Yom Kippur Stories

YOM KIPPUR STORIES

1. In his last years, the long, often hot day of the fast of Yom Kippur would take its toll on Rav Isser Zalman Meltzer. One Yom Kippur, while davening at Eitz Chaim, he felt particularly unwell. He went to lie down in one of the rooms, and asked a bachur to bring him a pillow. Half an hour later, he returned to the beis medrash, and one of his close talmidim asked him if he felt better yet. He replied that in fact, the rest had made his condition worse. “Why did the Rosh Yeshivah not return immediately?” asked the talmid. Rav Isser Zalman looked surprised. “Voss heist, Ephraimfke brought me the pillow. He was concerned about hurting the feelings of the bachur who had “bothered himself” to bring the pillow. (yom kippur, onas devarim) (Warmed By Their Fire)

2. Even when enwrapped in the intensity of prayer, Rav Moshe Yitzchak Segal did not overlook his obligations to his fellowman. Because of the intense respect that the community had for Rav Segal, the shaliach tzibur would always wait until he finished his Shemona Esra to continue. After Neilah at Yom Kippur’s end, R’ Moshe Yitzchak davened Mariv alone in a room near the beis medrash. This was because this was“ the only way, he could ensure that the baal tefilla would not wait for him to conclude his lengthy prayers and he did not want anyone to delay breaking their fast on his account. (yom kippur) (The Manchester Rosh Yeshiva)

3. If you walk into any old-fashioned shul on the morning of Yom Kippur Eve, you will see people on all sides busily collecting charity in little bowls for all kinds of worthy causes. Now the congregants of the township where the Baal .Shem Tov lived – Mezhibuzh – decided that in the public interest this custom had to be abolished: it caused too much clatter and disorder. Word of this reached the Baal Shem Tov, who did not allow the proposed regulation to be enacted. He explained that one year all the forces of impurity in the universe – the kelippos – banded together on the eve of Yom Kippur in order to make an impenetrable barrier that would not allow the prayers of Israel to ascend. However, as soon as people in the World Below started rattling their little bowls in solicitation of charity, and cong1egants around the globe created a clatter with the coins they threw in energetically, the kelippos were torn asunder by that very noise. A Treasury of Chassidic Tales on the Festivals, By Rabbi Shlomo Yosef Zevin, Published By Artscroll Mesorah yom kippur page 98

4. It was the first erev Yom Kippur in Bergen-Belsen after the liberation. Rivka Horowitz, always energetic and bursting with ideas, had a plan. She somehow obtained two portable sewing machines and asked Eda Laufer (now Rebbetzin Piekarsky) and her friend, Sarah Bodner (later Mintz), sew yarmulkes for the young men. The waiting lines were dauntingly long, Eda remembers: “We had to eat our erev Yom Kippur meals at the machines. But scores of young men went to services that night wearing yarmulkes for the first time since the war.” That was the girls’ greatest reward. Carry Me in Your Heart, By Pearl Benisch, page 346 (yarlmuka)

5. Yom Kippur would not begin until the close of the following day – but the journey to the town where the Baal Shem Tov lived was so long that a certain chassid decided to set out early. Just to be sure, he traveled all day and all night, and by daybreak on Yom Kippur Eve he was only a matter of miles away from his longed- for destination, Mezhibuzh. “Now that I am so near the end of my journey, thank God,” he said to himself, “and my poor old horse must be exhausted after such a long stretch, this is a good time for me to take a break and recite my morning prayers. The old nag can munch some grass and take it easy meanwhile. But he was so sleepy after his prayers that he thought: “Why shouldn’t I take a nap here for an hour or two? The horse can rest too, and then we’ll gallop along energetically and still get to town before midday.” With that he sprawled out fatigued on his wagon. He was overtaken by a deep slumber, and slept soundly until dusk. When he awoke and realized that the holy day had already set in, he was most perturbed. What a bitter disappointment! What effort and trouble had he gone to in order to make his exhausting journey so that he could spend this day of days in  the presence of  the Baal Shem Tov! And here he was, only a” few miles out of Mezhibuzh, stranded out in the fields, alone, without as much as a minyan with which to pray. All that night and throughout the next day he wept, torn by anguish. Night came, and Yom Kippur was over. He bridled his horse and drove off quickly to Mezhibuzh, where he was greeted by the Baal Shem Tov. A smile lit up on the face of the tzaddik as he said: “Know, my good man, that with your prayer you had to raise up to the  heavens the prayers of the  people out in the fields,. who throughout this day did not join any congregation in prayer. And that is why Divine Providence so arranged things that you should spend Yom Kippur out there in the fields.” (yom Kippur) A Treasury of Chassidic Tales on the Festivals, By Rabbi Shlomo Yosef Zevin, Published By Artscroll Mesorah page 98

