"Plastic scissors? Well, yes, in fact, I did see a pair just
a few minutes ago. Let me think."
I poked around the little mountain of junk, shmontzes,
broken toys — in short, the contents of a toy chest
that had just been brought to the dropoff center [my front
yard] of the Beged Yad L'Yad clothing centers which I
coordinate.
It was only a day after Succos and already the yard had
filled up with assorted bags, boxes and you name it —
oh, yes, he asked for plastic scissors, I remind myself
before I get lost and buried along with the treasures.
"You sure did your Pesach cleaning for this yomtov," I
had commented just moments before, in a friendly manner, of
course, to the person who had brought this miscellaneous
mountain, from which I was able to salvage a great many
things. Toy cars with four-wheel drive [the others went into
the garbage], dolls, flashlights, games, millions of crayons
and, well, things. Alte zachen. Puzzles went straight
out, being loose, and not having any litte devotees around to
piece them together . . .
Oh, yes, a pair of plastic scissors, he said. What had I done
with this cheap item? Saved it? Scrapped it? I rummaged
around the sorting area where I had dumped everything.
Nothing doing. I looked in the garbage. No luck. I looked in
the bag of good sorted stuff that would be going to our
branch in Kiryat Sefer. Nix.
O.K., I'll have to do the Rabi Binyomin segulah
for lost things, but I am NOT going to put money in the
pushke just for a pair of plastic scissors with hardly any
commercial value. I have a high rate of success with R'
Binyomin, especially when I put a coin in tzedokoh
before the search, rather than a mere promise after the find.
I guess he wants us to believe in it implicitly.
So I said it and LO! I find my pink plastic scissors.
"Now why ever in the world do you need these?" I asked my
husband, a distinguished senior-aged Rosh Yeshiva who
probably never went to kindergarten back in Poland . . .
"R' Binyomin asked for it, actually."
Well, well, well. And again, well, well, well. The plot
thickens.
The R' Binyomin he is referring to is the second-oldest
member in our shul, a big talmid chochom, masmid,
onov and I will not go into a eulogy before 120 though I
would suggest a candidacy in the Lamed Vov club if he were
only not so outstandingly and genuinely humble! Too much so
for a hidden saint . . .
His wife still runs a small, active kindergarten in her home.
I imagined it was she who had asked for those scissors . . .
She has a standing order by me for the shmonses I am
about to throw away: buckets for the sand, eyeless dolls,
broken doll carriages, and good things, like Fisher Price
kitchens for which she is willing to pay . . .
But plastic scissors, I ask myself, as I see my eminent
husband trotting off to shul to deliver the goods,
pronto. Well, well, well. With special delivery, no less . .
.
The mystery thickens. I can't wait till he comes back to get
to the bottom of this. Why couldn't she have asked ME? And
what the haste?
Any guesses, out there, in this exercise of judging R'
Binyomin and his wife favorably? Never in a million years, I
bet.
I only had to wait five minutes before having my burning
curiosity satisfied.
R' Binyomin had just completed stringing a new talis
koton. The lead string, or shammos, had turned out
far too long and needed cutting. But how to cut it? It is
brought down that one does not cut these holy fringes with a
metal blade, which ruled out scissors as well as knives.
What then? Someone in shul had suggested a plastic
disposal knife but this was disqualified as well since he
would have to `saw' through the thread and not do it in one
fell swoop. The only solution to this halachic dilemma was:
plastic scissors. Just one snip . . . And what was the
quickest, most available source? Our front yard of limitless
possibilities, of course!
Now I won't give any credit to my front yard this time,
though it has come up with the most providential surprises
you've ever seen [I have written about some of them, like the
yahrzeit candle that arrived on the morning of the
first yahrzeit of one of our dear volunteers, Malka
Salomon, who had been killed in an auto accident exactly one
year before — and which was promptly lit].
All the credit this time goes to R' Binyomin — past and
present.
*
And a corrolary in practical halochoh, in passing,
which actually has practical repercussions in our clothing
centers. We get huge amounts of taleisim, arba kanfos
which are either too dirty, too ragged or simply
posul. We cannot put them all as-is into the
genizah since they take up too much room. We cannot
cut the strings, either. What we do is cut the cloth around,
and double-bag the garment into the garbage and put only the
string-fringes into genizah.
*
We would like to pass on the almost infallible segulah of
"Omar R' Binyomin . . . " to our readers with the
suggestion that they put in a coin for tzedokoh for
good measure — before the search.
"Omar R' Binyomin: Hakol bechezkas sumin, ad shebo
Hakodosh Boruch Hu, ufosach es eineyhem, shene'emar:
`Vayiftechu es eineihem vayiru . . . ' " and fill in what
you are looking for.
And to tie it in with the parsha:
R' Binyomin says: Everyone is virtually blind until Hashem
"comes" and opens up their eyes . . . We see this from the
people of Sodom who were unable to locate Lot's door since
Hashem smote them with blindness. In other words, sight is a
gift not to be taken for granted!
