When Loyalty is Tested - R. Ari Neuwirth - TorahAnytime.com

Now the story. His name is Masselton, Murray Masselton was a dynamic Syrian rav. Wasn't here for a couple of years ago. One of the jobs that he had was to be the youth minyan rav in the Shaare Zion shul in Flatbush. It's a Syrian shul, very large shul on Ocean Parkway. On Yom Kippur he had a thousand youths attending his minyan on Yom Kippur. Not only was he the rav of the minyan and he ran the minyan, he was a mechanech, he was a rebbe. He taught them how to grow in their Yiddishkeit. When it came to Yom Kippur, it wasn't just about fasting, it wasn't just about davening. He taught them that on Yom Kippur you don't wear shoes. Now the Syrian community this [snorts] is I believe in the '80s was not so advanced in the Yiddishkeit as they are today. So it was a little foreign to them not to wear leather shoes. And he instructed them, we don't wear shoes. No one could come with shoes. The first few years the kids would still come. There would be hundreds of shoes at the front door. You can only come in with shoes. But a few years into it, nobody was wearing shoes. Nobody. One year after Mussaf a man from the main minyan, they called it the dome minyan cuz it was a dome, came in, wealthy tall man, comes in to Rabbi Masselton. He says, "Rabbi, today I have Yahrzeit. I need master Yona. I was just outbid in the main sanctuary. Make sure I get master Yona." Rav Murray Masselton looks down at his shoes, he notices they're patent leather. He said, "I'm sorry, but um there's nothing to talk about. You're wearing shoes. You got to take them off. It's Yom Kippur. You can't wear shoes." Rabbi, you don't worry about my shoes. Okay? Worry about your job. I need Maftir Yonah. Make sure I get Maftir Yonah. The Ma'ariv wasn't afraid of anybody. Even though he was wealthy, he said, "I want to tell you something, sir. It's Yom Kippur. It's an issur d'Oraisa to wear leather shoes. Remove your shoes. There is nothing to talk about until you remove the shoes. Do you see there are a thousand children here? None of them are wearing leather. None of them. And neither will you. So, until you remove the shoes, Maftir Yonah is not even in the deck of cards." The wealthy man looks at him and he says, "Rabbi, if you know what's good for you, make sure I get Maftir Yonah." Start of Musaf. Comes Mincha. Comes Shlishi. There was a man in shul. He was a man, poor man. He davened with the youths. And he was also worked on Shabbos sometimes because he was so poor. And he thought that he could make money by working on Shabbos. He was called up for Maftir Yonah. And when they called him up, that wealthy man was screaming, yelling, and ran out of the shul. He was enraged. After Mincha, the gabbaim came over to Rabbi Maslaton [clears throat] says, "Rabbi, I don't understand what you did here. You gave Maftir Yona to a Mechalel Shabbos. This guy just didn't wear He was wearing leather shoes. What's worse? You gave him a Mechalel Shabbos Maftir Yona and you couldn't give him Maftir Yona because he wore leather shoes? Reb Masselton says, "Let me explain something to you. When I told him to take off his shoes, he said no. Right now, on Yom Kippur, he refused to do Teshuvah. He's doing an Aveira right now. He had a chance to change. He had a chance to do Teshuvah. And he insisted on not doing it. That Mechalel Shabbos, right now, was not wearing leather shoes. Right now, he's doing Teshuvah. He's not working on Yom Kippur. He's not working on Shabbos right now. Right now, he's 100% clean. He's not. How can I give him Maftir Yona? What kind of example would I set for all the boys who I instruct not to wear leather shoes and give him Maftir Yona wearing leather shoes? And it turned out that the person who worked on Shabbos that received Maftir Yona became a Baal Teshuvah, stopped working on Shabbos, and his entire family became Frum. Why? Because something that Rabbi Masselton saw in that poor man. So, what do we learn from here? We learn from here that this guy he's not there yet, but he was moving in the right direction. We remove our shoes on Yom Kippur so that we can feel what needs to be changed. On Yom Kippur we're sitting and we're thinking as our shoes are removed and we're fasting, what needs to change in our life? We could feel it. Cuz if we wearing our shoes, we couldn't feel it. We learn from Rabbi Maseltin loyalty. Which Kayin didn't have. Rabbi Maseltin was loyal and didn't capitulate to pressure. He could have capitulated to the pressure of money, but he didn't. He was loyal to the poor man. He recognized in that poor individual that he has potential. And that's what we all need to do. Don't just judge a person. See the potential in the person. That's also loyalty. Loyalty means standing up for someone else. Sometimes there may be something you experience or you see, stand up for what's right. When you stand up for what's right, that's loyal. And you know, last but not least, Hashem. Hashem is most loyal. Who are we? Are we perfect? We just stood a whole 25 hours in Yom Kippur pleading for a new year of health and gezunt. Hashem looks down and says, "What? Look what you did this year. Look what you didn't do this year. And you're asking for another year?" You know what we say? We say, "Ribbono shel Olam, I'm going to be better. I'm going to be a little bit better. I'm going to do teshuvah. I've been doing teshuvah the whole Elul, the whole Aseres Yemei Teshuvah, the whole Neilah, the whole Yom Kippur. Give me another year." Hashem says, "You know something? I'll give it to you. You know why? Cuz I'm loyal to you. Cuz I believe you. You're telling me you're going to do it and you could do it, you got it. You got it. That's loyalty.