“I know that you’re a metzuyan,” he said with a smile. “Your mother has told my wife a lot about you!”

Living Higher

Nadav Portal was a star athlete and a member of the Herzliya Maccabi soccer team. A friend brought him along to a session of Lev L’Achim’s Mitchazkim program, and with time he began to grow serious about Judaism, his journey taking him from basic Torah study to shemiras Shabbos and onward. Nadav’s mother, wanting to understand what it was that her son found so interesting about Judaism, embarked on a journey of her own. She signed up to a Lev L’Achim program called Kav L’Lev, where she was connected with a frum mentor, Mrs. Gita Finkel, with whom she would study Torah over the phone.

One day, Mrs. Portal informed Mrs. Finkel that her son was hoping to be accepted into Yeshivas Mir and would be taking a farher in a few days’ time, and that she was very anxious about it. “Mir is a wonderful yeshivah,” Mrs. Finkel informed her. “My husband is an avreich there. We’ll say some chapters of Tehillim together so that Nadav be accepted.”

The big day came. Nadav entered the office of Mir Rosh Yeshivah, Rav Leizer Yudel Finkel, doing his best to hide his nerves.

“M-m-my name is Nadav Portal,” he said. “I would like to join the yeshivah.”

The Rosh Yeshivah smiled. “You’re accepted.”

“Accepted?! Just like that?!”

The rosh yeshivah nodded. “I know that you’re a metzuyan,” he said with a smile. “Your mother has told my wife a lot about you!”

Two weeks ago, the Portals celebrated Nadav’s engagement, putting a close to a most miraculous chapter, with hopes and tefillos for the next one.

“If Rav Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev were here, perhaps he’d say: This year, we had Tishah B’Av on Simchas Torah. Therefore, we should have Simchas Torah on Tishah B’Av.”

This line has been making the rounds as Klal Yisrael prepares for Tishah B’Av while war rages on one front, and escalating tensions threaten to further destabilize the region.

Early Rise

AT the UK’s H3 Halacha Summit, Rabbi Yisroel Reisman, Rav of Agudath Israel of Madison, shared a story from his childhood that shaped his outlook on the correct balance between Yiddishkeit and business. Rabbi Reisman’s father earned a living as a baker, and he would get up at 4:15 a.m. every day to do the early shift, ensuring the store was fully stocked in time for the morning. That was his schedule, day after grueling day.

“I remember as we were growing up,” related Rabbi Reisman, “that my father would dream of the day that he could afford to hire someone else to take over the early shift. Then, my father said, I’ll use that time to learn instead.”

Finally, after years of working that early shift, he’d built the business to a point that hiring a manager became feasible. “I was a young boy,” Rabbi Reisman remembers, “and my parents had a disagreement.” With the responsibility of the store no longer resting on his shoulders, Mrs. Reisman wanted her hard-working husband to take it a little easier. “You should be getting up a bit later now,” she said.

“But my father was having none of it,” said Rabbi Reisman. He wanted to commence his new learning seder even earlier, at 4 a.m. “If I was getting up at 4:15 for business, surely I should be exerting myself that little bit more for my Yiddishkeit,” he said.

Back and forth they went, the erlicher baker and his concerned wife. Eventually Mr. Reisman conceded, and set his alarm for 4:15 a.m.

“Later,” said Rabbi Reisman with a twinkle in his eye to the crowd of young businessmen, “I noticed that my father’s clock was set fifteen minutes fast.” He had found a way to start his day at 4 a.m. “My mother realized what my father had done,” concluded Rabbi Reisman, “but she let it go, and in doing so partnered with my father in teaching me a lesson for life: It’s Yiddishkeit first and business second.”

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1023)