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Adapted from: Rav Mattisyahu by Avrohom Birnbaum

Rav Mattisyahu possessed a tremendous ayin tovah; his natural default button was to notice the positive side of people.

It is an incident that is ingrained in my memory, one I can never forget. It happened during the years when he was healthy, and that is why it was so memorable.

I was one of the Mashgiach’s backup drivers. When neither his regular driver nor his main backup driver was available, I had the zechus to take the Mashgiach to yeshivah after his pre-Shacharis vaad.

In those years, the Mashgiach still walked with a spring in his step. He was always upbeat, but not that morning.

For some reason, after the vaad that morning, the Mashgiach was lethargic. When he went into his home office to get his tallis and tefillin, he sank into his chair so weak that he couldn’t move.

“Is everything okay with the Mashgiach?” I asked.

His answer took me completely by surprise.

“No, everything is not okay,” was his uncharacteristic answer.

Then, in a pain-filled voice, he continued, “Yesterday I was up until three a.m. listening to one tzarah after another. There was the yungerman whose daughter had gone far, far, far away from Yiddishkeit. There was a story of physical abuse. Then there was the couple who insisted on a divorce and did not want to work on their marriage. I slept for a few hours, and this morning, before the vaad, two other people came to me with unspeakable tzaros.”

I saw that the Mashgiach was depleted, completely and totally depleted on an emotional level.

As a result, I literally had to hold his arm and let him lean on me as he walked to the car.

He was sitting slumped in the front seat as I pulled the car onto 6th Street toward Lakewood Avenue. As we turned the corner from Lakewood Avenue into 7th Street, the Mashgiach saw a yungerman, tallis and tefillin in hand, walking quickly toward the yeshivah.

“Look!” the Mashgiach exclaimed excitedly. “You see that yungerman — he looks so excited to go and daven. Look, he is walking with zerizus…!”

Ten seconds later, he pointed to a different bachur running toward the beis midrash, tefillin in hand.

“Look at that bachur!” The weakness in his voice was slowly dissipating. He was literally like a child in a candy store! “Look at the purity on his face! Look at him! He is running to yeshivah to daven! Look at his smile! It is so wonderful to live in Lakewood. There are so many pure, temimusdik ovdei Hashem here!”

By the time we got to yeshivah, the Mashgiach had a broad smile on his face and sprang out of the car with zerizus. Suddenly, all the melancholy, all the heartache was gone.

I saw how he worked on putting things in perspective, looking at the big picture. I saw how the concept of ayin tovah and being b’simchah was such an avodah for him. He worked on being b’simchah because he saw simchah as a critical component in his avodas Hashem.

Adapted from: Rav Pam on the Parashah by Rabbi Sholom Smith

וַיֹּאמֶר ה’ אֶל אַבְרָהָם לָמָּה זֶּה צָחֲקָה שָׂרָה לֵאמֹר הַאַף אֻמְנָם אֵלֵד וַאֲנִי זָקַנְתִּי. הֲיִפָּלֵא מֵה’ דָּבָר לַמּוֹעֵד אָשׁוּב אֵלֶיךָ כָּעֵת חַיָּ’ וּלְשָׂרָה בֵן. — Then Hashem said to Avraham, “Why is it that Sarah laughed, saying: ‘Shall I in truth bear a child, though I have aged?’ Is anything beyond Hashem? At the appointed time I will return to you at this time next year, and Sarah will have a son” (18:13–14).

When Sarah heard one of the guests tell Avraham that she would have a son, she laughed incredulously, not believing that in her old age that was possible. As the pasuk relates, Hashem was upset with her for failing to recognize that nothing is impossible for Hashem. Ramban adds that although Sarah was not aware that the guests were Heavenly angels, and thought they were simply grateful guests who politely offered her a meaningless blessing, she still should have at least said, “Amen, may it be so.” Even though her laugh was “inside her” and she was certainly on a very high level of emunah and bitachon in Hashem, nevertheless, for her exalted level of greatness it was considered a serious failing, which is why Hashem rebuked her.

The Chofetz Chaim offers a fascinating explanation into this incident. What is the Torah teaching us by describing at length her laughing in disbelief, Hashem’s criticism of it, and her subsequent denial of what happened — all of which seem to paint Sarah in a very unfavorable light? 

It is not to diminish Sarah’s greatness, but to teach a timeless lesson for the generations near the end of history, in the days preceding the arrival of Mashiach. Just as Sarah struggled to believe that miraculous change could come so suddenly, many people in the final era will find it difficult to believe that we are on the very brink of redemption. The yeshuah will seem far away, the galus endless, and the world calm and ordinary—without the cataclysmic upheavals one might expect before Mashiach’s coming. 

