True Tales from the Corners of Our World

The Background

I heard this story from Yosef Nechemia’s father, an old friend of mine who lives in Ramat Beit Shemesh.

MY

grandfather often spoke about his old friend, Nechemia Kroizer, from back in Radin, who — like my father — survived the war, married, and moved to New York. He did very well for himself, but he and his wife, Ida, never had any children. I had grown up hearing my grandfather talking about his friend Nechemia, and I thought about naming a child after him one day.

That day came when my wife and I moved to Los Angeles. She was expecting a baby, and Nechemia Kroizer had passed away. When our son was born, we named him Yosef after another relative, and Nechemia after my grandfather’s friend. Ida Kroizer was so moved by our gift of continuity to her husband that she sent us a $1,000 bond for the baby.

My wife and I had always pined for the life we had lived in Eretz Yisrael, and we’d desperately wanted to return. But our family was growing, and we both worked in chinuch, so this was a real sh’eilah. Whenever I visited my rosh yeshivah in Philadelphia, Rav Shmuel Kamenetsky, I always posed this question to him.

“You are teaching Torah here,” Rav Shmuel would reply, “and you need to remain in the States.”

But when our oldest son turned 11, it was now-or-never, because he would soon be too old to move to Eretz Yisrael. The next time I saw Rav Shmuel, I asked the question again, in light of this situation, and I said that if he told us to stay, that was it — we would never leave the States. This time, Rav Shmuel told us we could check it out, but on the condition that we have plans in place for an apartment and parnassah.

We put out feelers for jobs and received offers right away, but we simply had no way of coming up with the money to buy an apartment. It looked like our move was just not meant to be.

And then Ida Kroizer passed away, and everything changed.

Awoman called me and introduced herself as the lawyer handling Ida Kroizer’s estate. She told me Mrs. Kroizer had bequeathed half of a Manhattan loft to my son, Yosef Nechemia. The other half belonged to a different heir, who was buying out my son’s interest for $300,000 — the exact amount we needed to buy an apartment in Eretz Yisrael — but there was a catch.

“Mrs. Kroizer wrote in the will that the money left to your son was to be used for his education,” the lawyer said. “Once you provide proof that your use of the funding fits into the category of education, we will release the money to you.”

This was a dilemma. Our plan to buy an apartment in Eretz Yisrael was the best thing we could do for Yosef Nechemia’s education, but why would this lawyer agree that our plan could be construed as furthering his education?

But HaKadosh Baruch Hu was orchestrating everything beautifully. Before she died, Ida Kroizer had turned the Manhattan loft into an art museum, and it was a fun place to take a walk. My in-laws did exactly that, treating themselves to a little outing in the property bequeathed to their grandson.

As they wandered about the gallery, they saw a beautiful fur coat hanging from a hook. It was magnificent, and my father-in-law told my mother-in-law to put it on. She looked like a vision out of the 19th century, and he snapped a picture of her wearing it.

My in-laws had such a good time that day that they decided to return a week later. The fur coat, they noted, wasn’t there — and my father-in-law was intrigued. He launched an investigation. I don’t know how he found this out, but he determined that the lawyer had stolen the coat and given it to his mother.

He sent him the photo he had taken of my mother-in-law wearing the coat and told him he knew that he had stolen it.

“I have no interest in sending this photo to the police and ruining your career,” he wrote, “even though you deserve it for stealing from your client. But you need to do one simple thing — release the $300,000 for my grandson. My son-in-law will use it to further his son’s education in any way that he sees fit, without your involvement. You will make the transfer as soon as you receive this email.”

Minutes later, the lawyer responded that my father-in-law’s terms were acceptable. The money was in my account a short time later.

TO put my mind at ease, though, there was one more thing I had to do: to confirm that buying an apartment in Eretz Yisrael really did qualify as a chinuch investment for my son.

I went to Rav Chaim Kanievsky ztz”l and put my question to him.

Rav Chaim smiled. “Yes, using the money in this case would fall under the category of chinuch, and you can use it to purchase an apartment.”

I followed Rav Chaim’s guidance, and watched as my son took to learning like a fish to water.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1097)