The Secret Child: Chapter 8
| March 20, 2019T
he fish that swallowed Eliezer alive traveled across the ocean at breakneck speed. Like all creatures that exist, Hashem directly controlled its impulses to lead it toward a very specific island.
An old fisherman dozing on a tiny raft off the coast of this island was rudely awakened when something large bumped against his boat.
“Aaaah!”
A giant fish leaped out of the water and landed with a clunk at the feet of the fisherman.
The fish belched and out tumbled a young teenage boy. Having accomplished its mission, the fish rolled over the side of the boat and disappeared beneath the ocean waves.
The fisherman’s jaw hung open in shock at the sight of the dazed passenger peering up at him.
“W-where am I?” the boy managed to ask after a long minute.
“Off the coast of a Jewish island led by the honorable Reb Meshulam.”
“Can you please take me to him?”
“Yes.”
***
The fisherman took Eliezer to shore and introduced him to the tzaddik of the city, Reb Meshulam. The fisherman was an honest man, and he kept true to his promise to Eliezer not to utter a word of how he had found him.
“You’ve traveled from very far away, and you need someplace to stay and learn Torah?” Reb Meshulam asked Eliezer after the fisherman had introduced them.
“Yes.”
“You can stay at my house. I sense a great kedushah about you. Tell me, my child, how learned are you?”
“Not very,” Eliezer replied, remembering Eliyahu Hanavi’s instructions. “I can learn Chumash.”
“Then follow me, and sit in the great beis medrash on this island. I am sure you will become great after soaking in the teachings of the wise elders who live in this holy place.”
***
Eliezer stayed with Reb Meshulam for many years, and never once did he let slip that he was greater in Torah than all of the chachamim who lived on the island. He knew that one day the purpose of his time on this island would be made clear to him, and he waited patiently. He also understood that there was a special reason why he had to be separated from his parents, so he did not leave the island and attempt to find them until explicitly instructed to do so.
Sitting in the beis medrash one day, Eliezer heard a commotion on the street. He glanced out the window and saw a tall, handsome man being carried on the shoulders of two burly men through the streets.
“Make way! Make way for Martin the Wise, the man whom every rabbi fears!”
“It’s the apikorus!” someone whispered to Eliezer. “He comes around every year and makes a mockery of us! He sits outside the study hall and challenges everyone to debates on the validity of the rabbi’s teachings on the Torah. He’s extremely intelligent and quick-witted, and somehow he manages to make everyone who converses with him appear like a total ignoramus.”
Martin the apikorus, once a faithful Jew, took his usual seat outside of the beis medrash and began heckling everyone who passed by.
“Why do you all hurry by me?” Martin called with derision, pointing at the nervous Jews who ran past him. “Are you too afraid to defend your own Torah? Come now, stop being such cowards and debate me!”
“Martin, what are you trying to prove?” Eliezer watched Reb Meshulam approach the apikorus. “Why don’t you leave us alone already?”
“I’ve converted 15 of your students already!” Martin howled with laughter. “If you can’t beat me, don’t hate me for it!”
Reb Meshulam turned away as Martin unleashed a barrage of insults at him.
Eliezer’s insides burned with anger at this attack on the honor of the Torah. How he would have loved to be debate this man!
He waited for several days to see if Eliyahu Hanavi would appear and give him permission to reveal his genius, but it did not happen.
On Erev Shabbos, Martin blocked the entryway to the shul. Standing in fancy clothing and wearing his smuggest smile yet, he yelled at the outraged Jews to prove him wrong.
He spewed forth a long tirade of questions and challenges on the Torah, and the people trembled before him.
Eliezer could no longer hold himself back and began sobbing in pain.
“I am not crying because I have been pursued since birth by the satan who tries to kill me at every chance he gets, and not because I have been ripped away from my dear parents, and not because I have been forced to pretend that I am an ignoramus,” Eliezer whispered to Hashem. “I cry because of the honor of Your Torah which is being tarnished by this man.”
At that moment, Eliezer felt his rebbi’s presence beside him, and Eliyahu Hanavi said, “Now.”
***
“Fool! How can one with so little brainpower attempt to ridicule the Torah from which the entire universe was created?”
“Look, a young, silly man challenges me!” Martin squared off against Eliezer and began by asking his famous questions.
Eliezer refuted the attacks with such ease that he made Martin look like a clown. Martin tried resorting to demeaning his challenger, but Eliezer refused to get sidetracked and he attacked the heretic relentlessly with his own questions.
Reb Meshulam and the rest of the crowd gasped in shock. They had not known that Eliezer was secretly a giant talmid chacham!
Red-faced and reduced to stammering, Martin turned to the crowd for support but found no one to aid him.
“Humble yourself and perhaps one day you might realize you know nothing.” Eliezer stared penetratingly. “The gates of teshuvah are open, but until you decide to walk through them, never, ever appear before us again and insult us with your untruthful, empty, and ridiculous arguments!”
Wordlessly, Martin “the Wise” ran for his life through the streets and never once turned back.
***
“Your actions have resulted in a tremendous kiddush Hashem,” Eliyahu Hanavi told Eliezer. “Your actions were entirely l’Sheim Shamayim and the satan no longer has any power to come after you. You are free to live the rest of your life like a normal person.”
Shortly after this incredible incident, Eliezer was suggested as a shidduch for Reb Meshulam’s daughter. Together with his fiancé, Eliezer, Reb Meshulam and some of his closest friends traveled across the ocean. Eliezer was tearfully reunited with Reb Pinchas and his mother once again.
On the joyous wedding day, Reb Pinchas and Bracha watched the kallah circling Eliezer underneath the chuppah. Yonah, too, watched with joy and tears. They knew their secret child did not have to remain a secret any longer.
Eliezer was home at last.
(Originally featured in Mishpacha Jr., Issue 753)
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