Page 58 - HaMizrachi Purim Australia 5781

GENERAL INTEREST

Rabbi Hanoch Teller

A Purim Passing

veryone knows there is no short- sums of money from a free-loan society could not let down the needy as Purim
age of people collecting charity every month. He borrowed because he was the holiday of the poor.
Ein Yerushalayim. There are also felt he had a personal debt which had
many gabbai tzedakah (officers to to be paid. He wasn’t doing the poor Early the next morning, Rabbi Rubin
overlook charity distribution), but 50 a favor, he was merely carrying out an was out celebrating Purim by collect-
years ago, Rabbi Yosef Binyamin Rubin obligation. ing for the poor, trudging through the
z”l, was reputed to be the finest gabbai snow, battling his illness and fighting
tzedakah Jerusalem had ever known. Poor people are all the same, he rea- the weather. The fatigue was apparent
soned, and he was color blind as to
and his knees gave way.
One cannot transcend overnight. His background: Sephardi, Ashkenazi,
capacity for charity was partly indige- Chassid, Lithuanian, Mizrachi, what- Yerushalayim’s greatest gabbai tzedakah
nous, partly cultivated. The result was ever; all have the same needs of life’s lay motionless on the freezing asphalt.
a paragon so exalted that he became a necessities and dignity. Rabbi Rubin’s Rabbi Rubin was rushed to the hospital
legend in his very own lifetime. greatest joy, however, was to provide for for emergency treatment to help him
a talmid chacham. regain consciousness.
From the time that he was a child he
had an inner drive to give tzedakah An impoverished talmid chacham did Nothing seemed to work. Not a move,
which would afford him no rest. not even have a proper jacket to wear. not a twitch.
Rabbi Rubin purchased a wardrobe
Directly after his wedding, during the His family gathered around his bedside
week of sheva brachot, adorned in a for him, and could not help boasting: day and night. Specialists tried every
“I have just bought a cover for a Sefer
shtreimel and a bekishe and accompa- Torah.” possible method to restore him to
nied by a shomer (guard who accom- consciousness.
panies a groom when he is not with his He was an undercover detective of the
bride during the week of sheva brachot), highest order. No matter what the cam- Still nothing.
he stood on the street corner collecting ouflage – he saw through it. He had an Until his wife went over to his bedside
tzedakah. uncanny nose for detecting who was and whispered, “Yossel, it’s almost time
truly in need, and when he found a for kimcha d’pischa” (Passover help
“Do the poor people have to suffer just worthy recipient, nothing stood in his
because I have a simcha?” path. Some way or another the needy for the needy. Customarily, collections
begin 30 days in advance of the holi-
Rabbi Rubin revolutionized giving tze- received, usually never realizing how, day, the day after Purim.) Only then did
dakah by introducing radical concepts when, or from where. Rabbi Rubin awaken.
in the art of giving. He contended that Jerusalemites will never forget Purim Rabbi Rubin lived for tzedakah, and
one must give according to the poor 1979. It was a Purim Meshulash – forever after his memory is commem-
person’s needs and not according to three consecutive days of celebration, orated through tzedakah through the
the giver’s means (with substantiation bedecked with snow. Flurries began to Od Yosef Chai (Yosef Lives Yet) Fund.
for this policy from a Mishna in Pirkei fall early in the evening. Late into the
Avot). He borrowed terms from the night it still hadn’t stopped, and there
inflation-plagued Israeli economy to was an eerie feeling that this was a sor- Rabbi Hanoch Teller, internationally-ac-
help the indigent: poor people must row-clouded harbinger. claimed storyteller extraordinaire, is an
also have wage increments, price award-winning author and producer. Rabbi
increases, value added supplements Everyone in the Rubin house was still Teller’s new podcast is available at https://
etc., he reasoned. awake. Rabbi Rubin was ill, but still link.chtbl.com/TellerfromJerusalem.
threatened to go out the next day col-
To cover his budget of fund allocation lecting for the poor. Despite a chorus of A member of the Mizrachi Speakers Bureau
to the needy, he borrowed staggering protests, Rabbi Rubin was adamant he mizrachi.org/speakers

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