A Berachah Will Not Make a Ben Yeshivah
A story ofRav Yisroel Meir HaKohen Kagan of Radinהרב ישראל מאיר בן אריה לייב קאגאן
One man travelled to the Chofetz Chaim from the farthest corner of Poland, seeking a berachah for his son, whom he hoped to raise as a true ben Torah. The Chofetz Chaim called this a truly wonderful aspiration and asked what the father himself had done to bring it about.
The man answered that a berachah was exactly what he had come for. The Chofetz Chaim was displeased. Did he really imagine, he asked, that a berachah could produce a ben yeshivah? In this generation, he said, chinuch calls for mesiras nefesh and not for blessings, and with blessings alone one gets nowhere.