THE MIDDLE OF THE STORY

The Chafetz Chaim was a leading sage of the late 19th and early 20th centuries who lived in the village of Radin, in Poland. He was a unifying and beloved leader; even those who had left the Torah path recognized that he was a great "tzadik" -- righteous person. He passed away in 1933. Over four decades later, while visiting Miami, Rabbi Shomo Riskin of Efrat, Israel, gave a lecture about him. He mentioned the many books that the Chafetz Chaim had authored, and he told numerous stories which depicted the Chafetz Chaim's deep love and concern for others.

There was another story the rabbi wanted to tell, but he hesitated, for he only knew part of it. As he stood at the lectern, he thought for a moment and then decided that he would tell it anyway. He rationalized that even an unfinished story about the Chafetz Chaim would have a meaningful message.

He began to relate an incident about a teenage boy in the Chafetz Chaim's yeshiva who was found smoking a cigarette on Shabbos - the sacred seventh day. The faculty and students were shocked, and some of the faculty felt that the boy should be expelled. However, when the Chafetz Chaim heard the story, he asked that the boy be brought to his home.

At this point, Rabbi Riskin interrupted his narrative and said, "I don't know what the Chafetz Chaim said to the boy. I only know that they were together for a few minutes; yet, I would give anything to know what he said to this student, for I am told that the boy never desecrated the Shabbos again. How wonderful it would be if we could relay that message - whatever it was - to others, in order to encourage them in their observance of Shabbos." The rabbi then continued with his lecture.

After his talk, the hall emptied of everyone except for one elderly man, who remained in his seat, alone with his thoughts. From the distance, it seemed he was trembling, as if he was either crying or suffering from chills. The rabbi walked over to the elderly man and asked him, "Is anything wrong?"

The man responded, "Where did you hear that story of the cigarette on Shabbos?" He did not look up and was still shaken. "I really don't know, answered Rabbi Riskin. "I heard it years ago and I don't even remember who told it to me." The man looked up at the rabbi and said softly, "I was that boy." He then asked the rabbi to go outside, and as the two walked together, he told the rabbi the following story:

"This incident occurred in the 1920's when the Chafetz Chaim was in his eighties. I was terrified to have to go into his house and face him. But when I did go into his home, I looked around with disbelief at the poverty in which he lived. It was unimaginable to me that a man of his stature would be satisfied to live in such surroundings.

"Suddenly he was in the room where I was waiting. He was remarkably short. At that time I was a teenager and he only came up to my shoulders. He took my hand and clasped it tenderly in both of his. He brought my hand in his own clasped hands up to his face, and when I looked into his soft face, his eyes were closed for a moment.

"When he opened them, they were filled with tears. He then said to me in a hushed voice full of pain and astonishment, 'Shabbos!' And he started to cry. He was still holding both my hands in his, and while he was crying he repeated with astonishment, 'Shabbos, heliger holy Shabbos!'

"My heart started pounding and I became more frightened than I had been before. Tears streamed down his face and one of them rolled onto my hand. I thought it would bore a hole right through my skin. When I think of those tears today, I can still feel their heat. I can't describe how awful it felt to know that I had made the great tzadik cry. But in his rebuke - which consisted only of those few words - I felt that he was not angry, but rather sad and disappointed with me. He seemed frightened at the consequences of my actions."

The elderly man then caressed the hand that bore the invisible scar of a precious tear. It had become his permanent reminder to observe the "holy Shabbos" for the rest of his life.

Adapted by Yerachmiel Tilles from the rendition of his old friend Yosef Ben Shlomo Hakohen, in a mailing from <chazon1@netvision.net.il>, who first heard the story from Rabbi Shlomo Riskin when he was serving as the Rabbi of the Lincoln Square Synagogue in Manhattan in the late 1970's, and supported his memory with the version found in the book "Around the Maggid's Table" by Rabbi Paysach Krohn (Artscroll).

Biographical note:
Rabbi Yisrael Meir HaCohen Kagan (1838- 24 Elul 1933), popularly known as the Chafetz Chaim after the title of one of his many influential books, was one of the most important and beloved rabbinical scholars and leaders of the 20th century. His other works include Mishna Berura, an authoritative, almost universally accepted compendium of Jewish Law, and Shmiras HaLashon, about proper and improper speech.