Today is Adar 7, the yahrtzeit of Moshe Rabbainu, Rabban shel Yisrael.
I felt it appropriate to post this story/piece of mussar.....
This is a story that will shock you, as it brings home to us the power of words and the care one must exercise when speaking to others.
The whole of Yerushalayim was in an uproar! A well-known man, a Belzer Chasid , and his wife had just given birth to their first child - a boy - after being childless for twenty-eight years! The sholom zachor that Friday night was the event of the year. Well over a thousand people came by to wish Mazel Tov to the proud and exhausted father. The food supply ran out in short order as did the drinks, but no one seemed to mind. At the height of the celebration, the crowd quieted down as the father indicated that he would like to say a few words. "Moreh V'Rabbosai ," he began in a loud voice, "thank you all for coming and sharing in the simcha . Although I have no more food to offer, let me at least tell over a story which I'm sure you'll appreciate."
The ecstatic new father composed himself and continued. "When I was a bochur learning in the Belzer Yeshiva , there was a cleaning lady who would come by every day to tidy up and scrub the Beis Medrash and adjoining rooms. She was a fixture in the yeshiva and devoted her life to maintaining the yeshiva building. She was, however, not a wealthy person by any stretch and as her own family grew, she was at a loss of options as far as taking care of her children. She decided to bring her kids with her to work, and as she cleaned and mopped in one area of the building, the young children would run amuck, screaming, crying and generally causing quite a commotion, in the rest of the yeshiva. At first, we put up with it; we even thought it was cute for a time. But after a while, the kids really began to 'shter' us in our learning and davening. Try as we might to control them, they wouldn't listen and continued on in their childish games and noise. A number of younger bochurim asked me, as one of the oldest in the chaburah, to ask her not to bring her children anymore to the yeshiva
"I agreed to talk to her and I brazenly walked up to her and told her that her kids were disturbing everyone in yeshiva and she should find some sort of alternative method of child-care for them. I'll never forget how she looked at me with tired eyes and said, 'Bochur , you should never have tsaar gidul banim (the pain and anguish that one goes through when raising children.) The crowd gasped.
"As many of you know," continued the father, "my wife and I have been to countless doctors who've recommended every sort of treatment. We moved abroad for awhile to be near an 'expert' which proved to be fruitless. One last, extreme treatment was offered and after trying that, it too, turned out to be just a fantasy; we felt doomed to a life without the pleasure of raising a yiddishe family.
"After that last attempt, as we walked back into the apartment that we lived in for the past twenty-eight years, our entire sad situation hit us full force, like a ton of bricks. Together, we broke down crying, trying to figure out why Hashem was testing us this way. All of a sudden, I remembered the episode with the cleaning lady and the "brocha" she had given me. It occurred to me to try and reach her (after all these years, who knows where she would be?) and ask for forgiveness. I spent hours on the phone until I came up with an address, which I ran over to immediately. She did not recognize me obviously, but when I told her over the story, a spark flickered in her eyes. I tearfully apologized for my harsh words and she graciously forgave me with her whole heart."
Beaming from ear to ear, the father announced, " Rabbosai, that took place exactly nine months ago!"
Let's learn from this story; even we feel we're well within our rights, walk as if on eggshells when confronting another individual.
