A STORY

Dear Family,

I hope you are all well.

We wish long life to Mommy on the yohrtzeit of Pepe next week.

We wish Renée, Sid and Brian long life on the yohrtzeit of Aunty Lottie next week.

It is also the yohrtzeit of a good friend of our family Reb Shimon Pilsner.

You should all have only happy occasions in the future, and all the neshamos should have an aliyah!

Mazal Tov to Alisa on her birthday today. Wishing you a great year Alisa.

I came across an interesting story relating to the reading of the Megillah, and wanted to share this, as we are now entering the month of Adar. I found it even more interesting because there was a connection to our family, as it was about a Rabbi Shlomo Schwartz ah, fondly known as Schwartzie. Shmuel Levy's sister is married into that family, and we know them well, and I am sure that many people in the Los Angeles area and beyond also know them well, as he was a very well known Chassid.

It was Purim in the early 1980s and Schwartzie was working as a college campus Rabbi at the University of California, and he was pushing for students to hear the Megillah, but no one agreed. Finally one Jewish professor agreed because he imagined that it would take one or two minutes (not knowing what the Megillah was). So Schwartzie opened up the Megillah and the professor asked how long it would take, and was told about 20 minutes. The professor then declined saying that he had to hurry home to Irvine.

In a flash Schwartzie said that he also had to get to Irvine and requested a ride (really Schwartzie lived in LA about an hour's drive away!)

Once in the car, and as they were driving, Schwartzie said to the professor, 'We have a long drive ahead, and it is a pity to do nothing. I suggest that I can read the Megillah to you?' The professor agreed.

When they reached Irvine the professor asked Schwartzie where he needed to go and Schwartzie answered to the bus station. The professor then realised that Schwartzie had taken the ride just to read the Megillah for the professor, and was now going to take a bus back to LA

Part Two

It is now 30 years later and Schwartzie ah has already passed away, and the brother of the narrator, Rabbi Mayshe Schwartz was in New York, where he meets, and was chatting to, a young chossid there. When the chossid heard his name he asked if he is the son of Rabbi Shlomo Schwartz?

On hearing the affirmative, he related the following amazing story!

‘I grew up in an assimilated family and at one point I decided to make teshuvah and I wanted to go to a yeshiva. My parents got frightened because their dream was that I should go to college, and yeshiva seemed like a nightmare for them. A fierce conflict developed between me and my parents, and my parents suggested that we also invite our grandparents to discuss the crisis. The grandfather was a respectable professor and my parents were sure that he would support their view.

My grandfather asked me which yeshiva I wanted to go to, and I replied ‘To a Chassidic Yeshiva.’

To everyone's surprise grandfather said ‘That is good. Go there!’

The parents were shocked but then grandpa told over his story about how Rabbi Shlomo Schwartz had read over the Megillah to him on a car journey some 30 years earlier.

‘If this yeshiva educates values of such devotion to other people, to the point of dedicating hours, for someone else to have a mitzvah, I am happy that my grandson will go to study at a place like this!’

Wishing everyone a very happy Adar, a gut Chodesh and a gut Shabbos!