Story from Rav Moshe Wienberger

[Ari Kotowitz]

Shavua Tov

This week story is from part of Rav Moshe Wienbeger's Parshas Bo
Shabbos morning drasha that is written up on a great blog
dixieyid.blogspot.com:

Yonatan Yoel (the Bar Mitzva bachur), you first put on Tefilin this
week and the last pasuk in this week’s parsha is the mitzva of
Tefilin. There is a story of Rav Yisroel Husiatiner, the son of Rav
Mordechai Shraga and descendant of the Magid of Mezritch. Rav Yisroel
said that when he first put on Tefilin as a Bar Mitzva bachur, his
father, Rav Mordechai Shraga, told him the following story:

At the beginning, the Magid of Mezrich, their ancestor, traveled from
place to place teaching the path of Chassidus. He came to one town and
started speaking to a group of talmidei chachamim. Soon other
villagers came to listen as well, and soon the whole town was on fire
with the light of Chassidus. After a few months, the Magid told them
that it was revealed to him that he needed to move on to a different
place. The people of the town told him that they would be lost and
begged him not to leave them because they did not have anyone else to
lead them in the service of Hashem. He gave one of them his bekeshe
and gartle and told them to go to the nearby town of Vitebsk. He told
them that there, they would find a Jew named Mendel. They should put
his (the Magid’s) bekeshe and gartle on Mendel, and then he would be
their leader.

The Jews of the town traveled to Vetebsk and asked about someone named
Mendel. People pointed out a young talmid chacham named Mendel, so
they went to him and told him to put on the bekeshe and gartle. From
the time that Mendel put on the Magid’s bekeshe and gartle, he was
filled with a new light and became the tzadik we know today as Reb
Mendele Vitebsker. Rav Mordechai Shraga told him that if the bekeshe
and gartle of the Magid of Mezrich could turn a Mendel into Rav
Mendeleh of Vitebsk, then surely Tefilin, which are Hashem’s garments,
תפילין דמרי עלמא, can turn any Jew into a Tzadik.

The story is beautiful but it is very difficult to understand. It
seems that the only reason the gartel and bekeshe had the power to
turn Mendel into Reb Mendeleh of Vitebsk was because he already had
all of the qualities of a Mendeleh of Vitebsk hidden inside. If they
had put the bekeshe and gartle on some other Mendel, nothing would
have happened. Furthermore, we have all been wearing Tefilin, Hashem’s
garment, for years and we have still not become big Tzadikim.

The answer lies in the pasuk of the mitzva of Tefilin, which says
(Shmos 13:16), “וְהָיָה לְאוֹת עַל-יָדְכָה וּלְטוֹטָפֹת בֵּין עֵינֶיךָ
כִּי בְּחֹזֶק יָד הוֹצִיאָנוּ ה' מִמִּצְרָיִם,” “and it shall be a
sign upon your hand and as Totafos between your eyes that it was with
a strong hand that Hashem took us out of Egypt.” We must remember that
Hashem took the lowest people in the world out of Egypt and made them
great. But just like Reb Mendeleh Vitebsker putting on the bekeshe and
gartle of the Magid of Mezrich, they must have already had the latent
potential to stand on Har Sinai and receive the Torah even before they
were taken out. Yonatal Yoel, as you begin to put on the Tefilin of
the Master of the World, it must be that you too already have a heart
and a Neshama capable of אהבת ה', love of Hashem, and יראת ה', fear of
Hashem.