Le’elui Nishmat Rabbi Ron Raful a’h, one of the great Saddikim of our community.
We continue talking about what a person’s job is in life. What is he supposed to do, and how does he know what he is supposed to do? The Hovot HaLevavot says G-d gave us talents, tendencies and abilities. We should follow our inner compass.
This message is especially vital in child rearing and education. Rabbi Ades notes the importance of parents empowering their children with self-esteem. He says that we can do this by emphasizing this point: that every person has a unique role to fulfill. When a child knows that, he’s confident that he’ll do what he has to do.
Rav Wolbe writes, in his sefer Alei Shur, that no two people have the exact same missions in life. Just like our faces are different, our qualities are different. No one will ever come to this world with your exact makeup. Everyone has their own role. We have to understand that.
Every morning we make the beracha:
שעשה לי כל צרכי
“G-d gave me all of my needs.”
Rav Wolbe explains that this refers not only to our physical needs but to our talents and character traits as well, which enable us to perform our divinely ordained roles in the world.
It’s part of our Emunah to acknowledge that Hashem gave us precisely what we need to perform our jobs in this world. He gave each of us the proper tools that we need. We shouldn’t look for someone else’s tools.
Sometimes a person’s job is not what he expected. Nonetheless, we can’t choose our jobs.
Rabbi Ades was once asked what the job could be of a person stuck in bed with Mono. The rabbi answered that his job is to be in bed. His job is where he was put.
Rav Ron’s brother Rabbi Yaakov y’l told over a beautiful story at Rabbi Ron’s levaya. There was a young boy who was very sick. The local rabbi of Bnei B’rak went to visit him one day, and the boy said he had a question. He wanted to know if he could recite the beracha of שעשה לי כל צרכי , being that he was unable to do anything at all for himself, to the extent that he could only communicate using his eyes.
(As the rabbis explains and I once heard Rav Ben-Zion Brook say, the word לי ״ /me” in this beracha means that Hashem gave me the ability to do everything I need for myself. )
This was a deep question. He wanted to know how he could make this beracha if he couldn’t do anything for himself. The Rabbi didn’t know what to answer, so he asked Dayan Wosner, a great Saddik of Bnei Barak.
Rav Wosner, upon hearing the question, told the rabbi about an experience he had once when he was learning at Yeshiva Chachmei Lublin (the yeshiva started by the famed Rav Moshe Shapiro, who started the Daf Yomi).
At the time, there was a very sick boy in the hospital that the Rabbis went to visit. They were surprised to see that the sick boy was in a very good mood, smiling, despite being incapable of doing anything for himself. Rav Wosner and the Rosh Yeshiva, Rav Shapiro were amazed at the boy’s happy attitude and upbeat manner. They asked him what his secret was. He said that it was based on two Gemarot:
One Gemara that tells us that the shechina dwells on the top of the head of a sick person: G-d takes care of people, and since the ill need extra care, Hashem is there at their heads.
The second Gemara teaches that the shechina only dwells in a person that is happy.
“Therefore,” the boy went on, “As a sick person, my job is to bring the shechina down to this world. We don’t have a Bet HaMikdash. The shechina doesn’t have a place. I was entrusted with the talents to do this great job. If I’m not happy, the shechina won’t dwell on me. Do I want to send the shechina away? Therefore, I always have a smile on face.” This boy was given the tools to do his job in this world.
Rav Yaakov Raful y’l then said that his brother Rabbi Ron suffered yisurim for over 15 years. But even so, he was always b’simcha, happy, and chuckling, even in most difficult situations. He was a man that not only did his job when it meant accepting yisurim with love, but he also used his tremendous talents and abilities to spread Torah and chessed in our community.
תהי זכרו ברוך