[Avodah] The Right Way to Give Tochachah

[Micha Berger]

>From Wed's Hamodia (21-Aug-2013, pg 35), a Letter to the Editor.

:-)BBii!
-Micha


The Pro-Test

One Friday night in Yerushalayim, in the late 1950s, a Jewish driver
veered off course into Bayit Vegan and got out of his car to ask
directions. The first person he met was the Amshinover Rebbe, zy"a.

He got direction, but not what he expected.

"I can't let you leave," the Rebbe told him.

"What do you mean, you 'can't let me leave'?"

"It will ruin my Shabbos!"

One look at the Rebbe's face was enough to convince the driver this was
for real. The pain was all over the Rebbe's face.

He stayed for Shabbos.

I would love to be able to give a "rest of the story" epilogue about how
the driver went on to become a Rosh Yeshivah. I simply don't know what
happened to him. But I am sure he got a lesson that remained with him.

Back during the Shabbos protests on Bar Ilan Street in Yerushalayim,
I felt that the protesters would get much better results if they'd stop
yelling "SHABBOS!" at cars and, instead, hand out Yerushalmi kugel and
holler "GOOD SHABBOS!"

Today, when outrage over the assaults on the chareidi community spills
over into road-rage, we have to take a step back and analyze our real
motivations. Is it personal? Is it political? Is it self-serving?

The test of real kana'us (zealotry) is the motivation. The Yismach Yisrael
elucidates the supreme act of kana'us: when Pinchas executed Zimri.

Pinchas had no personal motive. No vendetta, no grudge, not even any
anger. He did it totally l'shem Shamayim. It wasn't anti-Zimri. It was
pro-Shamayim.

We know this because the passuk tells us: "Pinchas, the son of Elazar,
the son of Aaron Hakohen, turned My wrath away from the children of
Israel, because he was very zealous for My sake among them...." It was
only for the sake of Heaven.

In response, Hashem gives Pinchas His "bris (covenant)of shalom..." --
because Pinchas didn't just protest. He passed the pro-test.

Mordechai Schiller
New York