6. One Yom Kippur Eve – so recounted Reb Tzvi Elimelech of Dinov – the Baal Shem Tov arrived at his beis midrash for the Kol Nidrei prayer in visible distress. After Kol Nidrei he rested a little while, and the worshipers around him saw that his melancholy vanished, and a new spirit animated him. In fact, he prayed the remainder of the evening service with joy and melody. When after Yom Kippur his elder disciples asked him the meaning of this change in mood, he told them that in a certain village there had lived a leaseholder who was very much liked by his estate-owner. When the poor man and his wife passed away, this gentile squire felt compassion for the little orphan they had left alone. He took the child into his home and his heart, and brought him up as his own. Needless to say he knew nothing of Jewish law and faith, but the squire told him that he was born to Jewish parents, and now that he had adopted him he would one day inherit all his possessions. He told him further of the few meager chattels that his parents had left behind them. He showed them to the child – mere oddments, a few Chumashim, and the Karban Minchah edition of the prayer book from which the child’s mother used to pray daily – fond mementos of his unfortunate parents. One morning, in the days before Rosh HaShanah when people rise piously at dawn tb recite the penitential Selichos prayers, the child observed small groups of Jews from the neighboring villages huddled in wagons which trundled their way along the highway that led to town. “Where are you going?” asked the curious little boy. “Why,” they said, “the Days of Awe are just around the corner. On Rosh HaShanah the verdict is inscribed, and on the fast of Yom Kippur it is sealed. So we’re on our way to yonder big town to pray with all our brothers there. For God always has an ear for the prayers of the many!” From that moment the spirit of God stirred his soul, for he had long known that he was of Jewish stock. When he lay down to sleep that night his parents appeared to him in a dream. “Come back to your faith,” they urged him. “You are a Jew!” Night after night, throughout the Ten Days of Penitence, he dreamed this ‘dream. When he told his benefactor of it he made nothing of it – but that did not stop the dream from recurring. Indeed, one fearful night he even dreamed that his parents threatened to punish him if he did not return to the faith of his fathers. By the time Yom Kippur Eve came, he again saw wagonloads of Jews making their earnest way to town. “And why are going there today?” he asked. “We are getting ourselves ready for the Holy Day,” they said, “for it is a day of forgiveness.” He darted home, took his mother’s Siddur out of his little bundle of belongings, and ran all the way to town. He arrived at shul breathless, just in time for Kol Nidrei. All around him stood the worshipers robed austerely in white, with their prayer books in their hands, and weeping quietly as they prayed. He too wept bitter tears, but the poor child did not know how to recite the prayers. With each anguished sob the seven heavens resounded. And the Baal Shem Tov, a witness from afar, shared the child’s distress, and sought desperately to intercede in heaven that this wordless prayer be accepted, so that he be helped to remain constant in his resolve to follow the faith of his fathers. Then the boy cried out: “Master of the Universe! I don’t know what to pray or how to pray. So here you are, Master of the Universe: I’m giving you my whole Siddur!” With this he bowed his head over the prayer book that lay open on the lectern before him, and wept honest tears. His prayer from that unread Siddur soared ever upward, and came to repose before the Throne of Mercy. And that was when the melancholy of the Baal Shem Tov had vanished, and a new spirit animated him, and he prayed with a melody in his heart. (yom Kippur) A Treasury of Chassidic Tales on the Festivals, By Rabbi Shlomo Yosef Zevin, Published By Artscroll Mesorah page 104

