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have an almost insatiable appetite for stories of unsung heroes quietly making the world a better place. Some of those may be well known in their neighborhood or city but few are known to the broader Jewish world.

They should be. Not because they crave fame — they abhor it — but because they show us how to make our lives about more than just rearranging the furniture.

For years my friend Moshe Friederwitzer one of that dwindling cohort of those older than me at my Har Nof gym (and a walking advertisement for the value of exercise to those already eligible for Social Security) has been urging me to write about his Staten Island buddy Milton Pfeiffer.

“A shtick chesed” is Moshe’s oft-repeated description of his friend. So when Mr. Pfeiffer was recently inIsraelvisiting family I took advantage of the opportunity to interview him.

He briefly described his upbringing inWashingtonHeights where his father was the gabbai of the hashkamah minyan in Breuer’s shul. But almost his entire married life has been spent inStaten Island’s Willowbrook neighborhood.

When Milton and his wife Fran were blessed with a healthy first grandchild they decided to express their hakaras hatov to Hashem by creating a fund Nachas Unlimited for sick children and their families. Two obstacles stood in their way.Milton’s accounting practice did not generate enough income for him to self-fund Nachas Unlimited. And he had no desire to solicit funds.

Instead he decided to raise money in a variety of creative ways most of them involving providing something of value to theStaten Islandcommunity. His various “projects” as he calls them have netted over $1.5 million over the last 25 years. One of the first was the production of 1 000 Havdalah plates each with the words of the blessings embedded in the plate. He found a sponsor for the production of the plates and distributed them for whatever sum the recipients chose to contribute.

Two years ago after the 2014 Gaza WarMiltoncame up with the idea of writing a sefer Torah to honor the Israeli fallen. Each $500 sponsor was paired with one fallen soldier whose name the sponsor kept in mind during the writing of the final letters. Chofetz Chaim Yeshiva of StatenIsraelreceived a new sefer Torah the fallen received a fitting memorial and Nachas Unlimited was left with $10 000 from the sponsorships.

For ten yearsMiltonhas effectively been running a snow-removal service for the benefit of Willowbrook community members incapable of shoveling snow from their sidewalks and driveways. If the winter is not too harsh the profit from the subscription fees goes to Nachas Unlimited.

In the last two years he has become a real estate “matchmaker” for the large number of chassidim moving into Willowbrook and older residents moving out with shadchanus gelt going to Nachas Unlimited.

One year he produced a book of essays on the chagim by 80 holders of semichah who were either born in Staten Island or are the spouses of those born inStaten Island. Again the sponsorships of the sefer netted around $10000 after production costs.

But the mainstay ofMilton’s creative fundraising for over a quarter century has been the publication of the annual Nachas Planner. The Nachas Planner is designed to be small enough to fit into a car glove compartment. Each day of the diary contains all the relevant halachic times and the daily portion of various learning cycles. Minchah Maariv and Bircas Hamazon are also to be found. Every kosher restaurant in the Tristate area is listed by location and a yellow pages of nearly 200 hundred pages contains advertisements for 250 businesses along with a complete listing of members of theStaten Islandcommunity.

The requests to Nachas Unlimited for help come from around the world. To be considered the request must be accompanied by a picture a letter from a doctor or hospital and the address of an organization or hospital to which the funds can be directed. “ ‘No’ is not part of my vocabulary ”Miltontells me and he tries to honor as many requests as he can.

The sums Nachas Unlimited is able to distribute are not sufficient to cover major expenses such as a transplant. At most they can bring a little joy to a seriously ill youngster or help relieve the burdens on their families. Two summers ago Nachas Unlimited was able to bring 19 seriously ill Jewish youngsters and their accompanying staff fromIsraelto theUnited Statesfor a once-in-a-lifetime visit.

YetMiltonhas no doubt that his nonstop dedication — he works on Nachas Unlimited every evening almost from the moment he arrives home — is worth it. His motto is: “When you give you receive back multifold. Do it. Don’t procrastinate.”

Part of that payback comes in the form of others seeking his creative energies. Every year Milton serves as the pre-Simchas Torah auctioneer of “kibbudim” — e.g. breakfast with the Rebbetzin an hour of learning with the Rav use of Rabbi Herschel Schachter’s esrog for esrog jelly — that nets Congregation Beth Avraham of Bergenfeld New Jersey approximately $50 000 annually.

