Too young to learn a mishnah, or even to contemplate a machsheves mussar,  he was sitting with his Alef Binah

Photo: AEGedolim

Bein hazmanim brings significant traffic to the famed cemetery in Bnei Brak as throngs of Yidden come to be mispallel at the final resting place of so many of our gedolim. Of the many tombstones that line the cemetery, one stands out with a unique feature. A small text is etched into the headstone of Rav Elazar Menachem Man Shach’s grave with an excerpt from his tzava’ah: “Anyone who learns, l’illui nishmasi, a mishnah or a thought of mussar, if I am able to, I will, bli neder, be meilitz yosher for you. ”

For a small bein hazmanim excursion, Avraham Elbaz, a celebrated photographer of gedolei Yisrael, took a small group to the kever of Rav Shach. On the way up to the kever, Elbaz told them about the inscribed message, the last will and testament of this great tzaddik.

They arrived at the kever, and a member of the group noticed a young boy — no older than five or six — sitting on a bench beside it. Too young to learn a mishnah, or even to contemplate a machsheves mussar,  he was sitting with his Alef Binah.

In the sweetest of voices, in the ageless tune that one generation uses to pass along the letters of the alef-beis to the next, the little boy chanted the letters l’illui nishmas the Ponevezher Rosh Yeshivah, who dedicated his life to their transmission.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 925)