that in a world governed by an All-seeing God there cannot be room for blind chance. A lottery is far more than luck; it is allowing the Director of the universe to decide the outcome while hiding in the background.

Purim is the holiday that harps on what people call coincidence. It reminds us, as the proverb has it, that “coincidence is God’s way of choosing to remain anonymous.”

Purim has many miracles in its story. Not the kind of miracles that override the rules of nature. Rather the miracles that happen so much more frequently in our own lives. The miracles that we so often discount because God chooses not to shout but rather to whisper. It is His still small voice that we have to attune ourselves to hear as He turns tragedies into blessings. And that is why the festival of Purim, with its message of miracles camouflaged as coincidence, will outlast every other holiday on the Jewish calendar.

A personal story will shed some light on the matter. Thirty years ago in the middle of giving a lecture to my class at Yeshiva University I was suddenly called out due to “a life-and-death emergency.” One of my students was threatening to commit suicide in his dormitory room and desperately needed some counseling.

I rushed over and found the young man wailing and moaning. “This is the worst day of my life!” he screamed, “I don’t want to go on living anymore.” Slowly the story poured out of him. His girlfriend had just broken up with him and he was inconsolable. “You don’t understand, Rabbi. I’ll never ever find anyone like her. I’ll never meet someone as perfect as she is. I can’t go on, I just want to die.”

I stayed with my student all day, as well as the following night. I tried to reassure him that his life was not over. By morning I finally got him to promise me not to give up on his future. He agreed that suicide is a sin and that he’d struggle to go on, even though it pained him to lose what he was certain was his only possibility for happiness.

A little over 20 years later I was teaching in my very same classroom when there was a knock on the door. A young man asked permission to enter and then, with a smile, asked, “Rabbi, do you remember me?”

It took but a moment for me to realize who it was. “Of course I recognize you,” I told him, “and you still owe me a night’s sleep.”

The young man returned to tell me the end of the story. “You know that day when I wanted to commit suicide and I told you it was the worst day of my life? In retrospect I now realize that day was really the luckiest day of my life. The girl I thought I couldn’t live without — she’s been involved in drugs and a series of scandals that even hit the newspapers. My life would have been a horror had we stayed together. I came back to thank you Rabbi, because today I am married to a woman who is truly the best in the world and we have four amazing children who give me joy every single day. I guess what you taught us is true. There are times in life when we mistake blessings for tragedies.”

But that’s not the end of the story.

Just one year after this moving experience I was invited to serve as scholar in residence at a synagogue in Los Angeles. For my Sabbath sermon I chose a theme based on a verse in Exodus in response to Moses’ request to see God. God told Moses, “You cannot see My face, for man cannot see My face and live… you will see My back, but My face shall not be seen” (Exodus 33:20). Of course God has no body. It was not His physical appearance that was being discussed. Moses wanted to “see” — to comprehend — God’s ways and His interaction with His creations. What he was told is that with our finite intelligence we can’t understand events as they unfold; it is only retroactively that “You will see My back” and grasp God’s infinite wisdom. I quoted Kierkegaard who expressed the same idea when he said, “The greatest tragedy of life is that it must be lived forward and can only be understood backwards.” And then, as I was speaking, the story of the suicidal student suddenly popped into my head and I told it as an illustration.

The following Sunday night, one of the congregants told me that my speech had unwittingly saved a life. It seems that in the audience on the previous day for the Sabbath service was a young man just 24 hours before his wedding. He was scheduled to fly out to New York late Saturday night to join his bride for the wedding ceremony they had been happily anticipating for the last six months. No sooner was the Sabbath over when he received the phone call that shattered his dreams. His fianc?e at the last moment decided she couldn’t go through with it. She called to regretfully inform him that it was all over.

The almost-to-be-groom later described to his friends what happened next. For a moment he felt suicidal. He wanted to rage, to vent his anger, to scream. But one thought kept repeating itself in his mind. Why was it that on that very morning he heard a sermon describing an almost similar event? He had not intended to go to that particular synagogue. It was a last-minute decision that brought him to a place where, almost as a Divine message, he could hear words that in the aftermath of his own tragedy might offer him some solace.

