The first few stories are translated from the preface written by Louis Finkelstein to his father Simon J. Finkelstein's siddur, שיח יצחק . The first person in these stories is Louis Finkelstein.
My grandfather [Judah Finkelstein] arrived in New York, as I recall, before Passover in the year 1908. Since he had only known his son as a youth who suffered from stage fright, he was very impressed to see the honor that the congregants gave to my father [Simon J. Finkelstein], and to see his influence on the congregation. On Shabbat ha-Gadol, which was the first Shabbat of my grandfather in the United States, he heard for the first time my father giving a sermon before a congregation in this country. Grandfather was very moved by what he saw and heard. He was astonished by the large crowd that had gathered to hear his son speak, and he also marvelled at the great ability of my father, who knew how to interest the audience for three and four hours in all that he said, combining pilpul of halacha with stories.
My father was also very much moved, since he sensed the emotions of his father sitting opposite him. He made a much greater effort than usual to excite and enchant the congregation. When he cried, the hearers cried, and when he laughed, they laughed with him.
Apparently due to this emotional interaction between son and father, there was a near disaster after my father returned home after ma'ariv. In those days, my father was a chain smoker, and the cigarette did not leave his lips from motzaei Shabbat until candle lighting the following Friday night. As was his custom, immediately after havdalah, he lit a cigarette. Between his fatigue and his emotion, he swallowed the cigarette smoke, and was unable to exhale it. (I have never heard of any other case like this, and I still do not understand how it happened.) He fell to the ground and fainted. After some time we finally succeeded in reviving him and raising him. Immediately my grandfather went up to him and said, ``And now, my son, I command you never to smoke any more, under any circumstance.'' Despite his strong addiction to smoking over forty years, my father observed my grandfather's command, and did not touch another cigarette from that day until his death.
Among my father's visitors was one man, whose wife had died in childbirth and left him a baby who was born healthy. When this man came to our house about six months after the death of his wife, my father asked him what he planned to do, since he had been left a young widower, and he had to raise an orphan child. My father advised him that he should do the right thing and marry a second wife, who would be a mother to the boy. The man answered him, that he had already thought of that, but that the family of his late wife was very opposed to it, and they promised him that they would raise the child. My father explained to him the difficulties with that plan, that certainly after a year or two the in-laws would lose interest, and then it would be harder to accustom the child to view a stepmother as his true mother. And not just that, but he himself was a young widower, and ought to be married.
After discussing the matter for a short time, the man agreed to take my father's advice, and my father advised him to meet a young woman who was an orphan, of a respected family, in New York. He met the young woman a few times, and they became engaged. However, when he returned home, the family of his first wife pounced on him, and influenced him to cancel the engagement. He wrote to my father what had happened. Immediately, my father invited him to visit a second time, and he spoke harshly with him about what he was planning to do, which would shame a Jewish woman. [ In that community at that time, one did not cancel an engagement unless there was some very serious objection; therefore, once a woman had been jilted in this way, she became practically unmarriageable.] And moreover, he needed to marry a woman, both for his own sake and for the sake of the orphan child. But all of my father's arguments were of no avail, because the man had been persuaded by his in-laws, whom he loved. Then my father advised the man that he should accompany my father and visit the family of his fiancee to inform them of his change of mind, which he had not yet done. The man agreed, and they went to the house of the woman's uncle, whom she lived with. My father, the fiancee's uncle, and the groom went into a room for a discussion. In the meantime, my father had already instructed a minyan of Jews to come to the house of the fiancee after one hour, and had instructed the shammas to bring a huppah and a k'tubah and the other things needed for a wedding. The discussion was still going on when the minyan and the shammas arrived. Immediately, my father got up, and asked the bride's uncle for the key to the house. He locked the door, and told the groom, ``Now I am warning you: You will not get out of this house until this wedding has taken place." The man was astonished at these harsh words, and told my father, who was a good friend, ``How can you do this to me, to force me to marry a woman, when I have explained to you how impossible it is?" My father, who in general was pliable as a reed, suddenly became inflexible as a cedar tree, and repeated that under no circumstances would he permit the man to leave the room until after the wedding ceremony was complete. In the end, the man gave in, and my father performed the wedding. After the Sheva Brachot were said, my father explained the whole thing. "Now," he said, "when you go back home, and the relatives of your first wife come to complain, you can tell them everything that happened, and explain that you had no choice, since I wouldn't let you leave the house. The whole blame will rest with me, and you can remain on good terms with them." And that is how it worked out. The man and his second wife used to visit with us from time to time, and they brought with them the orphaned son and their own children. All their days they praised my father for the efforts he had made for them.
