Meir Tulkoff is accomplishing exactly what his rav advised him to, before moving to Eretz Yisrael.
No, we don’t mean the fact that he wears one yellow sneaker and one turquoise sneaker to work. His rav definitely never told him he had to do anything like that. Nor are we referring to his colorful butterfly-patterned vest or his flowery hat. That’s only his stage get-up; most of the time he’s a black-hatter.
His rav told him there were only two reasons to make aliya: To learn more Torah and to do more chesed. And Hakadosh Baruch Hu, in a classic example of Hashgacha pratis, has placed him in a professional environment where he can distribute chesed in large doses while utilizing his G-d-given talents for being mesameach ha’briyos. Working side-by-side with physical therapists, doctors, and nurses, in the three short years since he made aliya from Baltimore, Meir, a.k.a. “Magic Michael” is making a real impact in his profession, and his many talents are in demand at hospitals all over Israel.
Meir performs what he calls “educational magic.” Some refer to it as “humor therapy” and others would call him a “clown doctor.” But Meir is no clown, as he takes great pains to point out to us when we made the rounds with him in the physical therapy ward of Alyn Hospital in Jerusalem. The magic tricks, the balloons he blows up and twists into funny shapes, and the entertainment he provides is the surface glitter, the chitzonius. The pnimius of his work is chesed and bikur cholim. A superficial look at Meir’s get-up – the colorful clothing, the bag of balloons, and the violin case with his bag of tricks – would give some the conception that he is primarily an entertainer. That is exactly the notion that he would like to put to rest.
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