7. A poor tailor would wander from village to village and from city to city with his work tools in hand. Wherever he went, he would offer to mend any garments needing minor repairs. One of his trips brought him to the house of a wealthy man, and he inquired whether he possessed a garment that needed mending. The wealthy man brought the tailor into his room and opened his closet which was literally packed with different types of clothing. He requested that the tailor inspect the clothing himself and find those that needed to be repaired. The tailor examined the various articles of clothing and saw that they were all in excellent condition, not one in need of any mending whatsoever. He therefore took one of the man’s most elegant outfits and undid all of its stitches! When the wealthy man saw what the tailor had done, he wanted to call the police and have him arrested. But the tailor pleaded with him and said that he would quickly repair whatever he had damaged. The wealthy man acquiesced and the tailor worked with alacrity to remedy that which he had ruined. When the tailor had finished, he presented the man with a mended garment that appeared just as it did before it had been un— stitched. Seeing that the repair had been completed, the compassionate, Wealthy man removed some money from his pocket and handed them to the tailor. The reward that the tailor received was not compensation for his labor, obviously; he did not deserve anything at all since he was the one who damaged the garment to begin with. Rather, it was charity in its simplest form, a gift to help a needy man. All of the reward which man receives for the good deeds that he performs, said the Dubno Maggid, can be categorized as reward for a mitzvah. But if an individual fasts on Yom Kippur in order to atone for impurities of the heart, or does teshuva then strictly speaking he is technically not deserving of any reward whatsoever; after all, he is the one responsible for those flaws, and now he is merely rectifying them. The reward that he inevitably receives for those fasts, however, is an extreme charity and kindliness from Hashem. Hashem blesses us even when we “fix what we tore”. (teshuva, yom kippur) (Jewish Parables- A Mashal for Every Occasion)

8. Reb Mendel Kaplan would say , “The main thing about Yom Kippur is not to bang your chest, but to look for ways to improve yourself. Nowadays people enjoy saying a long viduy on Yom Kippur. Reb Chaim Ozer Grodzenski and Reb Elchonon were brothers-in-law, and one year Reb Elchonon asked Reb Chaim Ozer how his Yom Kippur fast had gone. Reb Chaim Ozer answered that the fast was bearable but confessing his sins was too hard for him!“ That’s how the al cheits are supposed to be — more painful than the fast. (fast, yom kippur) (Reb Mendel)

