Special Treatment

Translated from Rabbi Arush’s feature article in the weekly Chut shel Chessed newsletter. The articles focus on his main message: “Loving others as yourself” and emuna. 

An Open Miracle 

He thought he was going to faint, but he immediately pulled himself together, ended the call and ran frantically to his car that was parked outside. He couldn’t believe that it was happening to him too. 

Usually, his wife would take the children to their schools in the morning. Today, due to special circumstances, she had given him the task. Towards noon she received a call from the nursery schoolteacher that their daughter hadn’t arrived today. She called her husband immediately and asked him why he hadn’t taken the children to their schools as they had agreed he would do. He denied the charge, of course, and didn’t understand what she was talking about, and only after a moment of thought he realized the terrible mistake and became very pale: He had forgotten their youngest daughter in the car… 

When he opened the car door, he saw her lying there unconscious, her face beet-red. A quick check told him that she had a pulse, and he then alerted the emergency crews. The volunteers who arrived worked quickly and within a short period of time they rushed the daughter to the hospital while resuscitating her. In the hospital they stabilized her condition, and she was declared out of danger. 

One of the main questions he was asked by the paramedics, as well as by the doctors who treated the child, was how much time the little girl had been in the car. He said she had been there for almost four hours. The medical team couldn’t believe it. Couldn’t be, they said. Even a healthy adult does not survive in a closed car in the sun for more than an hour. When he insisted that the girl had been in there for four hours, all of them responded: “If so, we cannot explain this; it’s an open miracle.” 

Back to Life 

He was so rattled that what they said didn’t quite sink in. He didn’t really realize the extent of the miracle that had happened to him. His wife came to take his place by their daughter’s bedside, and he went home to rest a bit. The sudden release of the immense tension he had been in made him fall immediately into a deep sleep.  

While he was asleep, he had a dream. It was not an ordinary dream. It had a feeling of reality, the likes of which he had never experienced. He was standing in the Heavenly Court and saw the judges talking about his case, and all of them being of the opinion that his daughter should leave this world. After more discussions they confirmed the verdict, and he saw his daughter’s neshama (soul) leaving her body. 

At that moment, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef appeared and claimed that the court must allow the daughter to live. They checked the matter again and told him that the verdict was correct and irreversible.  

But Rabbi Ovadia continued to make his claim: It is true that the verdict is correct for an ordinary Jew, but the defendant standing here is a mezakeh harabbim (brings merits to the many), and such people get special treatment! 

The court checked again and said, “Please excuse us, honorable Rabbi, but this Jew is not a mezakeh rabbim…” 

Rabbi Ovadia replied: “This Jew owns a printing establishment, and every once in a while, he prints stickers for cars – giving them away for free – on which there are empowering sayings such as: ‘Hashem loves you,’ ‘Smile – it’s all for the good,’ ‘I love every Jew,’ etc. These stickers travel around the country; many Jews see them and consider doing teshuva (repenting) at that moment or have a moment of emuna (faith) or of ahavat Yisrael (loving one’s fellow Jews), so he has many merits and is considered to be a mezakeh harabbim!” 

The court accepted this claim and gave a verdict that the soul of the daughter be returned to her body. The father watched in his dream and saw his daughter coming back to life. 

He woke up, astonished, and remembered the dream with all its details. He rushed to tell the story to one of the rabbanim. The story was then publicized and caused much excitement! 

The Basics of Business 

If such a “small” zikkui harabbim is thought of so highly in Heaven, how much more so are those who disseminate booklets and disks and books and give classes and speak with Jews and strengthen their resolve, and also those who donate money to have the books disseminated – their level is beyond any assessment. It is impossible to assess the protection that the merit of dissemination brings upon them! 

I always told my avreichim (married students) that no personal merit – be it learning Torah diligently, doing mitzvahs and serving Hashem, even with the greatest mesirut nefesh (devotedly) – even gets close to the merit of bringing closer those who are far from Hashem. It is completely disproportional. If we would say that one mitzvah is worth a shekel, and when one does it particularly well and with care, perfectly, it is worth five shekels, so doing kiruv (bringing people closer to Hashem) is worth a million dollars. There is no comparison. 

