Your easy and grand achievements are worthy, but your chiyus comes from the areas that you bleed for
Agroup of Slonimer bochurim — the future Nesivos Shalom among them —slowly filed into the room of their Rebbe, the Beis Avrohom, to be mekabel pnei rabo on the first day of Pesach.
“Kinderlach, did you read the Haggadah last night?” he asked. The Rebbe looked at them with piercing eyes and began quoting the pasuk brought in the Haggadah: “Vatirbi, you have grown; Vatigdeli, you have developed. Shadayach nachonu, you are ready to nurse others, to teach and to be mashpia. No?” And then he bore down and said, “Ve’at eirom va’eryah, you are but naked and bare!”
The Nesivos Shalom, recounting the story, remembered the frozen silence that seemed to last forever as these powerful words hung heavy over the bochurim. No one moved a muscle.
The Rebbe’s countenance then softened, and in a warm voice, he finished the pasuk: “Va’omar lach b’damayich chayi. Va’omar lach b’damayich — that which a person bleeds for is what gives him life.”
Create a free account to keep reading.
