W hen someone who helped so many fellow Jews directly and significantly takes leave of the world it’s only fitting to write about him in a venue where many will read about who he was. Many stories will be told about Beinish Mandel z”l whose shloshim will be marked this week in Brooklyn. I have no stories to share only my personal observations of what I feel made him so unusual and such a source of inspiration.
I believe his ability to inspire owes much to the fact that he was one of us which means in turn that it is within reach of each of us to strive to be more like him. Coming from an unremarkable background he was self-made building himself into a gadol.
A gadol? Yes because it is written of Moshe Rabbeinu “Vayigdal Moshe vayeitzei el echav vayar b’sivlosam — Moshe grew great and went out to his brethren and saw their burden.” Rashi explains the last phrase to mean that he focused his eyes and heart on the suffering of his brethren as a way of intensely participating in their distress. While some translate vayigdal in a chronological sense as “he grew up ” another meaning is that “he grew great ” and what followed naturally was that “he went out to his brethren and saw their burden.” Gadlus means encompassing other Jews in your sphere of influence and caring and action; the more such Jews are within that ambit the bigger the gadol.
And so over time Beinish transformed himself into an outstanding ish chesed accompanied every step of the way by his equally giving wife Bashie. He bestowed his caring and expertise as a highly skilled paramedic upon untold numbers of people during decades in Hatzolah doing medical air transports at Camp Simcha and as a source of counsel and referrals and a listening ear to families and individuals in dire straits.
