Rabbi Zechariah Wallerstein always kept his eye on the goal, knowing the potential was always there for transformation
IT didn’t take much
to get seventh-grader Zechariah Wallerstein to stare out of his classroom window. Athletic and musically inclined, he was a popular kid, whose big heart and infectious smile were obvious from the moment you met him. But academics weren’t his strong suit, and if the day’s lesson wasn’t compelling, his attention easily wandered.
The youngster was fascinated by the butterflies that filled a field adjacent to the yeshivah building, and one day he asked his rebbi if he could explain why Hashem had created the miracle process by which the homely caterpillar metamorphoses into a magnificent butterfly. “Don’t ask questions about Hashem!” came the rebbi’s annoyed retort. Undeterred, after school that day, Zechariah ran off to the local library, where he studied everything there was to know about how a caterpillar morphs into a butterfly.
The natural world is brimming with miracles, but the transmutation of caterpillar into butterfly is in a class of its own. It conveys a singular message of unlimited possibility and potential, proof positive that if one creature can literally transform into another one entirely, then nothing at all is fixed or immutable. Everything — everything — is possible in Hashem’s world.
“Rabbi Wallerstein told me to be a Nachshon.” Jeff Stern, Rabbi Wallerstein, and Yanky Elefant
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