EMOR - ETHICS FROM THE WEEKLY PARSHA
“You should convoke on this very day – there should be a
calling of holiness for yourselves” – Vayikra / Leviticus 23:21
The Mishna in the Ethics of the Fathers instructs us to set
fixed times for Torah study. And our Sages tell us that one doesn’t lose out on
anything during these times.
A Kollel is where men study Torah after their marriage. A
member of the Kollel in Ramat Elchanan, Bnei Barak, Israel found this out after
the following incident happened to him.
The members of his Kollel resolved to strengthen themselves
particularly in the areas of punctuality and attendance. The morning after this
resolution was made, after an inspiring speech by the Rosh Kollel (the dean of
the Kollel), a member of the Kollel found himself suffering from excruciating
pains as a result of a string of horrific headaches. He nevertheless was
strengthened by the previous day’s speech, convincing himself that the
headaches were a test to see if he would succumb to his evil inclination and
not attend the Kollel that day; and pushed himself to go to Kollel nonetheless.
When he returned home that evening, he sensed there was a
commotion inside his apartment, and this was only confirmed by his wife’s state
of tenseness.
His wife began to recount that day’s events:
“A few minutes after you left the house, when you must have
still been on the way to Kollel and therefore not contactable (before the era
of mobile telecommunications), the baby swallowed a large nail that had
unknowingly to us become detached and fallen to the floor. He began having such
a bad coughing spell and couldn’t even breathe that the emergency paramedics
declared his life was in danger and the next few minutes would prove fatal if
the nail could not be extricated.”
The man listened with awe as his wife continued: “The
paramedics tried, but there were unsuccessful. The nail could not be removed
without an emergency operation. They had already called an ambulance to rush
the baby to hospital to save his life. And then it happened.”
“What happened?” inquired the husband.
“At exactly 9:15am, the nail just flew out of the baby’s
mouth and the baby began to breathe again. I don’t know why, but that’s what
happened.”
“9:15am is the time I arrived in Kollel, opened up the page
and started learning.”
Coincidence? Definitely. Not.
No comments:
Post a Comment