During the Second World War, a Jewish emissary from Soviet Russia came to Brownsville, in order to win support for Russia in the American Jewish community [ Solomon Mikhoels and Itsik Fefer]. The Communists invited my father to participate in the assembly in honor of the committee. He accepted the invitation despite the distress of many of his congregants. His answer to those who objected was, ``Come and hear.''
My father was then already eighty-two years old. In his speech at the assembly, he told the following parable:
Once, some generations ago, the daughter of a Polish squire fell seriously ill. In the middle of the night, the illness worsened, and the doctors despaired of her life. When the wife of the squire heard this terrible news, she burst into tears, and she begged her husband to send to the Rabbi of the town, that he should pray for the girl. ``Perhaps he has some influence with God'' she said.The squire did not want to listen to her, but since he saw that his daughter was at the gates of death, he sent to the rabbi while it was still night, to ask him to arrange prayers immediately for the recovery of his sick daughter. The rabbi woke the shammas and told him to gather a minyan of Jews to recite Psalms. So as not to burden the workers and shopkeepers, who would need to go to work the next day, the rabbi told the shammas to go to the taverns and so on, where he would find Jewish card players and such, and to gather them for a minyan.
So this assembly of wastrels and riff-raff was gathered, and they prayed. In the morning, the state of the squire's daughter improved, and soon she fully recovered. Immediately, the squire sent the rabbi great gifts to divide among those who had prayed. When this became known, the magnates of the congregation complained to the rabbi: Why had he failed to wake them and so denied them the pleasure of the munificence of the squire? The rabbi answered, ``I realized that night that all of the gates before the young woman were locked: the gate of prayer, the gate of mercy, even the gate of repentence. And so I thought to gather people who know how to open a locked gate. And among these card players there would certainly be thieves who open gates without permission. I said to myself, `Perhaps they will be able to open the gates of mercy.' ''
``And now,'' continued my father, ``it seems that all the gates have been locked against us. We are slaughtered and taken to be killed, and Hitler yimach sh'mo is victorious on all the fronts of the war. Maybe these Communists in Russia, who have plenty of experience breaking open gates on earth, will be able to open the gates above.''
All the congregation laughed, and the emissaries (one of whom [ Actually, both -- ED] was eventually executed by Stalin yimach sh'mo) also enjoyed it. After the story my father continued speaking seriously of the state of the war, the fate of the Jewish people, and the need for prayer and repentence.
As with all clergymen of his generation, Simon J. Finkelstein used to give long, three or four hour sermons. When asked by a member of his congregation how he justified this practice, he responded (in Yiddish, of course)
"They listen to me but they may not hear what I'm saying. If they hear what I'm saying, they may not understand what I'm saying. But in any case, while they are sitting here, they are not out in the world making trouble."
When Louis Finkelstein was a rabbi at a synagogue in the Bronx, one of his congregants was a retired hazzan. One day the hazzan came to speak to him. "I have a heart condition, and my doctor has told me that it is no longer safe for me to walk to shul," he said. "But going to shul is my whole life. Would it be possible for me to arrange for a non-Jew to drive me?"
"I'm sorry," answered LF, "but I really can't say that that is permitted."
"You are a young man; please ask your father what to do," responded the hazzan.
So LF asked his father Simon J. Finkelstein, and his father answered as follows: "Since it means so much to the hazzan to come to shul, it can be viewed as a matter of pikuah nefesh (mortal danger). So for this Shabbas, he should make all the arrangements beforehand, and then he can ride to shul. I am not giving a blanket permission for him to do this for the rest of his life, but week by week, if the doctor still feels that he cannot walk to shul, and if he still feels that it would be endangering his life not to come to shul, he may make the same arrangement again for that Shabbas."
Matot and Masei were brothers. They had words דברים about a property. But they were reconciled ואתחנן because עקב you see ראה if you take this kind of dispute to the judges שופטים you set out כי תצא and you arrive כי תבוא and you're standing in court נצבים and the property walks off וילך ! Listen to me! האזינו ! Harmony between brothers is the greatest blessing. וזאת הברכה
שיח יצחק A commentary on the siddur by Simon J. Finkelstein.