It was erev Shabbos, and I was on the highway heading up to the country when my friend Melly Lifshitz called. He had a gift for me. It was a firsthand story about my zeide. He put his father, Reb Daniel, who is bli ayin hara, well into his nineties, on the phone. The elder Mr. Lifshitz shared a story with me about Rav Yaakov Kamenetzky that was truly representative of his broad vision — and perfect for the upcoming Rosh Chodesh Elul.
He shared that when my zeide lived in Williamsburg, he would daven in a Chassidishe shtiebel on Hewes Street. There was a Yid there, clearly a survivor from a small shtetl, who on Rosh Chodesh consistently came to shul but would daven without tefillin. The gabbai, confused, once asked him if he wanted to borrow a pair.
“No,” the man replied simply. “In my shtetl, we didn’t wear tefillin on Rosh Chodesh.” The gabbai was shocked but didn’t want to press the survivor. Reb Daniel, however, was curious. As a talmid of Torah Vodaas, he had the courage to ask my grandfather, whose broad knowledge spanned countless minhagim across pre-war Europe, “Is it possible there was a kehillah somewhere that never put on tefillin on Rosh Chodesh?”
With the trademark twinkle in his eye and his perpetual smile, my zeide figured it out in a flash. “You don’t understand. This Yid always came late to shul — around Mussaf. By then, everyone had already removed their tefillin. So he thought that was the minhag.”
Rav Yaakov had the uncanny ability to step back and see the whole picture.
I once asked him about a saying I had often heard, “If it rains on the day of a wedding, it means the kallah is a nosher.” I asked him if he had ever heard that back in Lita. Once again, with his broad vision, he chuckled and explained, in Lithuania, the “s” often became a “szh.” Where others said gezogt, Litvaks might say gezshogt.
Chuppos were held outdoors, and when it rained, they would lament, “The kallah vet zein a nasser” — the kallah will be wet. When that reached America, the grandchildren misheard it as nosher, and thus the wet kallah was transformed into the one who “noshes.” Again, you had to see the whole picture.
My father loved to repeat the story of the simple wagon driver who asked Rav Yitzchok Elchonon Spektor, the Kovno Rav, if, as a Kohen, he could take a divorcee. The Rav asked for a day to think about it and came back saying that he could “take” a divorcee. The talmidim were stunned. Only later did he explain: the man was a baal agolah, and to him the word “take” meant accept as a passenger. He had heard that a Kohen may not “take” a gerusha — and assumed that meant he could not give a ride to a divorced woman. Again, it all made sense once you looked at the bigger frame.
Gedolim had that gift: the ability to look beyond the snapshot, past what seems obvious to the eye, and search for a broader reality.
But the bigger picture does not only have to be about seeing something from the past. It can be seeing something that is right there in front of your eyes, something that everyone should notice, but they don’t — unless you have a broader vision.
Recently, I heard a story about my uncle, Rav Shmuel Kamenetsky, he should have a refuah sheleimah and continued arichas yomim. Rabbi Joey Haber tells of a summer up in the country. Rav Shmuel was standing near a bookshelf in the bungalow colony shul when a little boy — maybe seven or eight years old — came along, proudly clutching an armful of Chumashim.
Like many boys that age, he probably wanted to help tidy the bais medrash, and in his eagerness, he stacked the Chumashim higher than he could carry. As he passed by Rav Shmuel, his small feet caught the edge of a chair, and down he went. The entire pile of Chumashim spilled across the floor with a thud.
If you’ve ever seen seforim fall, you know what happens next. Instinctively, ten people jumped at once. They rushed to scoop up the Chumashim, kissing them, putting them back onto the shelf and tables, restoring kavod haTorah.
But Rav Shmuel? He didn’t bend down for the Chumashim. He bent down for the child.
“What’s your name?” he asked gently. “Which camp are you in? Where do you go to yeshiva? Who’s your father? Your zeide? Ah, I know your family. How are you enjoying the summer?”
With each question, the boy’s flushed face softened. The embarrassment of dropping twenty Chumashim at the feet of the Gadol Hador began to fade. Soon he was smiling again, walking away with his dignity intact.
And then Rav Shmuel turned to the person nearby and said just two words in Yiddish: “Ersht, ersht.” First things first. “M’darf kushen dem yingel — You have to kiss the child. Nokh dem — after that, you can kiss the Chumashim.”
Everyone else in the room saw only Chumashim scattered on the floor. Rav Shmuel saw a Jewish child whose pride and confidence had just toppled along with them.
Sometimes you have to look for the bigger picture that we often miss, even if it’s staring us in the face.
There is always a bigger picture. Sometimes we need the eyes of Gedolim to see it. When we live in a myopic world, we miss it. We may notice a boy who isn’t dressed the way we think he should be, or who looks a little out of place. What we don’t see is that five minutes earlier, he was helping a neighbor push a car out of the mud or running an errand for someone who couldn’t do it themselves. The shirt may be wrinkled, the shoes muddy — but the mitzvah we don’t see is shining.
Don’t get stuck on the snapshot. Always step back and see the whole picture.
Just Saying.
