Rav Pam's Friday Afternoon Routine - R. Yaakov Moskowitz - TorahAnytime.com

One story I'll share with you and I'll close with this and then we'll take some questions. The story um I heard a number of years back. I was in Memphis, Tennessee for Shabas and the RV of the young Israel of Memphis who somebody who I know from when I was in yeshiva his name is Rabbi Akiva Mills and he said the following thing he said that when he was in yeshiva before he got married okay he was learning in the same yeshiva that I studied in yeshiva in Queens. So he said he used to have a job that on Shabas him and a few of the other guys they would go to Brooklyn to a home for that was made for uh for for men for I don't know if it was boys I think it was men with special needs and with disabilities and special needs and mental disabilities etc. And they would provide a shabas for them. The whole week they had like you know nurses and things that were all you know with them and they had them of course on shabas too but shabas they would bring in these special counselors and they would provide have a shabas. Those who were able to go to shul they would bring them to shul and they had the shabas meals together with them etc. And uh so he said there was a guy named Barak. Barak was 70 years old, but you know he was in this home and he had all sorts of you know um deficiencies and he said at the Friday night meal all of a sudden Barak he said he said to the counselors he said can I share a devar to Torah and they said of course Barak shared beautiful soak stood up and he started talking and he started saying things about the para and of course it wasn't so coherent you couldn't really make it out what he was saying but some words and something related to the para and when he finished. Everybody said, "Barak, that was amazing." And they were cheering for him and made him feel like a million bucks. And that was such a beautiful dvarra. And Barak said, Barak said, "Thank you. I'm so glad that you liked it." You know, Rav Pam also liked my duvar to Torah. And he was referring to Rav Pam was one of the great leaders of the last generation, the Rashashiva Visha Torah of Adas in Brooklyn. And they were like, "All right, whatever." Right? I whatever borrow. He say, he probably has a picture of Rafam on his wall. Maybe he met Ra Pam a bunch of years ago. In his mind, he thinks, you know, Rafam liked his whatever. The following week, same thing. Borrow says, "Can I say Torah?" He said, "Yeah, of course." He says, "Same thing, not so coherent. Same idea. Everybody cheers him on. I'm so glad you liked it. Rav Palam also liked my Torah." Again, the why, what, what's he saying? Nobody knows. This continues on for a number of weeks. And Rabbi Mes said, he said, "I just got to get to the bottom of this. I got to know what's going on." So he said he came one week, he came early to the house on Friday afternoon and uh he walks in the house and he sees that Barak is talking on the phone and he's talking about like words about the para. So he says, "Barak, who are you talking to?" So he goes like this. He goes, "I'm talking to Rafam. I'm talking to Rafam." So, Rabbi Mills goes, "Oh, okay." So, he knew there was another phone upstairs that was connected to the same line. Okay, both phones connected to the same line. And he was like, "Should I do it? Should I not do it? I All right, but I I I shouldn't do it, but I really got to do it because I got to hear who he's talking to." So, he runs up the stairs and he picks up the phone that's connected the same line and he hears Barak finish up the dvarra and then he hears the voice on the other line says, "Barak, that was such a beautiful dvarra. Thank you so much for sharing it with me. And he recognized the voice. It was the voice of the gulad ra himself. It was him. And he did his research about this. He asked Barak's family and he asked other people. And it turned out that Barak's family used to used to daven in Rav Shul when Raal was rav in Brooklyn years years years back. And so they had had a connection. But he did all the math and he figured it out. And it turned out that Rafam was having this conversation with Barak every single Friday. He said for roughly around 30 years. Every Friday he would listen listen to what Barak had to say. And it was a Friday afternoon. Friday afternoon, you know, is not like a time we're like sitting around like twiddling our thumbs, right? like nothing else to do. You know, Rapaban who was running a big yeshiva people calling him from all over the world with all kinds of issues and all kinds of things. A leader in our times took out the time every Friday for 30 years. 30 years to talk to Barak. The story is