Of 70 Men

Baruch HaShem, my husband Chaim and I just welcomed our newborn son to our family. He’s named after Chaim’s father Kalman, who was a great man and whom I’ve written about in an earlier article. And we added on the name Yosef after my Rov who guided and encouraged me for over a decade.

There are moments in our life which we don’t always reflect upon right then and there how meaningful they are to us. After the fact, the conversations and advice I sought from my Rov impact me even more so now after he’s gone. With powerful figures in our lives, including parents and leaders, we brave difficult challenges and gain the encouragement to succeed.

Growing up in Israel as a teenager, Chaim was generally busy with his friends, with school and soccer games. But when it came to having a chavrusa with his father, his father would encourage him to set aside a few minutes with him at night to learn some Gemara and Mishnayos. Kalman was very smart in how he nudged him: First they would sit down to a ten-minute session together and when Chaim got up to go, his father would say, “Just another five minutes, Chaim.” And he’d gently push his son a few more times to extend their learning to almost an hour.

Years later, once my husband went to Shor Yoshuv and Derech Chaim and was an avid learner himself, he’d learn with his dad, no matter the setting—at home, at a certain point in rehab, when his father was recovering from a surgery, wherever.

The last few months of his life Kalman spent in the hospital. Chaim used to sleep by his bedside and take care of tidying up his room and getting him hot food and drinks from Bikur Cholim. Just two weeks ago, when I gave birth, I complimented my husband on being so organized and neat in a hospital out of all places. So he told me what he used to do for his father in his last months and how at least keeping things neat and clean helped make a hard situation a little bit better.

Anyway, back to when Chaim would visit with his father at the hospital: There was one night when they were learning Mishnayos together under the bright overhead bulb, when Kalman sighed and said, “Chaim, I can’t anymore. I need to rest.” This was the first time my husband experienced his father cutting their learning short. So he said to him, “Tatty, just five more minutes. Five more minutes…” And that’s what they did.

People in our lives always serve a purpose—whether to challenge us or to support us—and many times, we remember our encounters with them more strongly later on, especially when they were so positive. This past week’s parsha discussed the Sanhedrin, or judicial court, Klal Yisroel were directed to establish—a court comprised of seventy men who not only embodied wisdom and expertise in Jewish law but also good middos. These men were selectively chosen from the elite of our people, beginning in the days of the Mishkan, to lead our nation properly and help keep our morality.

The Sanhedrin, in its own way, challenged, warned, supported, and encouraged us to do the right thing. This past Shabbos, we read the Torah portion that discussed this process, accompanied by the words of Zechariah לא בחיל ולא בכוח כי אם ברוחי—not with our own strength do we succeed but with keeping the ruach, keeping HaShem’s Torah and doing good in His eyes.

What I’ve seen in my own life is that what helps us overcome and thrive is not necessarily our strengths of character but that ruach and spiritual guidance that others have imparted to us years earlier. At the end of the day, those little nudges of encouragement, the new perspectives and helpful insights are what carry us through. We all have individuals who we seek out and connect to and can’t do without—a Sanhedrin-like figure who we continue to go back to for more, to provide us with a strong framework with which to live by and enjoy life.

May the souls of Rav Kalman and Rav Yosef have tremendous aliyos, and may we continue to strive to do what’s right in the eyes of HaShem.