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.