The Power Behind One Gesture - Rabbi Chaim Marcus

i want to share one story with you it happened in the late 1950s in the royal bank of canada a young rabbi rabbi mordechai green went into the bank because his shul was in need of a serious serious upgrade he was looking for half a million dollar loan from the bank to build a massive beautiful sprawling orthodox show and when he spoke to the first person the person said you want to build a synagogue you want half a million dollars in late 1950s to build the synagogue he said you have to go to the bank manager and everybody green was brought into the nice office sat in a big plush chair and the manager of the bank comes in and says rabbi i understand you want to build a synagogue and you want half a million dollars and he said yes the manager said to him rabbi tell me what kind of synagogue do you want to build and the rabbi dreams like a jewish one he goes no i know but is it conservative reform orthodox which branch of judaism now understand the late 1950s orthodox was not exactly the healthiest of the streams the nominations of judaism rabbi green was a little uncomfortable when he said actually an orthodox synagogue and the back manager thought and he said rabbi i'm going to give you the love and rabbi green said what why did you ask me which type of synagogue when i told you orthodox now you're gonna give me the loan the man told her by green said rabbi i live in i grew up in the town much further north from here called timmins ontario said i was a young child when my father passed away i had five siblings my mother was a young widow with six little children we went to the general store once in town and my mother newly widowed was looking around counting the dollars and cents that she had looking how every much everything cost she took a few things off the shelf a few wood items pair socks perhaps with it went up to pay and the owner of the store asked the cashier to step away and he said to my mother he said i know who you are i know you just lost your husband i want you to know that you can come in here take whatever you need there's no charge and the back manager looked right by green and he said that store owned timmins ontario was an orthodox jew i know how he held my family and i always told myself if i had a chance to help an orthodox jew i'm gonna do it and now that's why i wanted to know is this an orthodox synagogue you're going to get your loan for a half a million dollars do you understand what a kitten is now that's that's what it means to bring hashem into this world into your business into how you interact with people and that's really the greatest question that we have to be asking ourselves [Music] constantly