When there’s “another way,” no matter how hard — Rav Mattisyahu Salomon showed us that’s the road to take

Many years ago, a prominent kiruv organization hosted a major milestone dinner. The Lakewood mashgiach, Rav Mattisyahu Salomon, was slated to be the keynote speaker, and I was given the great honor of introducing him.

A week before the dinner I received a call from an out-of-town rav. He needed the Mashgiach’s advice, and asked if I could speak with him at the dinner. I agreed, and he shared his question with me.

His son would be starting a new mesivta that month in a neighboring town, an hour’s ride away, he told me, and he and his wife were debating how he should get there. He could take a bus door to door, but about half the students riding the bus would be girls traveling to a high school in the same town.

Alternately, his wife could drive the boy to yeshivah every day, but that would mean that she would be spending four hours a day on the road and wouldn’t be home when their other children came home.

While obviously the second option would be very difficult, they were prepared to do it if necessary and wanted me to ask the Mashgiach for his advice.

When I posed the question to him, he immediately responded that Chazal say “im ika darka achrina — if there is another way, then that is the way one should travel.” They don’t qualify that statement saying if there is another, “easier” way; just another way, no matter how more difficult that way may be.

In addition, he added, Chazal say “lefum tzara agra.” The more effort that you put into your child’s chinuch, the more reward you will reap from it.

I was reminded of this incident recently, when I read one of the many hespedim written in honor of the Mashgiach’s first yahrtzeit. One of his talmidim related a story he had heard directly from the Mashgiach’s trusted gabbai. They had been driving in a car back to Lakewood, and the driver had asked the Mashgiach if he preferred that they took Route 9 or the Garden State Parkway. The Mashgiach responded, “I prefer the GSP, as there are many billboards all along Route 9, and one should always choose for himself “darka achrina, a different way.”

When I read this, I remembered the query I’d posed to him so many years ago. What the Mashgiach demanded from others, he also demanded from himself. Perhaps this was the secret of his incredible success in inspiring Klal Yisrael over so many decades.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1060)