The Beauty of a Hunch | Rabbi Elazar Meisels

In contemporary culture, hunchbacks don't get much love. In novels and in theater, a hunchback was a symbol of depravity, evil, a figure to be pitied, at best. A straight spine suggests strength of character. No spine at all suggests cowardice. But a crooked spine means you're crooked, you're depraved. But as with most things Hollywood and contemporary culture related, it's based on... foolishness, superficiality. Not necessarily the case. Everybody has heard of the legendary R’ Yaakov Yosef Herman, the subject of the bestseller All for the Boss. A man who lived his entire life for Avodas and Kirvas Elokim. Less known is R’ Chaim Yerucham Fishel Dov, aka Philip Kaufman, who married R’ Herman's daughter, Freida, who tragically passed away in the prime of her life, leaving him with children to raise, a difficult feat. He succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. His son was the legendary R’ Shmuel Kaufman, a Mechanech in Detroit, Michigan for many, many years and the subject of a recently released book, An Eternal Fire. In the book, the story is told of how R’ Shmuel wanted to help his father, who, in his later years, suffered from a severe curvature of the spine that left him so stooped over, he was like a hunchback. And R’ Shmuel and his sister, Ruthie, although they didn't have the funds, they scraped together thousands of dollars to buy a specialized brace so that R’ Fishel Dov could stand straight again. To his dismay, R’ Shmuel soon noticed that his father hardly ever wore the brace, and he asked him: Daddy, why don't you wear the brace? We spent so much money to help you. Why don't you wear it? And Philip sidestepped the question, didn't really want to talk about it. But R’ Shmuel Kaufman was not a man easily put off, and after he persisted in asking his father, Why don't you wear the brace? his father finally said: Shmuel, all my life, I davened that I shouldn't look out of my ד’ אמות. Now that Hashem has finally granted me my request and made it easy for me not to look out of my ד’ אמות, should I forfeit that opportunity by wearing the brace? My friends, I don't know how you raise a child like R’ Shmuel Kaufman, a Mechanech who was Mechanech thousands of Talmidim, raised astronomical sums of Tzedaka for Mosdos of Torah, was a veritable Chesed machine, but I have a hunch that it has something to do with the stooped, yet elevated, posture of his father. But then again, it's only a hunch.