As the Navi Malachi (3:1) foretells, pis’om, Suddenly, the lord (Mashiach) whom you seek will come to his sanctuary. He will come, even without a moment’s notice, even under conditions that make the Geulah seem to be a distant dream.

History itself has demonstrated this truth. Who could have imagined that after seventy years of Communist tyranny, the mighty Soviet Union would collapse almost overnight, without a single shot being fired? Hashem demonstrated to the world at large, and to Jews in particular, that when the appointed time arrives, He can overturn reality in a moment. The same Divine power that renewed Sarah’s body and granted her a child will one day transform the world in an instant.

Today, Eretz Yisrael remains a small nation surrounded by countless enemies. Even its allies stand by only when convenient. According to all natural laws, salvation seems remote. Yet Hashem’s message to Sarah still echoes through time: “Is anything beyond Hashem?” When the destined moment comes, the Geulah will arrive swiftly and unexpectedly—pis’om—for nothing lies beyond His power.

May we live to see this happen! 

Adapted from: Flashes of Inspiration by Rabbi Shlomo Landau

Shimon owned a grocery store in a busy town in Eretz Yisrael. In addition to the many shelved groceries, he also had a meat department that sold meat and chicken. Like many Israeli stores, one approached the counter and placed an order, which was cut, prepared, and packaged on the spot.

One day, as Shimon stood behind the counter, a woman approached and placed a modest order for a few pieces of chicken, some bones, and the cheapest cholent meat he carried. Shimon cut and wrapped the order, weighed it, tallied the prices, and told her what she owed.

The woman balked. Clearly, she hadn’t anticipated that her items would cost so much. To Shimon it was apparent she couldn’t afford the full amount. She began to haggle.

“The price of your chicken is exorbitant,” she said. “Your cheapest meat costs more than it should. You should reduce the price.”

Shimon responded with compassion but stood firm. “Geveret, while I’d love to help you, this is not the shuk. The prices here are competitive and fair. I’m sorry, but this sale is not negotiable.”

She continued trying to get him to lower the price, but when she realized he wouldn’t budge, she asked him to remove a few items from her order — even though he had already cut and packaged them — paid for the rest, and left.

Waiting next in line was a young fellow who had witnessed the exchange. He was taken aback by Shimon’s unwillingness to accommodate the woman’s situation.

“I don’t get it,” he said. “Clearly the woman was struggling. Why couldn’t you just give her a discount? It’s sad she had to put back items her family probably needed. I’m sure you’re a charitable person — why not give her a break?”

“Had she come to my door for tzedakah,” Shimon replied, “I would have helped her generously. But you can’t run a business where prices change for different people. It just doesn’t work.”

The two of them continued to argue but couldn’t come to a meeting of minds.

Finally, the young fellow said, “Listen, I have an idea. I’ll open an account in your store, and whenever you find yourself in a similar situation, where someone is putting back items because they can’t afford them, tell them to take the items and then add the difference to this account. This way you can continue to run your business properly while at the same time the needs of these unfortunate families can be met.”

Shimon appreciated the idea and on the spot opened an account. The young fellow told Shimon to swipe his credit card for five hundred shekels to get started and asked Shimon to place any additional expenses on his tab. He assured Shimon that he would come by from time to time to pay the balance on the account.

Over the next few weeks and months there were a number of occasions when Shimon realized that a particular customer was in a difficult financial predicament, and without making a big deal out of it he gave them a discount and charged the difference to the young fellow’s account.

One day the young fellow came into the store to inquire if he owed anything on the account. Shimon checked the account and shared with the fellow that there was a balance of 1,050 shekels. He explained that there had been quite a few people who were in a bad place and that he had discounted their orders.

The young man smiled, pleased. He handed Shimon his credit card and told him to charge 1,050 shekels.

Shimon swiped the card, entered the amount, and hit the green button. The transaction went through and printed a receipt. When he looked at it, his heart stopped — he had mistakenly entered 15,000 shekels instead of 1,050.

Panicked, he tried to reverse the sale, but the machine refused to cooperate. He tried again and again, to no avail. Flustered, he turned to the young fellow and apologized profusely.

“Please call your credit card company and have them reverse the charge,” he said. “My machine isn’t working. I feel terrible.”

To his astonishment, a small smile crept across the young man’s face. He remained calm.

“Don’t worry,” he said softly. “Let’s just keep the fifteen thousand shekels in the account so you can continue to assist anyone in need.”

Shimon stared at him, stunned. Fifteen thousand shekels was a small fortune.

Seeing his confusion, the fellow explained. “Since I opened this account, I’ve experienced otherworldly success in my business. It seems the more I give, the more Hashem gives me. Clearly, the fifteen-thousand-shekel charge wasn’t a mistake but a message from Hashem to increase my giving.

“I’ll take the message to heart, and with Hashem’s help, as I push myself to assist others, He will assist me and my family.”   * Name has been changed.

