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- The Life of Tzaddikim
- Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu
One morning, Shmuel heard someone shouting in the area where the visitors would sit as they waited to be called. When he went to investigate, he saw a woman arguing with Rabbi Yehudah Mutzafi, Rabbi Eliyahu's assistant. Rabbi Mutzafi was telling her that Rabbi Eliyahu had to leave and that she should come back the following day. But she was insistent, explaining that her question was concerning a matter of life and death.
Rabbi Mordechai heard the shouting and came out of his room, telling the woman she could enter. She went in and consulted with Rabbi Eliyahu for some ten minutes — a considerable delay when he had already planned to leave. When she finally left the room, Rabbi Eliyahu called after her, "If that doesn't work, come back to me."
After she had gone, Rabbi Mutzafi asked Rabbi Eliyahu if it had really been a matter of life and death.
"Not exactly," Rabbi Eliyahu said. "But it was a very important question."
Rabbi Mutzafi asked what the very important question was, to which Rabbi Eliyahu responded, "The woman has a cat that hasn't eaten for several days. She's worried that it's going to die and she came to ask me what to do."
Shmuel couldn’t help but smirk as he asked his father, "What did you answer her?"
"I suggested that she change the cat's food and take it outside. I gave her a few suggestions, and I told her she should come back if none of them work."
"And that was the question that was so urgent that the rabbi had to miss his breakfast and will go hungry to the bet din?" Rabbi Mutzafi asked.
Rabbi Eliyahu nodded. "That was actually the most significant question asked to me this entire morning. The cat is the center of that woman's life. She was so distressed by her cat not eating. If it would die, she would be in tremendous anguish. We need to help each person in his or her place, wherever he or she is holding in life."
Years later, Rabbi Shmuel reflected on this story, saying, "At that time, this story confused me. But it has accompanied me through the years, and I preserve the memory of it as an important reminder to conduct myself with sensitivity, even to those who are so different from me."
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Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu The Path of the Righteous is as the Light of Dawn
From the book The Father of Israel
Rabbis in Midrash
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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)