An even greater reward is his children following in his path. At his daughter. I was puzzled until he identified his daughter as Mrs. Sharon Isaacson. During the 2014 Operation Preventive Shield she demonstrated all her father’s energy and creativity in gathering the names of neighbors in Beit Shemesh with husbands or sons fighting in Gaza and then organizing her chareidi neighbors in Ramat Beit Shemesh Alef to offer them any physical assistance needed — e.g. cooked meals babysitting carpooling shopping — and emotional support. His sons Allen and Glenn are active members of theTeaneckcommunity and both have served as president of the local elementary school with over 1 000 students.

Nachas Unlimited has proven a doubly accurate name for the Pfeiffers’ efforts — both in terms of the nachas they have given to others and all that they have received in return in the form of grandchildren and now great-grandchildren.

Mystery Solved

TheClintonssoil everything they touch and taint everyone with whom they come into contact. The latest such victim is FBI director James Comey who had long enjoyed a reputation as an incorruptible prosecutor. Comey is now the bête noire of theClintoncampaign and the Obama Justice Department (for whom he works) after informing Congress that he was reopening the investigation intoClinton’s use of her private server to transmit classified information.

But in July he was a hero to the Clintonites even after laying out to the public in glaring detail how Clinton had violated Section 793(f) of the 1917 Espionage Act which prohibits government officials with security clearance from exercising “gross negligence” in storing classified information and lied to the public about having done so. At that time Comey declined to seek prosecution on grounds that it could not be proven that Clinton had willfully intended to harm national security through her “extreme carelessness” in the handling of classified information. But intent to harm national security is not an element of the offense — that would be the much more serious crime of treason.

With last week’s announcement of a reopened investigation it's now evident that Comey twisted himself into a legal pretzel because he knew that the Obama Justice Department would never allow aClintonprosecution — because it could not do so without implicating President Obama as well.

Obama initially claimed to have only learned ofClinton’s private server from news reports. But that was a bald-faced lie. The administration now admits that there are at least 22 e-mails from Obama using an alias toClintonon her private server.

Almost by definition communications between the president and secretary of state are classified unless they are exchanging yoga routines and recipes. If it was criminal forClintonto transmit such classified material on a private server so too was it for the president.

The mystery of what happened to James Comey is now solved. He did what he could knowing in advance the Justice Department would never prosecute. Now he is doing what he can to give lie to Clinton’s claim that he exonerated her.

Make Every Day Erev Yom Kippur

It occurred to me this year that Erev Yom Kippur provides the model of what we should strive for every day. Most of us are prone to procrastination throughout the year — with the sole exception of Erev Yom Kippur. What we cannot fix up before Yom Kippur particularly in matters bein adam l’chaveiro is almost certain to remain written in the Divine seforim as the gates close at Neilah.

At no other time of the year do we search the events of the past year as carefully and honestly to discern where we have wronged a fellow Jew and caused them pain or loss. And on no other day are we as likely to make the difficult declaration “I was wrong. I’m sorry. Please forgive me.” I don’t mean the perfunctory and largely meaningless “Please be mochel me if...” that we issue to virtually everyone with whom we have exchanged five words in the preceding year and who happens to cross our path before Yom Kippur. But rather to sincere requests for mechilah and the making of necessary amends including restitution in those cases where we know we have caused harm.

I had occasion to experience firsthand this year the power of Erev Yom Kippur to push even the slowest moving among us into action. Sometime after Rosh Hashanah a small envelope surfaced on my desk. At first I didn’t recognize it but then I realized it was a wedding present that I had been asked to deliver in Israel while on a stateside trip in late July. Apparently I made the mistake of putting it down on my desk — something akin to dropping it in quicksand — while unpacking from the trip.

On Erev Yom Kippur I drove across the city to personally deliver the check and to discover the extent of the anguish caused by my failure to fulfill my shlichus. The mother of the kallah told me that she had been surprised that longtime supporters of her departed husband’s work had not acknowledged the simchah. The givers had been similarly surprised not to receive a thank-you note and had called to make sure the gift had arrived. Fortunately they had forgotten to whom they had entrusted the check.

By delivering the check I was able to ameliorate but not retroactively remove the agmas nefesh of the kallah’s mother and the givers. And fortunately there was still time before Yom Kippur to call the person who had given me the check and ask for and receive her mechilah.

But if every day were treated like Erev Yom Kippur I would have never delayed in delivering the envelope in the first place.