The Hillel Way | Rabbi Yisroel Kuperwasser

The excitement in Yeshiva was tremendous. There was going to be a Hachnasas Sefer Torah, but not an ordinary one. A Sefer Torah donated by a ninth-grade Bochur. Not an ordinary Bochur. Hillel Blumenfeld, who at the age of six years old, was diagnosed with yener machla and the doctor said, על פי דרך הטבע we don't have a cure. So when Make-A-Wish Foundation came to him and asked him, What would you like? A trip to Florida? Maybe a trip to Eretz Yisroel for Sukkos? He said: No, I want a Sefer Torah. And that was the Sefer Torah that Hillel brought into the Yeshiva. And everybody was dancing and singing. And at the end of the Hachnasas Sefer Torah, when the Aron Hakodesh opened up and everybody's dancing and davening for Hillel, I was crying to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, Hillel’s going to be my Talmid next year. Could You give me the Siyata D’shmaya, the Sechel, to be able to guide a Bochur who I can never really understand what he's going through? The next year started. Hillel was a great, exciting, Simchas-Hachaimdiker boy. His davening, his learning, unbelievable. And then one day, I get a knock on my door. Hillel, with a little smile, says: Rebbe, Could you tell me over a Kasha of a Ktzos or R’ Akiva Eiger that I could think about? I said: Sure, Hillel. But why? He says: I'm going to Manhattan today, to a doctor, and I want to have what to think about. Very impressed. Wow. I gave him the Kasha and he went off. This happened every few weeks, until one day, I asked Hillel's mother, What's happening by these doctor appointments? She says: Hillel goes into a private room and has to sit still for 45 minutes to have an MRI on his brain. I said: By himself, 45 minutes? How does he keep himself still so long? Do they have to strap him down? She says: No, usually they show the boy a movie. But not my Hillel. He would never look at that movie. And now I understood. That's what Hillel's doing. He's thinking about a Kasha of a Ktzos or a Nesivos. We are all faced with the Yetzer Hara coming to us. Everybody does it. Or... Who's going to really know? It's private, in a private room. Or sometimes we just feel down, and we say: Listen, I need it for my outlet. But Hillel taught us so much of a better way. Hillel had every excuse. Everybody watches. I'm all by myself. Who's going to know? And in my situation, it's very understandable. I'm going through so much. But he said: No, I could do it a better way. A short year later, Hillel returned his heiliger Neshama back to Shomayim. And I remind myself, thinking back to the day I asked Hakadosh Baruch Hu to give me the guidance of how I should be able to teach Hillel, and I realize how Hakadosh Baruch Hu answered my Tefillos. It's not what I'm going to teach Hillel. It's what Hillel is going to teach me. There's a better way. There's the Hillel way.