Parshas Pinchos 5786
- Torah Tavlin
- Jul 2
- 4 min read
לרב תרבה נחלתו ולמעט תמעיט נחלתו איש לפי פקדיו יתן נחלתו ... (כו-נד)
The rabbi of the “Arugas Habosem” old age home in Bnei Brak had a custom to visit the rooms of the elderly to see how they were doing, to sit and talk with them, calming them when needed and giving them the pleasant feeling of a listening ear. One day, he entered a room and found an old man sitting and crying in deep anguish, heavy tears rolling down his cheeks. The rabbi asked him what had happened and tried to comfort the old man, but the man was completely lost in his tears. When the rabbi tried again and again, the old man answered weakly, “And what good will it do? The matter is already hopeless.”
The rabbi did not let up. He told him, “‘Let the heart of another man be concerned’, for you never know where salvation will come from.” After much effort, he managed to get the story out of the weeping old man. He told the rabbi how he had immigrated to Israel about fifty years ago with two children. The Jewish Agency settled him in one of the moshavim (cooperative farming villages) and gave him a small plot of land. All was well, except he noticed that his neighbor, a man who lived without children, had received a larger plot of land than his! Suddenly, he was filled with intense jealousy and when jealousy takes hold of an individual, bad things follow. One late night, he woke up in the middle of the night and went outside to his small plot. Quickly, he moved the boundary stone between his land and his neighbors by just ten centimeters.
The next morning, when he saw that his neighbor didn’t realize anything was amiss, his courage grew. In this way, every night he moved the stone by another ten centimeters, until finally, he had moved the boundary by one and a half meters. Now his yard was equal to his neighbor’s yard, and with this, he calmed down. He was not jealous anymore. The stone remained in that same place for decades. They lived with one and a half meters of stolen land along the entire boundary of the courtyard.
Years later, he left the moshav and had no more contact with the place. But now, as an elderly man with his strength gone in his old age, he began to contemplate the end of his life. Suddenly, he was overcome by a tremendous fear of what would happen to him on the great and terrible Day of Judgment. He desperately wanted to correct the wrong, but he did not know how. Due to his advanced age, he had forgotten the name of the place and the name of his neighbor that he had stolen from. And so he cried, wondering how he could ever right this wrong before standing in judgment before his Father in Heaven.
The rabbi listened with sympathy but did not know what to say to comfort the old man. He tried to strengthen his spirit with words: “You will come out of this. After all, He is the Creator of the world. You must pray to the Creator from the bottom of your heart, that He may give you the light and the possibility to meet the neighbor and straighten the twisted path.”
Less than two weeks passed, and suddenly there was a knock on the old man’s door. To his great surprise, he saw the very same neighbor standing in front of him at his full height. Thrilled, he hugged his neighbor. “How did you find me?”
The neighbor answered him simply: “I happened to be in the area today for a family simcha at one of the local event halls. I was sitting at a random table where a few young had people sat down and their conversation didn’t really interest me. But suddenly, I heard one of the diners turn to a distinguished young man and call him by name. I recognized the name. The conversation continued but I kept hearing his last name over and over and remembered that it was actually your name, my old neighbor in the moshav. I asked the young man if he had any connection to a certain man who lived in our old neighborhood. He confirmed to me that he was indeed your son! I told him that I hadn’t seen you for many years and wondered if you were up for a visit. Your son told me where to go and I decided to come visit you. Here I am now standing before you.”
When the old man heard this, his eyes lit up. “You don’t know how happy I am to see you!” he wept. He confessed to his old friend what he had done fifty years ago, and with tears streaming down his face, begged for his full and total forgiveness. His old friend was deeply moved and of course, forgave him wholeheartedly. Here, the power of a prayer that came from the depths of the heart was revealed - an immediate answer to a soul seeking salvation. (Adapted from “L’hisaden B’ahavasecha”)