Adapted from: Rav Mattisyahu by Avrohom Birnbaum

The Mashgiach loved special children. He displayed his love for them openly and enjoyed interacting with them. Whenever he met special children, he would hug and kiss them like a loving grandfather. He understood that they were pure neshamos.

The Mashgiach and the Rebbetzin had a special relationship with Camp HASC, and they looked forward to visiting every year. When they visited, all of the boys would line up in front of the Mashgiach and the girls in front of the Rebbetzin, and each would get personal attention. The Mashgiach also spent time giving chizuk to the staff and the counselors and impressing upon them how much he valued their devotion to Hashem’s special children.

On one of his yearly visits to Camp HASC, he told the children, “I want you to do me a favor. When Mashiach comes, and you are in the front row welcoming him, tell him that I am your friend. It will be a very big help for me!”

Rav Mattisyahu felt it was so important to constantly think about what Hashem does for us and to thank Him. Once, R’ Mordechai Levi walked into the room where the Mashgiach was sitting and asked, “Vos macht der Mashgiach?” How is the Mashgiach doing?

“Hodu laShem ki tov!” was Rav Mattisyahu’s answer.

“Nu,” R’ Levi said cheerfully, “vos ken zein besser?” What could be better than that?

And Rav Mattisyahu replied, “Ki l’olam chasdo!”

Throughout his life, the Mashgiach was cognizant of the chessed that Hashem constantly did with him and was always full of gratitude to Hashem. This sense of deep gratitude and simchah remained with him even in his later years when things were very difficult.

During those years, too, if someone asked him how he was — and everyone knew that he was really not well — he would always answer “Hodu laShem ki tov ki l’olam chasdo!”

The Mashgiach had a very healthy attitude as to how a person should look at life.

R’ Naftali* had been diagnosed with cancer. He decided to seek advice from R’ Shraga Feivel Zimmerman.

“Baruch Hashem,” R’ Naftali told R’ Shraga Feivel, “the cancer is not so virulent and has been caught at an early stage. I have been told that there is a ninety-five percent recovery rate and only a five percent mortality rate.

“My question is this: Should I be worried about dying? In truth, I probably won’t die since there is a ninety-five percent chance that I will survive. Should I ignore the thought of dying? Probably not. After all, there is a one in twenty chance that I’ll die! So what should a Yid think when he receives such a diagnosis?”

R’ Shraga Feivel hadn’t the faintest idea of how to answer, so he called the Mashgiach.

The Mashgiach instantly answered, “If Hashem wanted a person to think he is dying, He would have given him a disease with a fifty-fifty chance. If He gave him a disease with a ninety-five percent chance of recovery, He clearly doesn’t want him to walk around depressed because he is dying.”

“So what should I tell him?”

“Tell the person in my name that he does not fully appreciate the gift of life. Hashem is giving him a wake-up call. Be mechazek him and tell him that he will survive and go on to live a long life, but he should stop taking life for granted.” And he repeated, “He should appreciate the gift of life.” 

Adapted from: Rav Pam on the Parashah by Rabbi Sholom Smith

וְאֶעֶשְׂךָ לְגוֹי גָּדוֹל וַאֲבָרֶכְךָ וַאֲגַדְּלָה שְׁמֶךָ וֶהְיֵ’ בְּרָכָה. — I will make of you a great nation; I will bless you, and make your name great, and you shall be a blessing (Bereishis 2:2).

Rashi notes that when Hashem commanded Avraham to leave his country, his birthplace, and his father’s house, He gave him three blessings to counteract three detrimental effects of long-distance travel: The diminishment of the possibility of having children, the loss of wealth, and the loss of fame. Hashem blessed him that he would become the father of a great nation, would be blessed with enormous wealth and would gain world-wide renown.

The first two berachos are easy to understand. Avraham longed for a son who would continue his life’s work of publicizing the existence of a Creator, and who would in turn produce a great nation of believers in Hashem.

Avraham needed wealth as the means of continuing his remarkable chesed activities, his hachnasas orchim and tzedakah. All these things required large sums of money to uphold and expand. But why did Avraham need to have a great name? Can it be that Avraham was hungry for publicity and renown, things that seem to be the very antithesis of all that he stood for?

It must be that until the time when Avraham left his birthplace, his name commanded little respect in the eyes of the populace. If anything, he was considered a radical and revolutionary who wished to overthrow the system of pagan belief that most people held. He had destroyed the idols of his father and had defied the mighty King Nimrod (see Rashi 11:28) who had thrown him alive into the fiery furnace of Ur Kasdim. He was Avram the Ivri (14:13); the Midrash (Bereishis Rabbah 42:8) says that he was called this because the whole world was on one side, while Avraham alone was on the other side. He refused to practice idolatry like everyone else, instead espousing belief in one G-d. Thus, his name was certainly not mentioned with honor or reverence.

