They Are Watching

Many years later in Eretz Yisroel, Rav Kalman Farber walked into a shul in the Kiryat Shalom section of Tel Aviv one Shabbos between Minchah and Maariv. A group of elderly men sat at a table, listening to an old man tell of his experiences with the Chofetz Chaim. It was Avrumke, the wagon driver.

Avrumke was telling how, one day, he was taking the Chofetz Chaim to the train station when they passed an orchard. A branch loaded with apples reached out over the road, so he climbed down from the wagon to pick a few. Suddenly a voice behind him called out that they were watching. He leaped back onto the wagon and raced off, looking around on all sides, but there was not a soul in sight. He asked the Rebbe what he had meant, since no one was there. The Chofetz Chaim replied that of course someone was watching, and that the watching was from Above.

Avrumke told another story. Once, during a ride, the Chofetz Chaim invited him to learn a perek of mishnayos together. They learned this way: the Chofetz Chaim recited the mishnah from memory, word for word, and Avrumke repeated it after him. After a while the Chofetz Chaim said that this was how they had learned a whole perek.

Rav Farber added that the Chofetz Chaim treated simple people with such ease that they felt he was one of their own. When Rav Farber went home to his parents’ little village for bein hazmanim, they would ask how Reb Yisroel Meir was doing. Even so, their admiration was great, and the villagers would gather around him, eager for any story, saying or hanhagah of the Chofetz Chaim.