Published by Machon Daas Torah,
Jerusalem
Childhood.
In the Jerusalem of yore there was not much room for children
to play. No playgrounds. And no toys to speak of, either.
Youngsters
used to give vent to their exuberant, youthful energies by
running
around the well. They were brimming with vitality, those
clever, very
picquant children of Jerusalem. An element of charm graced
their mischievous
faces as they raced around the water cistern, their
payos jouncing
in the wind, playing tag. Sholom, the orphan boy, was one of
the conspicuous
children among his peers. He used to spend long hours there;
he had
no father to call him to come home. Actually, he was not too
keen
on going home, either, to the empty table. So he sated
himself with
games. He leaped and cavorted with wild abandon, giving
release to
his childish exuberance, as precocious children will.
Things looked different in Elul, however. At a relatively
early
hour each afternoon, his mother would go outdoors, keeping in
view
the open square by the well. She kept at a distance, her
heart aching,
and her voice would reverberate from afar. "Shulemke," she'd
call out. "Elul! Shulemke! It's a time when even the fish
tremble
in the water, and you're running wild?"
From time to time, she would resume a vigil by the window and
affix a compassionate eye on her son, absorbed in his play.
"Elul,"
she would sigh. "What will become of him when he grows up, if
he keeps up these immature pastimes?" And she would add a
fervent
prayer, "Hashem, please..." A tear would seep from the corner
of her eye, and then another, and another, glazing her eyes
which
continued to be riveted upon the small figure, there by the
well.
Whoever was to hear R' Sholom's lionroar of "E-l-u-l!",
not many decades later, might well have distinguished the
echo of
that selfsame cry of his mother's voice, "Shulemke, Elul!"
Even at the age of seventy, he could still remember the
"Elul"
clarion of his mother. And when he stood before an audience
of hundreds,
he would reconstruct the scene of his mother at Elul time,
and conjure
up her tears, which evoked his own. And the separate tears of
mother
and son would meet and converge at some invisible point...
"Answer us, Father of orphans, aneinu. Answer us,
Judge of widows, aneinu." His mother's Elul prayer was
eventually answered.
The years, the prayers, and plentiful Heavenly Assist, did
the
job. Shulemke, the precocious child, began climbing the
spiritual
ladder of achievement, rung by rung, through sweat and
effort. His
strength of character and determination amazed everyone,
especially
those who still remembered his cavorting around the well.
That energy,
it turned out, was the flintstone of the prodigious powers
that were
latent in him and that came to the fore. Many anticipated the
moment
when the boy would sublimate and harness his immense energy
to the
plentiful capabilities with which he was blessed, to his
indefatigable
diligence and his pure heart.
It happened.
*
Ever since that turning point, R' Sholom's mouth did not
cease
its study. He applied himself, nights as days, to Torah. His
teachers,
who had discerned the buds of greatness within him,
encouraged him,
prodded him and nurtured his talents. These were foremost
figures
of the generation: R' Yaakov Katzenellenbogen, R' Eliyohu
Dushnitzer
and his great master, R' Leib Chasman, z'tm'l.
When R' Sholom reached maturity, he had already amassed huge
quantities of knowledge and piety `under his belt.'
Throughout these
years of development, his mother accompanied the process of
growth,
quelling with pleasure and pride. She saw his effort; she
noted his
application. It reminded her of her husband's extraordinary
hasmoda
and she knew that Shulemke had inherited his capabilities.
She also
received enthusiastic periodical `regards' from his teachers,
yet
she was unaware of the true extent of his potential. Nor
could she
imagine how much he had actually already achieved.
Until that moment by the well...
R' Sholom was a young married man by now, having recently
gotten
married and established a home. Not that he spent much time
at home.
His whole world was Torah. He studied from morning to evening
without
stop at the Ohel Torah kollel. At night he
studied with
his brother-in-law, R' Shlomo Zalman Auerbach, until three in
the
morning. This went on for many months.