However, now that he was moving to a new land and was beginning a new phase of his life, he needed the blessing of a good name to attract followers and bring them under the wings of the Shechinah. No more do we find Avraham destroying idols or boldly defying people like Nimrod. Now, as the Torah recounts in the following parshiyos, Avraham became a N’si Elokim, prince of G-d (23:6) in the eyes of the neighboring people and was treated with great respect and reverence by many of them.

The Chofetz Chaim comments on a Mishnah in Pirkei Avos (4:17) that teaches that the crown of a good name surpasses even the crowns of Torah, Kehunah, and malchus. The crown of a good name was Avraham’s most effective tool in his efforts to bring people to a recognition of their Creator. With Avraham’s exceptional trait of chesed, his goodness of heart, and his concern for his fellow human beings, coupled with his warm, pleasant, caring personality, he was able to attract many thousands of people to a belief in One G-d.

In our time the same holds true. In order to be effective in kiruv rechokim (outreach efforts), one must have exemplary middos and true ahavas Yisrael. These traits serve as a magnet to attract people to Yiddishkeit, because the seekers see in him what Torah observance makes a person into, and they wish to be close to him and to emulate his lifestyle. This is the value of a “good name” with which Hashem blessed Avraham and which is a necessity in our times to bring fellow Jews back to their roots. 

Adapted from: Rav Mattisyahu by Avrohom Birnbaum

The Simchah Imperative

It was Erev Shabbos, only hours before licht bentchen.

The phone rang in the home of R’ Nosson Zev Nussbaum.

It was the Mashgiach. After greeting him warmly, the Mashgiach asked, “Perhaps it is possible to find a dentist who will still treat me before Shabbos. I really need a dentist today.”

“Oy!” R’ Nosson Zev commiserated, “if the Mashgiach is calling now, he must be in tremendous pain. Otherwise, he would wait until after Shabbos.”

“No,” Rav Mattisyahu replied, “I can manage with the pain. The reason for the urgency is that the dental issue that I have is preventing me from smiling a full smile. Tonight, the entire yeshivah will file past me to wish me a ‘Gut Shabbos,’ expecting me to give them a full smile. Some people wait for this smile all week. If I don’t go to the dentist and have the problem fixed, I won’t be able to give them a full smile!”

It was an imperative that the Mashgiach constantly stressed. It was imperative that an oveid Hashem should be b’simchah, happy and full of joy and good cheer. When he came to Lakewood, one of the first things that he spoke about and demanded was just that, simchah. When people would file past to wish him a “Gut Shabbos” on Friday night, he would ask them, “Where is your smile? You are learning Torah! You have the zechus to serve Hashem! Why is that simchah not visible on your face?!”

He once told a person close to him that he knows of a Yid who would wake up in the morning and dance for five minutes, singing, “Shelo asani goy.” 

“My feeling,” that person commented, “is that he was talking about himself!”

Another common refrain of the Mashgiach’s was, “When a ben Torah gets up from his seat after learning a proper mussar seder, he should have a smile on his face.”

The Middos Imperative

When a chassan asked him which sefer to learn in preparation for his wedding, the Mashgiach replied that he should learn the sefer Tomer Devorah, because it is a sefer that speaks about the middos of savlanus (patience), vittur (forgoing, giving in), and chessed, the primary components essential in a successful marriage.

Rav Shraga Feivel Zimmerman, the former Rav of Gateshead, once took his son, a chassan, to Reb Mattisyahu for a berachah.

When the chassan asked for advice on how to be a good husband. Reb Mattisyahu asked him, “Do you get along with your friends?”

He replied affirmatively.

Rav Mattisyahu prodded, “Do you have a good relationship with your siblings and your parents?”

Again, the chassan answered, “Yes.”

Turning his focus to the father, Reb Mattisyahu then said, “A good bachur will be a good yungerman. In other words,” he explained, “marriage is not a unique experience, it is about middos tovos. If a person develops good middos, it will carry over to every relationship. If he does not have good middos, there are no shortcuts to having a successful marriage.”

In fact, when the Mashgiach’s youngest son-in-law, R’ Moshe Yehuda Halpern, was in the chassan room right before his chuppah, his father asked the Mashgiach for a berachah that his son should become a “gutte yungerman.” The Mashgiach responded, “A good bachur becomes a good yungerman.”

On another occasion, when one of his nieces was nineteen years old and embarking on shidduchim, she asked her uncle, the Mashgiach, “What should I look for in a husband?”

“The first thing,” he recommended, “is middos tovos.”

His niece asked again, convinced that he was going to say she should seek a talmid chacham, but no! While certainly he advocated seeking a talmid chacham for a husband, he still stressed that “the ikkar is middos tovos!”