There is a story told about Yossele the Miser who lived in Krakow, Poland. 

Yossele,  or perhaps he might be colloquially known as Joe, was a mean of great means. He lived in a palatial abode, surrounded by luxury. The local charity collectors appealed to him regularly for donations, but Joe was consistent in his response. 

It was always a flat out No. 

The most heart wrenching stories wouldn’t move Joe. 

He held on to his fortune with hands clasped shut. 

Time passed on, and even Joe could not outwit old age. He slowly succumbed to illness. 

The leaders of the community visited Joe on his deathbed and gave him an ultimatum.

Either he would share his wealth with the indigent paupers who desperately needed support, or he would receive a simple burial, no pomp and circumstance as befitting his station, rather just a grave in the least prominent part of the cemetery. 

Even in his weakened state, Joe, or Yossele remained intractable. 

No charity. 

The day dawned and Yossele returned his soul to his Maker. 

He received the most perfunctory of funerals, as the community leaders laid him to rest in disgust. 

Then something unusual started happening. 

The leaders of the community were deluged with requests for charity. People who had never asked for money before, came with desperate requests for assistance. 

The community leaders were befuddled.

What had created such an economic crisis?

The leadership started interviewing the supplicants to find out what had happened. 

It seems that all these individuals would receive a weekly envelope filled with money which contained enough  to supply their needs. 

This week, for the first time in decades, they had not received an envelope and they were now desperately in need. 

It did not take long for the communal leadership to realize they had made an egregious error. 

Yossele the Miser had secretly been sustaining almost the entire town for almost half a century. 

He had done it quietly, wanting to preserve the dignity of the recipients, and was willing to accept censure and ridicule to keep their secret safe. 

Yossele the Miser kept the 479th of the 613 commandments. 

To give charity. 

When I was a little girl I had a fear. 

When my parents went out in the evening, I was afraid they wouldn’t come home. 

I can’t explain the root of this paranoia, perhaps it’s a symptom of second generation post Holocaust trauma. 

But it was very real. 

I would stand by the window and cry bitterly. 

Only when I would hear the footsteps of my parents in the hallway outside of my apartment could I finally calm down. 

The quiet footfalls consoled me. 

Then I could come to myself. 

This week’s Torah portion is called Eikev which means heel. 

You may recall that root of Eikev in the name of our forefather Yaakov or Jacob, who was named so because he held onto the heel of his brother Esau as he was born. 

We also find the root word Eikev when we refer to the pre-messianic time, called in the ancient Aramaic language, 

Ikvesa DMeshica, the footsteps of the Messiah.  

The Torah portion begins with an exhortation to listen, to the do the commandments to preserve the connection with Gd. 

But why use the esoteric word Eikev in our portion? 

It is actually superfluous. 

Why not just say “listen”?

Rashi, the main Torah commentary, focuses on the word Eikev, heel, and understands it allegorically. 

What should we be listening for, paying attention to in order to preserve our connection with Gd?

We should focus on all manners of connection, even the small, seemingly insignificant mitzvot that we may feel are insignificant so we figuratively step on them with our heel. 

We may perceive a mitzva as lacking import  and we walk all over it, so to speak. By doing so, we lose a possibility of a deeper connection, one which will ensure the covenant is kept between Gd and the Jewish people, and ultimately bring us to the end of days, the Messianic times. 

In life, we tend to focus on the big stuff and may overlook the small things. 

But this is a mistake. 

Have you ever experienced an HP moment?

HP stands for Hashgacha Pratit, in English,  Divine Providence. 

As Yitta Halberstam, author of the Small Miracles series says

“coincidence is a tap on the shoulder from Gd”. 

Nothing in life is a coincidence. 

Everything happens for a reason. 

My husband is a wandering Rabbi. 

One of his favorite duties is teaching in some of Atlanta’s finest high schools, during their lunch break. 

Rabbi Silverman goes to a number of schools and brings pizza and conversation on Jewish topics to high school students. 

A number of years ago, the president of the club in one of the schools brought in an article. The young lady, who was the president of the club, proudly showed my husband an article featuring her great grandfather, Rabbi Jerome Tolochko. 

The name rang a bell with my husband and after conferring with his father, ob’m, it turned out that my husband’s great grandmother was a Tolochko. 

We had found long lost relatives!

At the end of the senior year, we were invited to her graduation party. 

We arrived a bit early, and were given the grand tour of the home and all the Jewish artifacts within. 

My husband spotted some old books encased in a bright red box. The books had Hebrew writing on the outside. Our new relative explained she had no idea what the books were all about. She had selected them from her grandfather’s collection of books because she liked the bright red box, it caught her eye. 

After inquiring, my husband was given permission to peruse the books and was astonished to find novellae, original writing, on all six Tractates of the Talmud, the Oral Torah. 

With the gracious permission of our newly found cousins, my husband embarked on an investigative mission to discover who wrote these works and what they actually contained. 

The manuscript was written in a copperplate Hebrew script and difficult to decipher. Eventually it was sent to Israel, and a scholar worked on the manuscript for over a year. 

It turns out that this work was composed in Grodno, which is in Belarus, in the 1840s. 

It has approbations from world class Torah scholars of the time, whose rare signatures are included within. 

This rare and illuminating manuscript, written by my husband’s great, great uncle, was printed this week, the Torah within available now for study for scholars and laymen alike. 

The author writes in the document that he hopes his work will be printed and brought to light so that future generations will be able to study his elucidations on the Torah. 

I don’t like change. 

I am a creature of habit. 

I take comfort in the expected. 

My husband thrives on change. 

He embraces it and relishes the opportunity to allow new ideas, people and challenges to propel forward. 

Sometimes our views may therefore clash. 

I often recognize the wisdom in his attitude. But it’s hard for me. 

I am working on it. 

It’s a paradigm shift. 

JWC Atlanta just concluded our 15th Israel trip with Momentum. 

It was 8 days of ancient Jewish wisdom, connecting to the land of Israel and experiencing it all with an absolutely incredible group of women. 

My circle of love has expanded exponentially!

One of the many ideas shared with us by our trip leader, the inimitable Adrienne Gold Davis, was in reference to the paradigm shift. 

She encouraged us to look at the situations in our lives as opportunities. 

Adrienne mentioned the true story of a shoe chain that sent a sales rep to uncharted territory to open new shoe stores. 

The salesman sent a telegram back to the head office. 

“Send no shipments of shoes. 

They do not wear shoes here”. 

The head office sent another salesman to scope out the potential and he sent the following telegram 

“Send as many shoes as you can find. They don’t wear shoes here”. 

What a perfect example of a paradigm shift. 

JWC Atlanta creates and builds a spiritual community that connects women through friendship, learning and Jewish values and transforms and impacts them, their families and the Atlanta Jewish community.