One morning, R' Sholom's wife noticed that her husband looked
crestfallen, disspirited. He looked perturbed. "Wife of
mine,"
he said to her, "I've noticed you carrying heavy pails of
water
from the well every day. That's no easy task. Even drawing up
the
water requires exertion; you have to bend down and haul up
pailful
after pailful. Enough! This must stop. From now on, I want to
do this
chore. I'll draw the water and I'll carry it home. Leave the
empty
pails by the well in the morning and when I finish
davening,
I'll fill them and bring them home. I don't want you doing
this heavy
work any more, alright? Now it's my job."
The rebbetzin was stunned. Many thoughts raced about
in
her mind, as she tried to weigh the advantages and
disadvantages of
this new system, the benefits of the mitzva as opposed
to its
drawbacks. Up until then, she had done her utmost not to
disturb her
husband. Up till that very moment, she had refused to
requisition
any of his precious time for mundane chores. But was she
permitted
to refuse his initiative? She had to admit that it was a
difficult
task for a woman. She studied the hands that had become
swollen with
work and painridden from shlepping the heavy load. She
was
amenable to her husband's offer, at first, but quickly
rejected it.
"How can I allow a mere physical difficulty or bodily pain to
interfere with the spiritual growth of a potentially very
great man?
His life is so absorbed with Torah, how can I do this to
him?"
With his intuitive touch, R' Sholom sensed her vacillation
and
with swift determination, shut the case and refused to listen
to another
word. "My mind is made up. Tomorrow, right after the
davening,
I am going to fetch the water."
The morrow dawned. Time passed and it was getting late, but
R'
Sholom had not yet returned, even though the davening
had finished
long since. What could be keeping him? she wondered.
How
long does it take to fill up two pails and bring them?
She went
over to the window, from where she could see the well.
A strange sight met her eyes. R' Sholom was standing by the
well,
holding paper and pen. He was very engrossed in his writing.
What
could be so important? she asked herself, puzzled.
She quietly left the house and went over to the well. "What
happened to you?" she asked him. He was still absorbed in his
writing, oblivious to everything else, but her voice brought
him back
to the present and he gave a start. He put his pen into his
pocket.
"Oh, I forgot that I had come here to draw some water,"
he said sheepishly. "A wonderful chiddush just struck
me,
an answer to a very knotty problem which I had struggled with
yesterday
in my study, and I was afraid I'd forget it if I didn't write
it down
immediately."
"But where is the dipper?"
"Oh," he said, switching his attention back to practical
things
at hand. But he was still under the impact of his discovery.
"Errrr, I guess it slipped from my hand when I took my pen
out
of my pocket. I must have let the rope go, and it dropped
into the
water. I'm so sorry..."
Tears sprang to his wife's eyes. These were not tears of
regret
over the lost dipper, an expensive item, that had disappeared
into
the water, but tears of joy at the realization of what a
treasure
she possessed, a husband whose heart and soul was fully
immersed in
Torah and who could not even take his mind off Torah to draw
some
water from the well...
Tears reminiscent of previous tears. Touching one another,
perhaps,
at some place in time, in space...
R' Sholom would remember that poignant moment by the well for
the rest of his life. Whenever the occasion arose where he
sought
to conjure up an image of someone who studied with total
absorption,
he would say, "I once went to the well to fetch some water,
when
I was suddenly struck by a fantastic chiddush. It
gripped me
so completely that I totally forgot where I was..."
When R' Sholom's mother heard about the incident, she rose to
her feet and went over to the window. She glanced out at the
well
and was soon lost in reverie. This was the `regards,' the
future reassurance
she had yearned for, during those many uncertain years
before. Suddenly,
she was overcome with tears. She buried her face in her hands
and
tears of joy burst forth like a fountain. She recalled those
many
years and tears of anguish, prayer and hope over the future
of her
Shulemke, as she had watched him prancing about the well.
Here, then,
was the answer to her prayers.
Tears by the wellside. Also touching, in a distant dimension
of time, mingling with the tears of a young widowed mother,
of a young,
jubilant wife, and now, of the proud, fulfilled mother of a
mature
son who had lived up to hopes and expectations.
