10 Jun THE SIGNIFICANCE OF A MINHAG

The late Munkatcher
Rebbe, Grand Rabbi
Chaim Elazar Spira, zt”l,
zy”a (1871-1937), known
as the Minchas Elazar,
one of the great pre-war
Chassidic Rebbes, was
once traveling on a train.
Sitting across from him was an ordinary
looking man without a yarmulke, and eating
a ham sandwich. The Rebbe accosted him
saying, “Yehudi (Jew), you’re not allowed to
eat pig.” The man looked up startled and said,
“Excuse me, I’m not a Jew.” A few minutes
later, the Rebbe once again addressed him,
“Yehudi, do not eat pig.” Once, again, the man
defended himself saying that he was not a Jew.
After some moments, the Rebbe said a third
time, “Yehudi, don’t eat pig!” At this point,
the man quietly walked over to the window in
the train compartment, opened it and chucked
out the remainder of the sandwich. He then
started crying. Some moments later, he
turned to the Rebbe and said, “It is true. I was
born a Jew. But, because of all the suffering
associated with being Jewish, I abandoned my
Jewishness a long time ago. But, how were
you able to tell that I was Jewish?”
The Rebbe explained that the way he ate the
sandwich was a dead giveaway. In Shulchan
Orech, Orach Chaim [170], it says that when

one bites into a food, it is not proper etiquette
to put down the remainder of that food on the
plate with his teeth marks all over it for, when
people see the remnants of what he chewed on
before them, they will be disgusted. Rather,
continued the Rebbe regarding the Orach
Chaim, the custom of all Jews in Poland was
to cut a slice off of the sandwich on the plate,
eat that piece, then cut another slice to eat, and
so on. This way, people didn’t have to see the
somewhat nauseating look of their bite marks.
Likewise, this was the way they ate a fruit like
an apple as well.
Finally, the Rebbe told him, “When I watched
you eating your ham sandwich, I saw you
cutting slices and eating it in the Jewish way,
something that a gentile would never do. I
knew for certain that you were raised as a
Jewish boy in a proper Jewish home.” The
man immediately admitted that he was raised
by observant pious Jews, that this was the
way they ate in his home, and the habit had
lingered with him. The man was so moved by
the Rebbe’s caring that he eventually became
a Munkatcher Chosid and returned fully to
Yiddishkeit.
(As an aside, there are many customs of
Jewish etiquette when it comes to food. For
example, the great halachik posek, the Elya
Rabba, writes that one who has a beard should
be careful that when he eats, crumbs and food

scraps should not trickle down to his beard,
for this is nauseating to his fellow diners.
This is predicated by the Torah command
of, “V’ahavta rei’acha k’mocha – Love your
friend like yourself.” Thus, anything that
would nauseate you, you should make sure not
to do to others. This extends to many other
areas such as when we go into the bathroom,
we must make sure to flush the toilet for the
sake of the next user. In the same vein, we
must be sure to leave the bathroom clean
before we exit as we would appreciate this
when others do it for us.)
Rav Yaakov Yeshaya Blau, zt”l, zy”a, of Eretz
Yisroel, became aware of this story from the
Minchas Elazar and employed it to save the
spiritual lives of Jewish children. After the
holocaust, Rav Blau was allowed to enter
a monastery full of children. If he could
identify which children were Jewish, they
would allow him to take them back to their
faith. Rav Blau asked to observe the children
during lunch. These children were too far
assimilated to make a bracha before eating
their food, but the children he saw cutting the
sandwich with a knife and putting each piece
separately into his mouth, he immediately
recognized as Jewish. He related later that he
did not make a mistake about even one child!
Even the smallest Jewish customs are of deep
lasting value.
This reminds me of a famous story. A
religious Jew from Netanya was driving
when he noticed an IDF soldier asking for a
hitch. He pulled over and asked the soldier
where he needed to go and the soldier replied
that he was going to Be’er Sheva. As it was
Friday afternoon and before Shabbos, there
was no way that the man could drive him to
Be’er Sheva. However, this religious man
had an idea. “Are you planning to spend
Shabbos alone,” he asked. When the soldier
said “Yes,” the driver replied, “Why don’t
you come to us for Shabbos. My wife is a
killer cook and it will be a real adventure for
you.” The soldier boldly agreed and jumped
into the car.
True to his word, the Shabbos food was
delicious. The soldier even went to shul and
as he was an Israeli, he understood Hebrew
in the siddur. He even liked the rabbi’s
sermon. After Havdalah, the soldier started
getting ready to leave. His host looked
at him and said, “You’re going to leave
just like that?” The soldier got nervous
and responded in surprise, “Do I owe you
something?” The host chuckled and said,
“Of course not! But, you just experienced a
whole Shabbos of spirituality. And, you’re
going to leave just like that?” The soldier
defended himself saying, “You know I’m
not dati, not religious. It was a great day,
but now I’m going back to my life.”
At this point, the host took out a Kitzur
Shulchan Orech, a shortened version of the
code of Jewish law, and asked the soldier to
open it up, leaf through it, and try to find one

thing he would try to continue doing after this
Shabbos. The soldier opened it up and saw
that Jewish men put on their right shoe first
and then the left, tie the left shoe first (in honor
of the tefillin), and then tie the right shoe. The
soldier said with a smile, “This I can do.” This
wasn’t exactly what the host had in mind, but
he shrugged and figured that the soldier would
at least put on his shoes like a Jew. The soldier
returned to his base and every morning he
dutifully put on his shoes in the way directed
by the Kitzur Shulchan Orech.
One morning, a siren went off at the base
and everyone ran to jump onto a jeep. In
his haste, the soldier realized that he had put
on his shoes wrong. He was about to shrug
it off, but he said to himself that his word is
his word. So, he leaped off the jeep, shouting
that he’d take the next one. He bent down,
put on the shoes the correct way, and took the
next jeep. Tragically, the first jeep hit a road
mine and all lives were lost. His adherence
to a seemingly insignificant minhag Yisroel
had saved his life. This soldier would go on to
become completely observant and today has
a wonderful religious family in Eretz Yisroel.
May we treasure all our Jewish minhagim and
realize how important it is to imprint them
upon the lives of our descendants, and in that
merit may Hashem bless us with long life,
good health, and everything wonderful.