The Jews are an impatient people. During Yizkor, we recall the patience our parents had for us—and the patience G-d has for us as well.
“Rebbe, I Want to Call Off the Wedding…”
I want to share with you a remarkable story about a bride and groom who met with the Rebbe before their wedding.
The standing custom was that every engaged couple would have a private audience with the Rebbe before the wedding and receive his blessing for the marriage ahead.
This particular couple entered the Rebbe’s room together. The Rebbe asked whether they spoke Yiddish. The groom answered that he did, while the bride said that she understood Yiddish but felt more comfortable speaking English. The Rebbe said that when speaking to the groom he would use Yiddish, and when speaking to the bride he would use English.
The room fell silent for a moment, when suddenly, the bride burst into tears and asked the Rebbe to tell the groom to leave the room, because she wanted to speak with the Rebbe alone.
The groom was stunned, and it seemed that even the Rebbe was taken aback by the request. The Rebbe glanced at the groom, and he quietly left.
The bride remained in the Rebbe’s room for about twenty minutes. When she came out, she told the groom that the Rebbe wanted to see him. He went in for perhaps half a minute, the Rebbe gave them both a blessing, and then they left.
Right after the meeting, the groom went home and the bride went home, without exchanging a word. According to custom, during the week before the wedding the bride and groom do not see each other and do not speak on the phone—and the next time the groom saw his bride was under the wedding canopy.
Right after the ceremony, when they entered the yichud room, the first thing he asked her was: “What did you say to the Rebbe for twenty minutes?”
She answered, “I hope you won’t be upset with me, but I told the Rebbe that I wanted to cancel the wedding.”
When the Rebbe asked why, she explained: “By nature, I’m impatient. I lose my temper quickly. Right now, as a bride, the groom doesn’t know what I’m really like. But after the wedding, he’ll discover what kind of witch he married. Our marriage won’t last, and in the end we’ll get divorced. So I told the Rebbe that it would be better not to get married at all than to get married and then divorce.”
“And what did the Rebbe say?” the groom asked.
She told him: “The Rebbe smiled and said that, with G-d’s help, we would have many children, and children teach their parents patience. Little by little, he said, I would become a more patient person. He also told me that until I merited having children of my own, I should volunteer to care for children in the hospital. That way, I would begin developing patience and emotional endurance already now” (Living Torah).
Hillel’s Patience
In Jewish history, there is one person more closely identified with patience than almost anyone else: Hillel the Elder (Shabbat 31a). Hillel was a descendant of King David and served as the nasi, the leading sage of his generation. He was known as a man who never lost his temper and who greeted every person warmly.
The Talmud tells of two men who were once discussing Hillel’s extraordinary patience. One of them said, “I can make Hillel angry.” The other replied, “I don’t believe you can,” and offered to bet him four hundred zuz—a huge sum in those days.
The man went to Hillel’s house on a Friday afternoon, just before Shabbat, when everyone would have been rushing to finish their last preparations. Hillel was bathing at the time, and suddenly he heard someone shouting in the street: “Who here is Hillel? Who here is Hillel?”
Most people would have been annoyed already. A man from the street was calling out the nasi’s name in such a crude and disrespectful way, and at the worst possible time. Most leaders would have sent word that they were busy and told him to come back later. But Hillel got dressed, went outside, and said calmly, “My son, what do you need?”
The man replied, “I have a question for you. Why are the heads of the people of Babylonia round?” The question was obviously meant to provoke him, since Hillel himself had come from Babylonia to the Land of Israel.
But Hillel answered gently: “My son, that is an important question. The reason is that the midwives there are not especially skilled.” In other words, he found a way to answer without taking offense.
The man left, and Hillel returned to his Shabbat preparations.
A little while later, the man came back and again began shouting in the street: “Who here is Hillel? Who here is Hillel?” And once again Hillel went out and said, “My son, what do you need?”
This time the man asked, “Why are the eyes of the people of Tadmor so narrow?” Hillel answered just as calmly: “That too is a good question. They live in a sandy place, and the shape of their eyes protects them from the blowing dust.”
The man left, then returned a third time. Again the same scene: “Who here is Hillel? Who here is Hillel?” And again Hillel came out and asked, “My son, what do you need?”
Now the man asked, “Why are the feet of the people of Africa so wide?” Hillel answered that they lived in marshy areas, and broad feet helped them walk through the mud and water without sinking.
At that point, the man realized he was not going to succeed in making Hillel angry.
So he changed tactics. He said, “I have many more questions to ask, but I am afraid you may become upset with me.” Hillel invited him to sit down and told him to ask whatever he wanted.
Then the man said bluntly, “Are you really the Hillel they call the nasi of Israel?”
Hillel answered, “Yes.”
“If that is so,” the man said rudely, “may there not be many more like you in Israel.”
Hillel asked, “My son, why do you say that?”
The man answered, now frustrated, “Because thanks to you, I lost four hundred zuz.”
And Hillel replied: “It is worth it for Hillel that you should lose four hundred zuz, and another four hundred zuz after that, and Hillel still would not lose his temper” (Shabbat 31a).
A Little Patience—At Least a Little
As a people, the Jewish people are not exactly famous for endless patience. The whole episode of the Golden Calf would never have happened if the Israelites had simply been willing to wait for Moses to return.
And yet impatience is not always just a flaw. Sometimes it can also be a strength.
The Talmud tells of a Sadducee who once saw Rava deeply absorbed in study, struggling so intensely to understand the Torah that he bit his fingers until they bled (Shabbat 88a). The Sadducee said to him: “You are an impulsive people.” You rush into things. You are impatient. After all, at Sinai you said “We will do” before “we will hear.” Before you even knew how demanding the Torah would be, before you had fully considered whether you could live up to it, you already accepted it unconditionally.
Rava answered: Yes—that is exactly who we are. We love G-d, and we trust Him not to ask of us something beyond our ability.
In that sense, we are a little like children. And, as the Rebbe once explained, children by nature are not patient. They want everything now. But that very childlike eagerness, that refusal to wait, awakens something above as well: it stirs G-d’s patience and compassion toward us.
A Parent’s Patience
When we look at the way G-d relates to the world, we find that in the beginning there was not all that much patience for human failure. When the generation of Noah sinned, G-d brought the Flood and destroyed the world. Ten generations later, He was no longer willing to tolerate the corruption of Sodom and Gomorrah, described in the Torah as “wicked and sinful.”
Then came G-d’s own children—“Israel, My firstborn son.” And when they sinned with the Golden Calf, despite the anger and disappointment that must have followed—after all, only forty days after the revelation at Sinai they were already worshipping an idol—G-d did not wipe them out. Because children awaken something different in a parent. They draw out a deeper reservoir of patience.
And in the end, the whole world benefited from that. G-d’s greater patience and compassion were not directed only toward Israel, but toward the world as a whole. That is the meaning of the rabbinic teaching that “at first it arose in His thought to create the world with the attribute of justice; He saw that the world could not endure, so He joined to it the attribute of mercy” (Bereishit Rabbah 12:15).
We are about to say Yizkor, the memorial prayer in which we remember our parents. And when we stop to think about how much patience they needed in order to raise us—to listen to us, care for us, and carry us through life—we cannot help but feel more deeply grateful for all they did for us.
The least we can do is try to live in a way that justifies their effort, honors their investment in us, and makes us better children of the Jewish people.
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