Rabbi Yanky Kupperwasser's story

The Background

Dovid Sholom Kupperwasser was the star soloist of my choir, Shira Chadasha, many years ago, and we’ve kept in touch since then. He told me this story when it happened, and his father, my friend Rabbi Yanky Kupperwasser, gave me the authoritative version presented here.

C

hesky is a chassidishe Yid with an infectious smile who plays basketball with me Tuesday nights after 11. One week he strode into the gym in full Shabbos attire, clearly over the moon. I asked him what the special occasion was.

“I’m coming from the wedding of a good friend,” he said. “The chussen is an older bochur.”

Chesky didn’t have a change of clothes but still wanted to play. I fired him a pass and he started dribbling down the court in his Shabbos shoes.

“What’s the chassan’s name?” I asked as we started to play.

“You wouldn’t know him — Lubiyanker.”

“You think I don’t know Lubiyanker?”

Now it was Chesky’s turn to be surprised. I explained that my son Dovid told me about the wedding the previous Erev Shabbos — he had gone to the aufruf and needed a devar Torah.

But there was even more to the story, I told Chesky. Dovid is very into American football, and I quickly explained it to him: quarterbacks, touchdowns, Sunday afternoons. Dovid watched a lot of games — after seder, of course — but most of all, he looked forward to the Super Bowl, the biggest game of the year. Because it was televised in the evening on the East Coast, if you were in Israel, you had to stay up most of the night to watch it.

“Last year, he started getting into learning,” I told Chesky. “He was shteiging in a big way, growing as a ben Torah. He was still watching football, but he started to have second thoughts about watching the Super Bowl.”

Dovid realized watching the game live would kill his first seder the next day. As he gave it more thought, he decided he wouldn’t watch the Super Bowl in real time; he could have someone record it for him, and he would watch it later. His friends would all have to keep him in the dark about the final score.

But there was another aspect to his plan, and I’ll never forget the conversation we had about it.

“For me not to watch the Super Bowl live is a major act of mesirus nefesh,” Dovid told me. “So basically I asked Hashem to please take the zechus of my doing this thing that was so hard for me to help Lubiyanker — an older bochur I know — get engaged within the year.”

“Did Dovid keep his end of the deal?” Chesky asked.

“Yes,” I said. “He kept his word and didn’t miss seder the next day. Months went by. Then one day he heard that Lubiyanker got engaged. Dovid opened a Hebrew calendar and checked the dates — Lubiyanker got engaged exactly a year later. To the day.”

I told Chesky that my son saw the power of mesirus nefesh, and that he was planning to do the same thing with this year’s Super Bowl.

“Who’s he going to give the zechus to this time?” Chesky wanted to know.

“His brother Matis.”

“Amazing,” said Chesky. “Now you have a wedding to look forward to!”

“I guess we do,” I replied.

PS: Matis Kupperwasser’s wedding took place b’shaah tovah in July 2024.

Names have been changed

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1048)