Many years ago during my time working to be mekareiv Jews on Long Island I was honored to have Rav Yechiel Perr come to speak before one Purim to a home study group I led in Bellmore. He posed a strong question to the group: In Nissan Mordechai importuned Esther to appear unbidden before King Achashveirosh to plead for her people. Yet the decree of annihilation against the Jews was not to have been carried out until a full 11 months later on the 13th of the following Adar. Wouldn’t prudence dictate that they bide their time in the hope that Esther would be summoned by Achashveirosh at some point rather than have Esther act rashly and appear unbidden which would almost certainly incur the king’s wrath and a sentence of death for Esther?
Rav Perr went on to tell the story of a Reb Naftali who was a shtadlan (communal intercessor) on behalf of Russian Jewry during the reign of the last Czar. The latter had decreed a public burning of the Talmud and Reb Naftali was asked to plead the Jews’ case in St. Petersburg Russia’s capital city in which a Jew couldn’t even stay overnight without special permission. There was only one problem: Reb Naftali spoke not a word of Russian.
A translator an apostate Jew was hired to accompany Reb Naftali to the audience he had been given on a Shabbos morning at nine a.m. with the prince charged with executing the Czar’s nefarious order. As the two were ascending the steps to the prince’s chambers the translator stopped to clean some mud off his overcoat. Seeing this Reb Naftali exclaimed “S’iz Shabbos; m’tohr nisht!” — It’s Shabbos; you’re not allowed to do that! This enraged the translator who stalked off in a pique leaving Reb Naftali to his own devices.
Reb Naftali proceeded into the building where he stood by helplessly as tens of officiaries whizzed by him; unable to communicate even one intelligible word he began to cry. A woman noticed his distress and when he began speaking to her in Yiddish she summoned a fellow who spoke German and was able to decipher Reb Naftali’s purpose in being there. Once seated before the prince the latter asked Reb Naftali to state his request and he responded simply “When the first wagonload of Shas’en is about to be set aflame please throw me in the wagon too to share their fate.” His words so moved the prince that he replied “If these books mean that much to this old man I won’t go ahead with their destruction.”
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