Welcome to the Daily Holy Story. Rabbi Mordechai Yaffe, known as the Levush for all the writings he wrote under that name, was a rabbi in Europe who was offered a very prestigious job as the chief rabbi of Poznań. He told the people of Poznań that he would be willing to accept the job, but first he needed to go to the city of Venice, Italy, to learn about chokhmat, the wisdom of the calendar of the Jewish year and how to make a year, a leap year, known in Hebrew as chokhmat ha'ibur. When he got to Venice, he met Rabbi Aboab, who began to teach him this wisdom. He was there for almost three months.
One day, Rabbi Mordechai Yaffe was studying Torah in his rabbi's house, and Rabbi Aboab's son made a Beracha (blessing) on a fruit: borei peri ha'etz (Who creates the fruit of the tree). Everyone answered Amen (so be it) to the child's Beracha, but Rabbi Mordechai Yaffe, who was learning, wasn't paying attention and didn't answer Amen. When Rabbi Aboab noticed that his student, Rabbi Mordechai Yaffe, hadn't answered Amen, he got very upset and angry with him. He put him in nidui—he excommunicated him—and the student couldn't talk to the rabbi for 30 days. At the end of 30 days, he went to ask his rabbi for forgiveness. His rabbi didn't want to receive him or forgive him.
So Rabbi Mordechai Yaffe asked his rabbi, “Rabbi, why are you so upset? Why are you so upset with me? What did I do so wrong?” Rabbi Aboab answered him, “You didn't answer Amen to my son's Beracha, and I want to tell you that I will forgive you only if you go teach all your students always to answer Amen. And I will tell you a story of why it's so important.”
Many years ago, in the country of Spain, there was a chassid (pious) who was very wealthy. Every time the king of Spain wanted to kick the Jews out of Spain, the chassid, who was loved by the king, went to him, and the king would allow the Jews to stay in Spain. One day, the king got very angry at the Jews and made a decree to kick them all out of the country. The Jewish people went running to the rich chassid, begging him to go to the king. He told them he would go, but first he needed to pray Mincha (afternoon prayer). They told him, “No, no, you have time to pray Mincha. Please go to the king first. This is very dangerous for the Jewish people.” So the chassid agreed to go to the king's palace first.
When he arrived at the palace and the king saw him, the king ran to hug and embrace him. The Jew thought, “For sure the king is going to let the Jews stay in Spain.” Shortly thereafter, the head priest, the priest of Spain, came to the palace and began speaking to the king in Latin, blessing him with long life and a wonderful kingdom. As he was speaking, the chassid noticed that the sun was going down, so he went to the corner to start praying Mincha. Meanwhile, the priest finished his blessing, and everybody answered Amen to it. The king asked, “Did everybody answer Amen?” They said, “Yes, absolutely,” except for the chassid Jew, who was in the corner praying Mincha and didn't interrupt his prayer.
When the priest heard that, he started to cry and yell, “Oh no, oh no! Now my blessing to the king will not come true, because the chassid didn't answer Amen.” When the king heard that, he became infuriated and instructed his servants to kill the chassid. They killed him, and then all the Jews were kicked out of Spain.
There was one chassid who was alive and was friendly with the chassid who was killed. He couldn't believe that his friend, the rich and pious chassid, was killed in such a manner. He thought to himself, “He must have committed some kind of terrible sin, and Hashem brought this decree upon him.” He fasted and fasted to try to find out from the Shamayim (heaven) why his friend, the rich chassid, had been killed like this.
One day, the dead chassid appeared before his friend, the living chassid. The living chassid was very astounded, and the dead chassid told him, “Don't worry. You should know that in my entire life, I never committed a sin, and I'm in Gan Eden. But the reason I was killed by the king was that many years ago, when my child made a Beracha on bread and finished his Beracha, I didn't answer Amen to his Beracha. At that moment, there was a decree in heaven that because I didn't answer Amen to my son's Beracha, I should be killed. Hashem waited until I didn't answer Amen to the priest's Beracha to punish me for not answering the Amen to my child's Beracha.”
So Rabbi Aboab said to Rabbi Mordechai Yaffe, “I put you in excommunication because, when you didn't answer Amen to my Beracha, you were being obligated by Heaven to die. And this was instead of you dying. I gave you kapara (atonement) by putting you in excommunication. So go teach all your students how important it is to always answer Amen to a fellow Jew's Beracha.” Have a wonderful, wonderful day.