Read a story about a Rabbi who visited Miami and gave a lecture on the life and accomplishments of the famed “Chafetz Chaim” (Rabbi Israel Meir HaCohen Kagan, 1838-1933).
The Rabbi told a story of an incident that happened once with one of the Yeshiva students in the Chafetz Chaim Yeshiva who had smoked a cigarette on Shabbat, and therefore had openly desecrated the holy day. Some of the faculty felt the student had to be expelled, but the Chafetz Chaim asked the boy be brought to his home.
The Rabbi giving the lecture said: “we don’t know what the Chafetz Chaim said to the boy, I would give anything to know what he said to the boy. What we know is that this student never desecrated Shabbat again.”
Suddenly in the crowd there was an elderly man who said to him: “I know what the Chafetz Chaim said to the boy because I was that boy, now let me tell you the rest of the story. When I walked into the Sage home I was petrified. He lived very simply and I couldn’t believe a person so distinguished lived with so little and was satisfied in life. When he came into the room he took my hand in his two hands and closed his eyes. He began to cry and utter the word “Shabbat.” Tears streamed down his face and fell on my hand, my heart started pounding. I can’t describe how awful I felt; he was never angry, rather I felt he was very sad and fearful of the consequences of my actions.”
The man looked at his hand and caressed the invisible scar the tears of the Chafetz Chaim had left in him. It had become his permanent reminder to observe the “Holy Shabbat” for the rest of his life.
Excerpts taken from “A Tzaddik’s Tear” by Yerachmiel Tilles
#shabbatshalom
www.livealittlehigher.com
