Rabbi Yisrael Salanter was once traveling by train from Salant to Vilna. He was in the smoking car, holding a lit cigarette. In those days, it was accepted to smoke cigarettes. It was considered healthy.
A young man started complaining about the odor of the smoke. Other passengers were appalled. After all, they were in the smoking car. Despite that, Rabbi Salanter extinguished the cigarette and opened the train’s window to dissipate the fumes. A few seconds later, the young man closed the window and yelled at the elderly sage for opening it.
This was the height of chutzpah, that shouldn’t be done to any elderly man, let alone the Gadol HaDor.
Rabbi Salanter apologized to the man young for making him cold, and buried himself in a Jewish book of law.
Upon arriving in Vilna, the young man was horrified to see throngs of people gathered to receive one of Europe’s most prominent Rabbis. The man immediately ran to the home where Rabbi Salanter was staying to beg forgiveness. “Don’t worry,” explained Reb Yisrael, “a trip can make one edgy. I bear no ill will. Tell me,” continued the mussar master, “why did you come to Vilna?”
The young man explained that he was looking to become an ordained shochet, and an approbation from a Vilna rabbi would be universally accepted. Rabbi Salanter smiled. “My own son-in-law, Reb Elya Lazer, can test you. He is a Rav in Vilna. Rest up and tomorrow you can take the test.
The next day, it was apparent that the man needed more than rest, for he failed miserably. However, that did not deter Rabbi Salanter. He encouraged the man to try again. For the next several weeks, Rabbi Yisrael arranged for tutors and prepared the young man well enough to pass Reb Elya Lazer’s make-up exam along with the tests of a host of other well-known Vilna rabbis. He even arranged for the man to get a job.
Before leaving Vilna, the man appeared before Reb Yisrael with tears in his eyes. “Tell me, Rebbe,” he cried. “I was able to understand that you could forgive me for my terrible arrogance on the train. But why did you help me so much? That, I can never understand.”
“Reb Yisrael sat him down, held his hand and explained. “It is easy to say ‘I forgive you’. But deep down, how does one really know if he still bears a grudge? Way down in my heart, I actually was not sure. The only way to remove a grudge is to take action. One who helps another develops a love for the one he aided. By helping you, I created a true love which is overwhelmingly more powerful than the words, ‘I forgive you’.”
Recently my dear friend Aaron Moses from Hollywood, Florida mentioned that Chacham David Yosef was in town. Between Mincha and Arbit, he told this story and related it to the Parasha:
Why did Yosef Hasadik take such good care of his brothers in Mitzrayim? The Torah stresses this. Wouldn’t it be enough just forgive them?
He applied this story of Rav Yisrael Salantar and said that it was because Yosef wanted to make sure that his grudge was truly gone. Therefore, he went to great extremes in order to make sure that he forgave them wholeheartedly.
This goes along with the approach that Yosef did forgive his brothers wholeheartedly, as we mentioned in a previous class.
Have a wonderful day.