Yeshiva
Beit Midrash
- Sections
- The Life of Tzaddikim
- Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu
My brother Mordechai asked that the shoes would be a little too big, so that he could wear them for a long time. He said to our mother that he was then at the stage of rapid growth and so it made sense to buy bigger shoes, and he would stuff them with paper so they wouldn’t be loose on his feet.
After a while the shoemaker notified us that the shoes were ready. Together with Mordechai, my mother went to the shoemaker, paid him half a lira and took the shoes. Mordechai was delighted with them.
Later, Mordechai went out into the street and saw the mother of one of the Yeshiva students crying.
"Why are you crying?" he asked her.
"Because my son doesn’t want to go to Yeshiva! He doesn’t have any decent shoes and he refuses to go in torn shoes," she replied.
"I’ll give him mine," Mordechai offered.
"But he’s bigger than you and your shoes will be too small for him," the mother said.
Mordechai didn’t hesitate and replied, "These shoes are a few sizes too big for me so they should fit your son."
He ran home to get his old shoes, packed up the new shoes and brought them to the student’s mother. Indeed, the shoes fitted him perfectly, and he agreed to go to the Yeshiva to study.
In the evening, my mother noticed Mordechai polishing his old shoes.
"Why are you polishing them?" she asked, and he told her the story.
My mother was very pleased with her son’s good character traits and told him, "You’ll get new shoes anyway!" She took him to the shoemaker and asked him to make him another pair of shoes.
"What happened?" the shoemaker, the father of Rabbi Abba Shaul, asked in surprise. "Just yesterday you got new shoes – where are they?"
My mother explained what had happened, and the shoemaker, who understood what a high level of generosity had been displayed by such a small child, told her that he was prepared to forgo his profit and sell her the shoes for thirty five agurot, the cost of the materials only.
Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu Controlling Flights, Directing Journeys
stories from 'Father of Israel' in English
Rabbis in Midrash
Lessons
fast navigation
Hosha'ana Rabba FLYDUBAI & HOSHANA RABBA- ANI VAHU HOSHIA NA- I & HIM SAVE US
"Ani vaHu Hoshia Na", "I and Him, Save Us". We don't just pray to Him, but we also pray to and for ourselves that we should emulate and educate our children to have that instinctive altruism with which He created the world. President Trump seemed amused about Yaniv Hayon, our PLUMBER who confidently worked with G-d like Superman (he learned from a pilot on a TV show!) to save 174 lives on the Dubai hijacking, but we in Israel are totally accustomed already 78 years to our plumbers, teachers, garbage-men, rabbis, farmers & doctors being Hashem's shlichim! This is what Zionism is about.
Moreshet Shaul Hashem Is your Shadow – part I
Based on Siach Shaul, Pirkei Machshava V’Hadracha p. 420 – an address from 1941
P'ninat Mishpat A Non-Contractor in Changing Times – part I
(based on ruling 85128 of the Eretz Hemdah-Gazit Rabbinical Courts)
Moreshet Shaul Our King on Rosh Hashana, Our Father on Yom Kippur.
Based on Aroch Siach, p. 221 (Rav Shaul Yisraeli)
