Nevertheless when I arrived at Beryl’s home to console him over the loss of his brother Yanky I was somewhat skeptical as to what gems of wisdom I’d procure.

Yanky had passed away in his early sixties; he never married and seemed to be a loner. And Yanky’s day-to-day life was the most expectable life one could imagine.

Every morning Yanky woke at five and caught the 5:30 train to Hoboken. He then boarded the 6:10 PATH train which arrived at 33rd Street in Manhattan at exactly 6:30. Yanky would then take the D train two stops uptown to Rockefeller Center and exit on 47th Street.

He would daven Shacharis at a midtown minyan and for Minchah Yanky was a fixture at the Radio City Synagogue (a.k.a. The 47th Street Synagogue) in the middle of the Diamond District.

Yanky’s life was predictable pedestrian and certainly prosaic.

I must admit his predictability wasn’t always looked upon so favorably by others — and I must add (embarrassingly) myself to the list. Too many times when I and others attempted to set him up with prospective shidduchim he’d demur stating “I must be in bed by nine.” Some began to “blame” Yanky for his bachelorhood contending (without any basis) that his bashert must have passed him by.

Whatever the reality I figured there wasn’t too much I didn’t already know about the life of a 63-year-old bachelor who woke at the same time for 40 years and never altered his behavior even one iota.

I arrived for Shacharis on the last day of shivah. After davening Yanky’s older brother Beryl asked me if I would accompany him for the customary walk around the block signifying the end of shivah. He was quiet at first then suddenly he turned to me and said “Rabbi I must tell you something. I know there were those — and you may be one of them — who blamed my brother for his lack of hishtadlus in attempting to get married. Maybe the claim was valid… who am I to judge?

“However I want to tell you something. My brother Yanky in his pedantic exactness did something amazing. He saved every extra penny he made as a low-level clerk in the Diamond District. And in a neighborhood where millions of dollars change hands daily my brother accumulated his own diamond — he quietly and without fanfare endowed a special scholarship fund at one of the yeshivos.”

I was awed into silence.

Yet Beryl was not quite finished.

“One more thing my brother asked that when he is remembered — and if he’s able to leave any legacy — he requested that people stop judging each other by if they are married and how many children they are blessed with.

“My brother really did want to marry… but he didn’t want to marry just anybody. He wanted to marry the right woman and he never found her. His greatest pain was that he always felt that being single relegated him to second-class status in the community and that reality hurt him deeply.”

We walked in silence for a few moments. Then Beryl spoke again.

“Yanky’s final words were ‘I just wish people would have accepted me for who I was and for what I achieved and not for what they thought I should have done.’ ”

As we arrived back at the shivah home I realized that once again I had received much more than I’d given.