Little did he know that my inserting that particular illustration was also totally unplanned. A higher source put into my mind and my mouth — a gift from God to allow someone to survive incredible pain just a few hours later.

And this story, too, has a happy ending. This past July my wife and I were strapping ourselves into our El Al seats on the way to Israel. Passengers were still filing by on the aisles when one of them began to stare at me and suddenly shouted, “Aren’t you Rabbi Blech?” When I responded that indeed I was, he identified himself. Five years before, he told me, he was sitting in a synagogue in Los Angeles on the day before he was supposed to get married. He proceeded to share the part of the story I already knew.

With tears in his eyes he asked me to come with him so he could introduce his wife and three children. “I’m just like that student in the story you told us that unforgettable Shabbat. Today I’m the happiest man in the world. I can honestly say that the curse of that Saturday night has turned out to be my greatest blessing.” [Till here is from Rabbi Bleich]

In the Sefer Chumash HaMagiddim on Parshas VaYetze [p.242…] there is a very inspirational lecture from Rabbi Yaacov Galinsky, shlita which also teaches us this lesson, that one must have patience and then he may see later on how a seeming “tragedy,” was really for his best.

We find that after Leah had six sons, she was pregnant with the seventh son. Since she knew that there would only be 12 tribes she calculated that since the two maidservants had 4 [2 each], if she would have 7 that would leave only 1 for her sister Rachel. This would be disgraceful as Rachel would have less than the maidservants. So she prayed and it changed to a female and she was named Dinah. [Bereishis 30:21in Rashi from Berachos 60a].

This was a tremendous sacrifice that Leah had done for her sister Rachel, to give up the merit of having another holy Tribe. As much as we understand their holiness, the Matriarchs knew better.

At least she merited a daughter from Yaacov which is also fine and good. One would imagine that such a daughter that was born as a result of Leah’s self sacrifice should merit great blessings and a tremendous Choson-groom.

But what happened?

She gets taken by Shechem a Gentile!!

One can ask at this point a very poignant question. Is this Leah’s reward for her sacrifice? Is this the Nachas-the pleasure Leah is supposed to get from Dinah for her self sacrifice? This is truly a hard question to answer.

However, if we look in “Pirkei DRabi Eliezer,” Chapter 38 it will be revealed to us an amazing thing.

A daughter was born from the union of Shechem and Dinah. Her name was Osnat. She was considered Jewish as her mother was Jewish. Nevertheless, the brothers wanted to kill her so people shouldn’t say there was immorality in the “House of Yaacov.”

Yaacov wrote the Holy Name of Hashem on something and hung it around Osnat’s neck and sent her away. Hashem, who sees everything, sent the  Angel Michoel to take her and bring her down to Mitzrayim-Egypt to the house of Potiphar and his wife. The wife of Potiphar was barren and brought up Osnat as her own daughter. Eventually she married Yoseph.

Yoseph and Osnat had two children, Menashe and Ephraim. They were counted among the 12 tribes. [Bereishis 48:5-see Rashi].

So now we have the amazing answer to our question.

Leah gave up one tribe and gained two tribes Menashe and Ephraim, her great grand children!!

In the beginning, when Leah sacrificed, we don’t see immediate beneficial results. In fact, we see as if she was given a slap. Only much later do we see the final benefit that she merited double.

We learn from all of this that we have to have patience. We won’t always see immediate results for our sacrifices. But if we have patience we may see it at the end. With this future outlook we can make peace with the difficult present.

Sometimes, we have to take into consideration things that happened to our Neshamos-Souls in a different lifetime to get the whole picture.

 The Chofetz Chaim (On Torah. p.284), brings the verse in Tehilim 19:10 “…The Judgements of Hashem are true, they are all together righteous.” The simple understanding by many commentaries [Ibn Ezra,Metzudas Dovid] is that they don’t contradict each other, but the Chofetz Chaim explains it in a very novel way.

