PINCHAS

In Tractate Ta'anit it is told that Shmuel Hakatan decreed a public fast. Rain fell before sunrise (i.e., before the fast started). The people thought that it was the merit of the community which caused it, but Shmuel Hakatan told them the following parable.

A servant of the king asked for a gift. The king said, "Give it to him, and I do not need to hear his voice."

Therefore, we pray, "Hear our voices, L-rd our G-d...," and then we ask, "...Have pity and mercy upon us."

Another interpertation of the words "Hear our voices" is to imply that even though we do not know the kavvanot and proper intentions of all the prayers, and we do not know the implications and secrets of their words, nevertheless we pray that G-d should hear our supplications unto Him. That is why we use a double language of supplication, "...Have pity and mercy upon us." It is as if there are two requests that we are making here, corresponding to two deficiencies. The first is our mental poverty, and the second is the deficiency which we are asking G-d to fulfill.

For this reason we continue, asking, "...And receive our prayers with mercy and acceptance." Here, too, we use a double language: mercy, corresponding to the poverty of our needs; and acceptance corresponding to the poverty of our minds. Nevertheless, we beseech, "May it be Your Will...."

The Rabbi of Nicholsberg, the famed gaon Rebbe Mordechai Bennet, attended the lecture of the the gaon of Lissa. Consequently, all of his students also attended.

The drasha of the Rabbi of Lissa was very deep and wise, and it amazed all those who heard it. The Rabbi of Lissa also answered brilliantly all the questions and kushiyot which were asked by the audience. At the end Rabbi Mordechai Bennet, the rabbi of Nicholsberg, proposed a serious refutation which seemed to contradict the entire, elaborate structure of the lecture delivered by Rebbe Ya'akov.

The Rabbi of Lissa did not attempt to provide any answer. He descended the podium and returned to the place where he was staying without saying another word.

When Rabbi Mordechai Bennet returned to his home he reviewed in his mind the lecture of Rabbi Ya'akov. It was then that he realized that the refutation he had offered, which Rabbi Ya'akov had not answered, was not a refutation at all, and the content of the lecture had already provided sufficient information to dispose of Rabbi Bennet's question forthwith!

Without hesitation Rabbi Mordechai Bennet gathered together his students and they all went to the lodging of Rabbi Ya'akov. He wanted to justify, in public, the brilliant lecture of Rabbi Ya'akov. After he made appropriate apologies, Rabbi Bennet asked the gaon of Lissa why he did not answer the proposed refutation?

Rabbi Ya'akov said, "Although I knew that I was right, I did not answer because I did not want to embarrass the Rabbi of Nicholsberg in front of his congregants. Heaven forbid that the people of the city should think that their Rabbi is not a great scholar of Torah. It were better that they should think that the guest is really an ignoramus."

When the matter came before the Rebbe Elimelech, he investigated the background and character of the teacher. He found that the man truly feared G-d and worshipped Him exceptionally. The Rebbe was amazed that his sons did not want to study with this man.

The Rebbe called for the teacher and together they discussed the problem. Thus, the Rebbe learned that when this teacher was a young boy he had studied with a teacher who also knew secular literature. The Rebbe said, "This is the reason that my sons do not want to study with you. Although you have corrected any influence that the secular literature known to your teacher may have had upon you, the evil has nevertheless left an impression which you have not yet entirely uprooted. My sons feel it, and that is why they do not want to study with you...."

This teacher, who was hired to teach in the house of the holy and divinely inspired Rebbe Elimelech, must certainly have been a great man and talmid chacham. Nevertheless, consider what happened to him because of the influence of books known to the teacher who taught him when he was a small boy. Therefore, what can be said of parents who give their children to teachers who do not fear G-d, or to teachers who themselves read the books of heretics, or those who allow their children to read these books and study from them? What will they be able to say in the great and awesome Day of Judgement, in the day that G-d reviews their sin? Who knows if all the fires of hell will be a sufficient punishment for their terrible sin?

Anyone who maintains even a bit of yirat shamayim within his heart must dedicate everything that he has in order to assure that his children will be in the hands of teachers who are known since their youth to fear the awe of G-d. He must do this at any cost, even if he has to go around begging to pay for it....

Afterwards, if it happens that for some reason known to G-d his efforts for his children do not yield properly (and they go off the way), in the end they will repent and do teshuvah. The impression which a teacher who fears G-d imprints upon children cannot be lost forever. It is something that endures forever if the father and mother do not destroy it in some other way, g-d forbid.
(Shomer Emunim, Emunah, Ch.4)