This is written explicitly in the book Chovot Halevavot by Rabbeinu Bachya: “My brother, you should know that the merits of the faithful, even if he would reach the furthest goal in correcting his soul for the sake of Hashem, yitbarach, and even if he were to be close to the angels with their good traits and wonderful customs and their efforts to serve the Creator and their love for Him – these merits are still not like the merits of he who shows human beings the good way and guides the wicked to the service of the Creator, whose merits are multiplied by their merits on all days and in all times.”¹ 

Why is this so? The Chovot Halevavot explains this by using a parable from the business world: “And the mashal (parable) for this comes from two merchants who reached a city. One of them profited by selling his one piece of merchandise at ten times the amount of his investment, and it was all together one hundred zuz. The profit of the first merchant, with all the multiples of the profit, was ninety zuz and ten out of eleven parts of the zuz. And the second one received ten thousand zuzim, and his profit was five thousand zuzim….” ¹ 

You can profit from a mitzvah double or five times of your investment, but if you do kiruv for one Jew – you gain generations upon generations of Torah and mitzvot, beyond anything you can imagine or describe! 

Go and Spread the Word! 

Avraham Avinu was especially beloved due to his kiruv, as we know from Rashi on the passuk, “And the people they had gathered in Haran”², that Avraham and Sarah brought thousands and more closer to Hashem, and also commanded their sons after them to always have teachers and people who do kiruv, as it says in our parasha: “For I have chosen him so that he may direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of Hashem…”³ 

And Hashem yitbarach blessed him: “You will become a blessing.”⁴ And Chazal comment: “Don’t read it as ‘you will become a blessing’; rather, ‘you will be a pool’. You will be like a pool, like a big mikvah that purifies the impure and brings those far away closer to their Father in Heaven.” 

All kiruv is based on the midda (trait) of love, and therefore Avraham Avinu, the greatest of kiruv workers, was notable for his middot of chessed and love. Love has two aspects: it has the aspect of loving people, since when you love all creatures, you have pity on them and want to see their eternal and true success, as the mishna says, “He loves the people and draws them closer to Torah.”⁵ And then there is the aspect of loving the Creator, Blessed Be He, because someone who loves the Creator and knows how much the Creator wishes to do the ultimate good to His creatures – he certainly wants to make the Creator happy and to cause more of His sons to know Him and be drawn closer to Him and feel His love, and then return that love. 

And now, when we read about Avraham Avinu, the father of our nation, the first of the believers, who was also the first to spread the word of G-d, we must strengthen ourselves even more, draw from the shining figure of our father Avraham and say, “When will my deeds come close to my forefathers’ deeds?”, and, to be practical about it, let’s stop and make a good resolution right now: We are going to go out and spread the word. 

Because spreading the word has many facets, and anyone can do it – anyone! With no exception. 

Every person has a suitable target audience, whether it be strengthening soldiers, youth, patients in hospitals, charedim in their shtiblach (small synagogues), friends, neighbors, co-workers, fellow bus-riders, and everywhere. The possibilities are endless, and you too have neshamas (souls) who are waiting just for you! 

If you want to order booklets and books and any other material, call our Distributing Room, tel. 052-224-0696; if you want practical advice and guidance in finding the kind of dissemination most suitable for you, call 052-630-3638 – the main thing being that you will take part in the dissemination and in the hastening of the Geula! [Editor’s note: If you yourself cannot distribute booklets, you can donate for Chut shel Chessed to distribute emuna material for you.]

Get going! 

¹ Chovot Halevavot, Tenth Gate – Gate of Hashem’s Love, Chapter 6, by Rabbeinu Bachya 

² Bereishit 12:5 

³ Bereishit 18:19 

⁴ Bereishit 12:2 

⁵ Pirkei Avot, Chapter 1, Mishnah 12