translated by Yocheved Lavon 

“I’d like to tell you a story — something really fascinating and unusual” said my friend an accomplished askan in the field of chinuch. “But before I tell you the story please take a look at a book that was published on my initiative.”

He hands me One Small Deed Can Change the World written by Nachman Seltzer.

“This book shows how much good a person can bring to himself and the whole world if instead of ignoring the people around him he looks for ways to connect with them” he explained. He opened the book and began leafing through it.

“This book is full of astounding stories that illustrate the idea expressed in the title. Stories about people who made a small effort to connect just by saying hello to someone they met at random and that one word brought them to heights they would never have imagined. This book will revolutionize your way of thinking — and that’s not hyperbole. Many readers have already told me this was their experience.”

He closed the book rested his hands on it and said “The story I’m going to tell you will go into the next volume im yirtzeh Hashem. But by way of introduction let me tell you a little anecdote that happened to me which shows how a small ‘hello’ can be very powerful.”

“It seems to me” I ventured after listening to his campaign “that everybody already knows everything that you just said. What’s revolutionary about it?”

“You’re right” he agreed. “Everybody knows it. But they don’t apply it and it’s a pity.

“Now what was I about to tell you? Oh yes. Recently I traveled abroad on a British Airways flight and as luck would have it I was seated next to an Israeli woman who was dressed very immodestly. I said hello to her anyway to which she responded: ‘Do you know why I chose British Airways instead of El Al? Because I hate seeing dossim [a pejorative used by secular Israelis to describe religious people] like you. And there you are popping up in the seat right next to me.’ That wasn’t very pleasant to hear of course but what could I do about it?

“When dinner was served I got my glatt kosher meal and the woman next to me received a glatt treif meal along with all the other passengers with pork as the main dish. I noticed she seemed hesitant and she wasn’t eating. I was a bit nervous about speaking to her again but I murmured ‘Is anything wrong?’ After some beating around the bush she said that she would like something kosher to eat. So I spoke to a flight attendant and had them bring her a glatt kosher meal.

“My very presence as one of the dossim that she hates seeing on El Al made her feel uncomfortable eating treif. It wasn’t something I chose to do yet indirectly it had an effect.”

“But what about the story?” I prodded reminding him of the purpose of his visit.

“I was just getting to that. I heard this directly from the person it happened to. He’s a kashrus supervisor for the wine industry and his work took him to a rural area in southern Italy. In the same region there’s a little village where his family lived generations ago after the Jews were expelled from Spain.

“He decided that since he was going to that part of Italy he would take the opportunity to visit the little town where his ancestors had lived. When he got there he was greeted by a local resident an old man who said he was the only Jew in town. They found that they spoke a common language Spanish and began to converse. This elderly Jew he learned had married a non-Jewish woman. They went on talking and the man asked the kashrus supervisor if he had a pair of tefillin because he hadn’t put on tefillin for more than seventy years.

“The mashgiach let him borrow his tefillin of course. He accompanied the townsman to his house and when the old man put the tefillin on he began to weep uncontrollably. After he removed the tefillin he asked the mashgiach whether he could procure him a pair that he could use daily. The mashgiach promised that he would be back in that region in a week and he would bring him tefillin.

“He arrived as promised a week later tefillin in hand. He went to the old man’s house and knocked on the door but there was no answer. A neighbor came out and told him that the man was sick and had been hospitalized. The mashgiach headed for the hospital but when he got there a nurse informed him that the man had just died.

“The tefillin were left orphaned.

“The kashrus supervisor realized since the law stipulated that a body left in the hospital mortuary must be cremated it was up to him to arrange a Jewish burial for the niftar.

“Mulling over his options he realized that the nearest major city was Rome. He phoned the rav there and asked for his advice. The rav told him to bring the body to him.

‘How?’ the mashgiach asked.

‘In your car’ the rav replied.

“He went about the task of redeeming the Jew’s body which wasn’t easy because it was against the law for the hospital to release it to him. It cost him 500 euros in hush money to a nurse but once she was satisfied with his offering she decided to help him. She used makeup to add a little color to the dead man’s face and she straightened his features and sat him up in the passenger seat next to the driver. It was a seven-hour drive to Rome and it wasn’t much fun. From time to time he ‘spoke’ to the dead man at his side asking his forgiveness for the treatment he was getting and explaining that it was all for his honor.

“When he reached the outskirts of Rome he met up with the police. A patrol car stopped him and the officer asked him for his license. He didn’t know how he would extricate himself from this mess. He didn’t speak Italian and all he needed was for them to find out that the person riding with him was dead. The thought of how much trouble he could get into sent chills through him. All he could do was say a silent prayer for a yeshuah.

“The yeshuah came k’heref ayin in the blink of an eye. Seconds later a passing car crashed into a nearby wall. The policemen ran over to deal with the accident telling him to leave the area immediately which he did most willingly.

“He drove around the streets of Rome not knowing exactly how to get to the rav’s house. He stopped on a certain street and phoned the rav’s house to get directions. The rav asked him where he was and he named the street and described his surroundings. The rav’s directions were very simple: ‘You’re parked right outside my house!’

“And the niftar was brought to a proper Jewish burial.

“Do you see what happened here?” said my friend. “A chance meeting in which one Jew said hello to another turned into an opportunity for him to have the zchus of putting on tefillin once more before he died and to be buried as a Jew.”

My visitor was excited. “This was one little act that changed the eternal world of a lonely Jew in a far-flung little village in Italy.”

Food for Thought

The human sense of sight is far-ranging. Yet any small coin can block a man’s vision.

(Rav Yisrael Salanter)