For years, the modest, publicity-shy Sutton family of Argentina has been supporting countless Torah institutions and chesed organizations without fanfare or plaques, following the moral imperative that patriarch Don Shaul Sutton z”l left to his children and grandchildren. Just before his passing a year ago at age 98, he invited us in to discover the secret of his good fortune

The tear-stained faces and heaving sobs accompanying a funeral procession at Har Hazeisim on a sunny November day a year ago might have convinced onlookers that the deceased was a young father taken in the prime of life, or perhaps a child, or maybe the victim of a terrorist attack. With all that sadness and grief, it certainly didn’t look like the funeral of a 98-year-old patriarch who merited supporting Torah institutions in Israel and around the world.

But according to Reb Alexander Sutton, whose venerated grandfather Don Shaul Sutton Dabbah passed away last year on 15 Cheshvan, the entire family — not to mention the Buenos Aires community he headed until his last days — still acutely feels the loss. “Everyone loved him ahavat nefesh,” says Reb Alexander, a Mir yeshivah avreich. “Of course the kehillah he led is strong and flourishing, but the demut is gone. He was a prince among men, and to us, he’s irreplaceable.”

I’ll Never Be Like Abba

Who are the Suttons, this modest, publicity-shy Argentinian family who for years have been supporting countless Torah institutions and chesed organizations without fanfare or plaques? The key to the answer is to understand the legacy that Don Shaul Sutton left to his children and grandchildren, a link in a chain that goes back to his own illustrious ancestors in Aleppo, Syria. Don Shaul Sutton’s philanthropic activities, from the time he was a young struggling businessman, had over the decades added up to millions of dollars. And in the 40 years following his retirement when he handed over the bulk of the family’s business interests to his son David and other family members, he devoted all his energies to communal and international causes — as president of the Syrian Jewish community in Buenos Aires and head of the community’s tzedakah fund, and as one of the world’s greatest contributors to Torah institutions.

Several months before he passed away, Don Shaul — as he was affectionately called by community members — agreed to grant Mishpacha an interview, although he never had a desire for public exposure and rarely revealed himself to the media. But when the Israeli Torah world he’d worked so hard to support found itself at the bottom of the state’s budgetary ladder, the most influential baal tzedakah in Argentina decided to break his nearly hundred-year silence. He wanted to teach the younger generation of successful entrepreneurs what it really means to give, and how to put your life out there for the klal.

We met in his home on a Friday afternoon, where we were joined by some of his locally residing children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren; Erev Shabbos was a traditional visiting time, and his son and successor Reb David Sutton — who lives two miles away — was there every week to escort his father across the street to shul. The custom had its roots decades ago when Reb David would send his sons to spend Shabbos with their grandparents so they wouldn’t be alone. But then his oldest son, Shaul, went to learn in the Scranton yeshivah; after that, his second and third sons, Ariel and Alexander, went to learn in Jerusalem’s Kol Torah. And so David began going himself, at least on Friday and Shabbos morning.

[This past summer on a visit to Israel, Reb David reminisced about those Fridays. “Abba would say to me, ‘Why do you have to bother coming? The (non-Jewish) ozeret can take me to shul.’ I told him, ‘What? You should walk across the street with a goyta? You have no sons? My kavod is to take you!’ ” In fact, every Erev Shabbos Reb David, no youngster himself, would take a cab to his father’s house, escort the elder Sutton to shul, and walk home. On Shabbos morning, he would make the walk again, have Kiddush with his parents after services, and then walk back home.]

When the elderly Don Shaul entered the room, I happened to be standing at the sink filling up a washing cup. Don Shaul watched me and commented knowingly, “Make sure to pour plenty of water. Water is a symbol of parnassah and brachah, and the more you fill the cup, the greater the outpouring of blessing will be.” Who wouldn’t take such advice from a man who has been so blessed himself?