One Story – -Two Versions

The following story is famous. In the 1700’s in Vilna, rumors began to spread about one of the chashuvim in town. Although he pleaded his innocence, he was up against witnesses who supported the story’s veracity.

Somehow, the Vilna Gaon became involved and asked to meet the eidim.

The witnesses sat before the Gaon and each began to retell the events in question.

The Vilna Gaon was silent throughout, until both witnesses completed their respective telling.

Once done, the Vilna Gaon stood up and exclaimed, “Liars!”.

Having the Vilna Gaon himself making such a declaration was enough to scare the witnesses into admitting the truth –they had in fact been paid a large sum to fabricate their story.

Knowing that ruach hakodesh has no place in a din Torah (as ‘Torah Lo Bashamayim Hi’), some time later the Gaon’s students asked their rebbe how he knew that these were false witnesses.

The Gaon explained his rational based on a Mishnah (Sanhedrin 5:4). In discussing the procedure of testimony in a beis din, the Mishnah teaches, “After, they bring in the second witness and examine him. If they find that their words are aligned, they then open the arguments for a possible acquittal…”

The language of “im nimtziu devarim mechuvanim –if they find their words to be aligned” are peculiar. Either the testimonies of the two witnesses match, or they do not. What does the Mishnah mean by saying “if the court ‘finds’ them to match”?

Explained the Gaon, the Mishnah is teaching us an essential reality of the human condition. No two people see and repeat the same events the same way.

A beis din therefore must ‘find’ the commonality between the witnesses. However, if eidim come in and their words are aligned to such an exactitude that the beis din need not ‘find’ the matching parts of their testimony then we may suspect that they are lying.

The witnesses that came before him, the Gaon explained, had just such an exactly harmonized testimony, and that is why he alleged foul play.

This story came to mind the other week.

Before orientation at Shevach High School where I teach halacha, one of the teachers approached me and asked if I could stay behind at the end. She explained that she needs to bentch gomel and her rav told her to gather ten women and one man to allow her to make the beracha. Would I mind, she asked, to stay and to explain at the end of the conference what she was about to do.

I would be remiss not to quickly add here, and without getting into the detailed specifics, that women, for a number of reasons, should always speak to their morah horah before saying this beracha. Not the least of which being that there is significant debate if women should even bentch gomel at all. In any event, this particular teacher’s rav was following the view brought in the Mishnah Berrura 219:3 (cf. Aruch Hashulchan ad loc.; see Teshuvot V’Hanhagot 1:195 for the view of the Chazon Ish).

When the meeting was over, the men, who were mostly rabbanim, quickly piled out, with the women, largely staying behind to catch up.

I stood by the door awaiting the beracha to commence when this teacher stood up and first explained the story behind her beracha.

Over the summer she was having an issue with the family van. Bringing it to the mechanic she was told that there was some type of hole on the carriage. Several days later she was not feeling well and, in the early months of a pregnancy, she rushed to her doctor.

She was quickly rushed to the hospital where it was determined, R’l, that the baby was no longer viable.

That evening her condition grew worse and worse and she davened to Hashem that her pain go away, and it did.

I was listening to this story and feeling both awful for what she had gone through, but also desperate to understand just why she was bentching gomel. First she had the frustration in spending thousands of dollars on her minivan, and then, nebech, the unspeakable happened.

But then she recapped the events, “So, first Hashem saves my family from a car problem. The mechanic explained that this hole could cause a huge fire. Imagine! We drove the family around in that van the entire summer without knowledge of this danger and nothing bad happened. And then, after Hashem decided that I was not to have this baby, I was able to get to the hospital in time, and He took away my tzar when I davened.”

I could not believe my ears! Had these events happened to most other people rather wish to offer a toda to the Riboneh Shel Olam, they might wonder what they did wrong to deserve this.

How many of us would have even trusted what the mechanic was telling us about the danger? Instead, many of us would have cynicly focused on the high price of fixing it, ignoring his dire warnings as simple alarmism.

A few days later a close friend of mine who dedicates his life to chinuch and Torah – a young man with a large family – woke up on Shabbos morning without the ability to speak, and largely paralyzed.

He had suffered a shocking and major stroke.

Boruch Hashem, he arrived in the hospital in time for life saving and stroke-reversing procedures.

As I was wondering why Hashem would bring such tzar on such a tzadik, my wife saw this story differently.

She commented to me, “I always wondered where all the zechusim go for people who dedicate their lives for the tzibur, if it is reserved just for acharei meah v’esrim…”

As she was speaking, I nodded my head in agreement, thinking that she too was wondering why Hakadosh Baruch Hu would bring such a shock on such a special person and family.

But I was wrong. She was, rightly, praising Hashem. She continued, “…but now I see that even in this life too does Hashem give so many gifts to such people. Shabbos morning at 5am he could not move or talk, and now just three days later he was back in shul! Amazing! Chasdei Hashem!”

Who knows the cheshbonos of Hashem-but would not life be more enjoyable if we could see the positive in everything?

With yom tov season over, and we return to our regular lives, we have a choice to make. How will we recount the stories of our day, our lives?

We all davened for a sweet new year on Rosh Hashana; we begged for our lives and for parnassa and nachas on Yom Kippur; we strived for simcha as the touchstone of Sukkos.

However, even should Hashem grant us all of this this coming year, that would not be enough to collect it – unless we must create in ourselves a keli, a receptacle to collect this shefa!

Hashem may grant us much nachas from our children, but if we do not see their positive features, what use is Hashem’s gift?

Hashem may indeed grant us parnassa, but if we focus only on others and on what we do not have, we indeed will still feel poor.

He may grant us beracha and gezunt, and cause for simcha, but if we close our eyes or look in another direction we may just miss it. We may feel down when we should be dancing in the streets!

 Let us see this year through the eyes of the grateful, and maybe, just maybe, we will discover that all of our teffilos had been answered.