Rabbi Yechiel Spero once told a remarkable story about one of our generation’s most well-known philanthropists, Reb Shlomo Yehuda Rechnitz. On a trip from Eretz Yisroel to the United States, Reb Shlomo took a flight with a stopover in Shannon, Ireland. In the airport, he found a group of hundreds of American soldiers waiting for their own flights. It was mealtime, and upon striking up a conversation with the soldiers, Reb Shlomo discovered that they were displeased with the poor quality of the rations they had been served. The philanthropist approached the soldiers’ commanding officer and asked him, “Sir, how many soldiers are in your battalion?”
“About four hundred,” the man replied.
Reb Shlomo produced a credit card. “Tell your soldiers to go into town, and let each of them buy a fifty-dollar meal; I will sponsor it,” he told the astounded commander.
Stunned by the stranger’s generosity, the soldiers invited Reb Shlomo to say a few words. He spoke about the Jewish concept of hakaras hatov, explaining that Jews attach great importance to showing appreciation to those who benefit them. “People like you are the reason my family and I can be safe,” he declared, eliciting a round of applause from the soldiers.
After his speech had ended, Reb Shlomo was approached by a soldier who revealed that he was a fellow Jew. “I come from Kentucky,” he related. “All of us are from that area of the United States, and there aren’t many Jews there at all. I wear tefillin every day, and the other soldiers always mock me – not because they are anti-Semitic, but simply because they think I’m strange. I have always been the laughingstock of the group, but thanks to you, I am now going to be the hero, because they have seen what Orthodox Jews are about.”
One of the ways a kiddush Hashem affects others is by enabling other Jews to feel a sense of pride in their Yiddishkeit. When a Jewish person acts in a way that brings honor to Hashem, others who witness it feel empowered to follow his example, and their own commitment to Yiddishkeit is enhanced. This can be a crucial component of avodas Hashem. As Rabbeinu Yonah teaches in Shaarei Teshuvah, when a person appreciates his own innate worth and recognizes the greatness of his roots as a Jew, he will find it much easier to resist the pull of the yetzer hara.
View a video below, credit to AISH for putting it together. We would also like to thank Rabbi Shraga Freedman, Director of Living Kiddush Hashem Foundation, for this incredible story. R’ Friedman is the author of Living Kiddush Hashem and A Life Worth Living (ArtScroll Mesorah) and Sefer Mekadshei Shemecha. Living Kiddush Hashem was founded with the goal of imbuing every Jew with a powerful sense of mission — the mission to be mekadeish Sheim Shamayim in his or her own unique way. Visit LivingKiddushHashem.org for more resources.
why is this posted now its years old?