 We know that for sins bein odom l’chaveiro-between man and man Yom Kippur alone will not forgive us. We require personal forgiveness from the one we have wronged. If someone hits his friend and he doesn’t make amends in this world then the soul must return again in a different gilgul-reincarnation to this world to rectify this sin.

 Imagine, the Chofetz Chaim says, the pain and anguish that the soul has when it is sentenced to come back down here again [the soul yearns to be next to Hashem, and just when it finally thinks it’s reaching its goal, it is sent down here again. This is tremendous suffering for the soul].

 The soul complains to Hashem why He made him rich. The soul blames the haughtiness and chutzpah that accompany wealth as the reason why he hit his friend, and begs not to have to be sent down again.

 Finally, when the soul realizes that inevitably it must come down to rectify the sin of hitting his friend, it pleads for special consideration. It begs to be sent down as a poor person with a broken spirit, or to be born without a hand, so that it will prevent him from hitting his friend again.

This causes a great upheaval in the Heavenly Court. The Prosecutor does not agree. He claims that in order to make amends properly, the neshomo has to come down in the exact same situation it had before. It has to be rich and with two arms in order to go through the same test again. Finally, after much praying, pleading, beseeching, and a number of advocates who spoke on the soul’s behalf, its request was granted. It was sent down as a poor man or without an arm.

 Yet, when the soul gets here, it remembers nothing of the previous episode. When it is born poor or handicapped, instead of thanking Hashem for listening to its request, it complains to Hashem about the unfairness of its situation. It forgot completely how hard it worked till it “persuaded” Hashem to create it with this situation, to insure that he wouldn’t hit his friend.

 This is what the posuk in Tehillim means, that in order to see the truth in Hashem’s judgments, one must see the whole story all together. When one knows what occurred before he was sent down, how he begged Hashem to create him in this situation, then it will be obvious to him that Hashem’s judgments are true and his poverty or handicap were a tremendous merit for him.

 One of the beautiful thoughts that Rabbi Bleich mentioned, I had seen before from  Rabbi Yissochor Frand, in the name of the Chasam Sofer.

The posuk in Ki Sisa (Shmos 33: 23) says, that Hashem told Moshe, “. . . . And you will see “Achorai“- My back, “Upanai” – My front you will not see”. The Chasam Sofer points out that there are many events that look quite bad when they actually occur. We wonder why Hashem is doing this. Only much later do we sometimes see how this event led to a whole chain of events that ultimately led to a tremendous good for Klal Yisroel. Then we realize in retrospect that the first event was really good.

This, he said, can be alluded to in the posuk “Upanai – My front”, – before that final event (that clarifies the first event) occurs then “we will not see” – we will not understand its goodness. However “Achorai” – My back”, – when you see much later the great event that it led to, “you will see. . . “, you will then understand in retrospect why the first event was necessary.

When I looked up the Chasam Sofer I saw that he uses the story of Purim as an example.

He points out that when we look at the death of Vashti which caused the taking of Esther as Queen, it raises the obvious question. Why did Hashem cause Esther to be taken as Queen to this Goyishe King where she will be defiled? [Or as a Jewish Comedian would say, “What’s a nice Jewish girl doing in a place like this?!”]

Years later we discover that it was very necessary. It put Esther into a key position to help bring salvation to Klal Yisroel.

May Hashem help us to learn the lessons of Purim and internalize them so that we can live them throughout the rest of the year and so we will truly live a happier life in this world and the next.

 Have a Happy Purim!

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Rabbi Shlomo Price, a renowned lecturer and educator, is also a senior Rebbe at Neve Tzion. To receive his weekly Priceless Torah – please contact him at RabbiShlomo.Price@gmail.com.

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Categories: Hashkafah, Inspiration, Living Purim Every Day, Machshuvah, Moadim / Tekufos, Purim Tags: