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Metzora On Sunday, 13th Nissan, is the Yartzeight of my teacher the holy Rabbi Yisroel Mendel Kaplen zt"l. In his honour, I take this opportunity to relate some stories from the book Reb Mendel and his Wisdom. One Pesach, a student visited Reb Mendel in his home. After serving his visitor some nuts and home made wine, Reb Mendel asked, "Pesach is a time of redemption. How can we feel redemption if our brethren are suffering so much in Eretz Yisroel and other places around the world?" In answer, he referred to the description of Hashem in the second brochah of Shemoneh Esrei: the King who causes death, restores life, and makes Salvation flourish. "Why did the sages who composed this prayer see fit to include a blessing about the fact that Hashem causes death? The answer is that death is necessary to prepare the body for the restoring of life, which will come at the time of the resurrection of the dead. Thus, we bless Hashem even for causing death." "In comparison to the resurrection and eternal life, the period of death is totally negligible, as Dovid HaMelech says in Psalms, 'when Hashem will return the captivity of Zion; we will be like dreamers'. The Rishonim say that this means our joy in the salvation will be so great that all the persecutions we've suffered in the centuries of exile will seem like no more than a dream. While someone is dreaming, he thinks his dream is actually happening. However, after he wakes up, he sees that it was nothing. So too, the redemption will be so great, that the exile we are now in, will seem like it was often a dream." Reb Mendel felt sympathy for all Jews both religious and the non- religious. A student once told him about a wedding, which the groom's irreligious parents refused to attend because the groom's sister's gentile husband had not been invited. The student asked the Rebbe, "Can you imagine the pain and embarrassment the son felt because his parents didn't show up at his wedding?" At this Reb Mendel grew sad and said, "That's the wrong way to look at it. You just cannot fathom the pain the parents must have felt that they could not be at their son's wedding. They were brought up to think that religious Jews are like a cult; they really think their son is marrying into a cult. Where the parents genuinely do not know better, it is not so easy to write them off and disregard their feelings." Reb Mendel loved and admired every Jew, whatever his background. He did not like the term baal teshuvah as it is commonly used today. To be a baal teshuvah, he felt, you first have to have committed sins, but the people of this generation have not done any sins, they just have not had the opportunity to learn Torah. A student once asked Reb Mendel why he should remain in Yeshiva if he knew that he would not become a Rosh Yeshiva in any event. Reb Mendel told him, "People go into business even though they know they will not become Rothschilds. They know that in business, even if you do not become a Rothschild, you can still get rich. In business no one stops trying after a certain point, they always keep striving to grow higher. So, too, in learning you can never be satisfied and say, I know enough." A Torah scholar who was always very serious once approached Reb Mendel and asked him, "Reb Mendel, why are you always smiling?" Reb Mendel was surprised at the question. "Why? That's our purpose in life!" On the evening that he passed away, despite the fact that his strength was fading rapidly, he prepared Pesach packages for poor people in New York and personally delivered a package to one woman. |
