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A fellow was taking a bus somewhere up north. As he arrived, he realized he had missed his connecting bus. He wandered into a local beis midrash. The shamash came flying over to him and said, “Can I help you?”
The man explained, “I’m just waiting for the next bus. It’s going to be about an hour.”
“Of course,” the shamash said. He brought him a seat, brought him coffee, and began attending to him warmly. He even started fanning him. “Maybe you need a sefer? Let me get you a Gemara. Do you need tea? Sugar? Maybe you need some quiet?”
Someone nearby said, “What’s with this shamash?”
The traveler replied, “No, this is what a shamash is. This is life. But let me tell you a story.”
He explained that he was a shamash ben mishamash ben mishamash — descending from generations of shamashim. His zeide had been the shamash of the great tzaddik, the Chofetz Chaim.
The Chofetz Chaim once noticed something remarkable. After everyone had left the shul, Rav Nochum, the shamash, picked up the hangers, straightened the suits, locked the doors, then sat down at a shtender. He took out a small pushka, removed a little sefer, and began to learn with a burning intensity.
The Chofetz Chaim later said he saw a fire around him — not a physical fire, but a spiritual fire, a ruchniyus’dike fire. He never repeated the story publicly, because others said they had not seen any fire. But those who understood knew: if the Chofetz Chaim saw the fire, it was there.
This fellow, however, was a shamash in a new world. People told him, “If you’d only leave this old-fashioned life, you wouldn’t be shackled by these chains. Go to Berlin. Become a professor. Move forward.” They weren’t telling him to abandon Torah completely — just to enter the world of haskalah and progress.
Eventually, he went to Berlin. He became a respected professor and rose in German society. But then anti-Jewish laws began. To make a long story short, he was running for his life.
He crossed the border into Hungary and went from town to town, begging for shelter. People refused. “If the Germans catch us hiding you, they’ll kill us,” they said.
Finally, he entered a small beis midrash. The old shamash approached him.
“If they catch you here,” the shamash warned, “they’ll kill us.”
“Are you going to throw me into the street to die?” the man pleaded.
The shamash could not do it. He hid him up in the rafters.
That night, there was pounding on the door. Someone had reported suspicious activity to the Gestapo. They found him.
The next day, they prepared to hang him. As they wrapped the rope around his neck, he whispered, “Ribbono Shel Olam, if I survive this, I promise I will return to being a shamash. I will be the happiest shamash alive.”
They tightened the rope.
Suddenly, it snapped.
He fell to the ground instead of hanging. The German officer could have simply rehung him, but he panicked. He saw it as witchcraft. In fear, he told him, “Run! Get out of here!”
For days, he ran through the woods with the broken rope still tied around his neck.
Eventually, he made it to safety. He took a job as a shamash — and became the happiest shamash.
The lesson? Why do we need a rope around our neck to appreciate who we are? Let’s be happy with who we are before we’re forced to.
There was once an elderly man in Kotzk. As long as anyone could remember, he said Kaddish every single day.
People asked him, “For whom are you saying Kaddish?”
Years earlier, he had gone to the Kotzker Rebbe and said, “I’m afraid that when I die, my children won’t say Kaddish for me. What should I do?”
The Rebbe answered, “Then say Kaddish for yourself.”
So he began saying Kaddish for himself.
People laughed at him.
Years later, he said, “All those who laughed at me are already gone. I’m still here, saying Kaddish.”
There was another similar story. A man was learning Mishnayos. They asked him, “For whom are you learning?”
“For myself,” he replied. “I see how people learn Mishnayos for a niftar. I’m learning for myself.”
People laughed at him too.
I know someone who was diagnosed with a severe illness. The very next morning, he began learning Mishnayos.
I asked him, “For whom are you learning?”
He looked at me and said, “I see how people learn Mishnayos for others. I’m doing it for myself.”
That was 36 years ago. He had been told he had six months to live.
He’s still learning.
The point is this:
We acknowledge that we are in Hashem’s hands. I may have to ask Him for a piece of cake. I may need help. But I want to be happy with who I am — right now.
Don’t wait for a rope around your neck.
Be happy with who you are.