9. R‘ Binyomin Wilhelm, founder of Yeshivah Torah Vodaath and other worthy institutions, succeeded where many others failed. He succeeded because he was a man of deep emunah (faith) and iron willed determination. Most important, he was always ready to give of his time and energy, even when some might have argued that the problem could not be solved. R’ Binyamin was born in Poland around the year 1885 and was orphaned at the age of eleven. He then went to live with his grandfather in a one-room apartment. One morning, Binyamin awoke to discover that his grandfather had died suddenly during the night. Now he was alone in the world. He did not attend yeshivah because there was no organized system of yeshivos as it exists today. Every father had to see to it that his son learned with a melameci (Torah teacher) who was paid directly by the parents of his students. If a boy’s father could not afford to pay the melamed, or the boy was an orphan, he very often grew up ignorant of Torah. When he was sixteen, Binyamin received a letter from a friend who had emigrated to America and was living in New York. The friend knew of Binyamin‘s tragic situation and implored him to join him in the “new country.” Binyamin soon boarded a ship without a penny in his pocket. He paid his way by working in the ship‘s kosher kitchen. Upon arriving in New York, Binyamin was welcomed by a small group of old friends. At a get-together, he and his friends solemnly vowed to always live faithfully by the Torah and never to compromise on a single mitzvah or halachah, no matter how great the pressure. This was at a time when finding a job in America was almost impossible for those who kept  Shabbos,  and  when  kashrus  supervision  in  America  hardly  Binyamin opened a successful hardware business, married a deeply religious girl from a fine home and settled in New York’s Lower East Side. He attended Torah classes every day, and through intense study and effort, developed into a respected talmid chacham. ln the early part of this century, the Lower East Side boasted the largest Jewish population in America. Most of its Jews lived in crowded apartment buildings. Across the river in neighboring Willamsburg lived another large concentration of Orthodox Jews. Willamsburg had many blocks of large single family homes, something which was quite appealing for a young, growing family. R’ Binyamin and his wife moved there in 1917 and were very happy in their new dwelling. But there was one major problem. in the Lower East Side, Yeshivah Rabbi Jacob Joseph had already been founded, but in Williamsburg there were no yeshivos. R‘ Binyamin’s oldest son was four years old; R’ Binyamin was determined that his son receive the Torah education that he himself had been denied. He approached a number of prominent Jews living in Willamsburg. They all responded the same way: Their neighborhood was not the place for a yeshivah. Though they were religious, they were resigned to sending their children to public school, where they could receive a quality secular education. Yeshivos, they felt, belonged to the “old world” of Europe. One man pointed to the palm of his hand and told R‘ Binyamin, “When hair will grow here, there will be a yeshivah in Williamsburg.” One day, a man met R’ Binyamin in the street and asked if he had had any success in his quest to start a yeshivah. When R‘ Binyamin responded in the negative, the man said, “R’ Binyamin, take my advice. Stop asking others to start a yeshivah; start one yourself.” Over the next four months many nighttime meetings were held in R’ Binyamin’s home. His wife served herring and kichlech in the hope of attracting a crowd. But the meetings were not successful and it seemed as if the predictions of failure were correct. lt is customary in many shuls to read the entire Book of Deuarim on the night of Hoshanah Rabbah. Such was the custom in the Poilisher Shteibel, one of the largest and most prominent congregations in Williamsburg. On the night of Hoshanah Rabbah in 1917, R‘ Binyamin made his way to the front of the Poilisher Shteibel and pounded on the bimah for attention. He said, “l will not permit the reading to commence until we resolve an urgent matter —— the future of our children. Many are convinced that they can continue sending their children to public school and watch them grow up as Torah Jews. This is a grave error. Without Torah our children will not be Torah Jews. And without a yeshivah, they will have no Torah.” At the conclusion of his address, R’ Binyamin asked for pledges toward founding a yeshivah. One of the shul‘s wealthy members, Mr. Aharon Goldman, wrote out a check for one thousand dollars, and a furrier named Mr. Wolf pledged five hundred dollars, both enormous sums in those days. Many others came forth with smaller pledges. As news of R‘ Binyamin’s  Hoshanah Rabbah “protest” spread, people came forward to offer their participation in a founder’s committee. A few months later, a building on the corner of Marcy Avenue and Keap Street was rented. Forty-five children were registered for the yeshivah, which was to open its doors the following September. But when September arrived, the picture became clouded once again. With only forty five children spread across five grades, there was not enough tuition to pay the necessary rebbeim, secular studies teachers and office staff. At a committee meeting held a few days before Yom Kippur. the committee voted to postpone the yeshivah‘s opening for one more year. The only dissenting vote was R’ Binyamin’s. “How can we wait another year?” he demanded. “What of the children who might become lost to us this year, and might never be brought back? How can we face the Ribono shel Olam on Yom Kippur after having made such a fatal decision?” After hearing R’ Binyamin’s heartfelt plea, the committee decided to postpone a final decision until after Yom Kippur. R‘ Binyamin spent the Holy Day in a most unusual manner. He arose early on Yom Kippur morning, and instead of going to shul, davened alone in his house. He spent the rest of the day going from shul to shul making appeals — not appeals for money, but for children. He appealed to fathers and mothers to save their children, and future generations, by registering them in the yeshivah that was soon to open. When the fast had ended, R‘ Binyamin returned home after a very successful day. Forty-five more children would now be enrolled in the yeshivah. With projected income from tuition now doubled, the committee voted to open the yeshivah in a few clays. Yeshivah Torah Vodaath had been born.   (Shabbos Stories 1) (yom kippur)