A Bang On the Table - Monthly Gedolim Stories

As we pack away the memories of another beautiful Pesach, it's time for me to share with you Nissans edition of the "Monthly Gedolim Stories." Let's begin with this small introduction.

In his most recent book, titled "The Story Begins..." The noted author and lecturer Rabbi Yechiel Spero shares many special stories. I'd go as far as saying this might just be his best book yet. Every story hit its own note, hit the spot in just the right way. None more so than the one I'm sharing with you today.

I'm just going to jump straight in.

I hope you enjoy it.

Have a great week ahead,

Your friend

Yitzy Schweitzer.

A Bang On the Table - Monthly Gedolim Stories

When Rav Yosef Shlomo Kehaneman, the Ponevezher Rav, came to Radin as a young man, he came with a powerful, glorious dream burning inside him. He wanted to taste Torah at its most purest of pure levels. In those days, who better to learn from than the Chafetz Chaim himself, the man who embodied Torah and loved Torah with all heart?

The beis midrash of Radin was small and simple. But for those stepped inside, it was a palace of Torah. For there at the front, sat the saintly Chafetz Chaim, a man whose face with true kedushah and love of Hashem and His Torah. Bent over his Gemara, he seemed to belong to another world, and from the time Yosef Shlomo entered Radin, he soaked up every word he could from his holy Rebbe.

Even after his marriage, Rav Yosef Shlomo continued to bask in the presence of the Chafetz Chaim, where he became a pillar of the Kollel Kodshim. It was in that very setting where he was told, by the Chafetz Chaims Rebetzin, this story, a story shedding a glimpse into a life of purity and devotion.

This is that story written in the first person.

There were days when there was nothing in our house. Nothing at all, not even a piece of bread. Still, my husband would sit by his Gemara learning with every fibre of his being while I... I would think of food. What could I give him? What could I prepare when my hands were empty?

So, I would go to the baker. We had no money for bread, but I would lower my eyes and ask, "Please, may I take the crumbs that collect at the bottom of the tray?" He would nod. I would scoop those crumbs into my apron, carry them home carefully, and from those crumbs, I would fashion a few keneidelach. That's all we had for supper.

But one day I went, and the baker would notceven give me crumbs, no matter how much I pleaded. He gave me some look, "Rebetzin, not today. If you don't have money, I can not give you anything today."

I walked home empty-handed. I reached our little house and stood by the window, and I broke. Tears streamed down my face. What would I feed my husband? How could I let him sir and learn with no food at all?

My husband came in from the beis midrash and saw me crying. He asked, "What happened?"

I Saif to him, "Today they would not even give me crumbs."

He looked at me with reassurance and comforted me. Than he walked across the room, banged his hand firmly on the table, and with a voice that thundered, he exclaimed, "Yetzer Hara,  gira b'einayich! Evil inclination, an arrow in your eyes (quoting from Kiddushin 30a)! You will not succeed! You want me to close my Gemara? You want me to stop learning, to stop serving Hashem? Never! Whatever you try, whatever you send, I will not let go of the Torah!"

He returned to his Gemara.

The next day, I went back to the baker. This time, his face was different. He smiled at me and said, "Rebetzin, take as many crumbs as you need. No worries whatsoever."

The Yetzer Hara does not come to kill, to destroy. That's not his goal, not his purpose. He wants only that a Jew should put away the Gemara, that he should stop serving Hashem. That's his entire goal. Bur when he saw that my husband would never close his Gemara, that he would not give in, he left. He gave up. At least for that day.

Yosef Shlomo sat transfixed. He could see the Rebbetzin standing by the window, the tears falling. He could see his Rebbe, the Chafetz Chaim, who was frail in body, yet strong and mighty in spirit, slamming his hand on the table, declaring war on the Yetzer Hara. He felt it inside himself to. This was Torah itself alive and burning. He carried that vision with him.

Years later, when the world collapsed, when his beloved Ponevezh was reduced to mere ashes, when six million of brothers and sisters lay dead, when he lost so much of his own family, when Torah seemed silenced in Europe forever... it was this memory, this story, this vision that gave him the strength to rebuild, to carry on and move and March forward.

For he had seen with his own eyes what it means to refuse the Yetzer Hara. He had heard it from the Rebetzin of the Holy Chafetz Chaim. This became the cry of his own life, the mission that carried him to Bnei Brakwhere out of the ruins of destruction, he built another palace for Torah.

Do not close the Gemara. Do not surrender.
Do not let the Yetzer Hara win.