Yesterday, I Missed Kedusha to Stop a 5-Year-Old From Being Bullied | WATCH

Yesterday at 3:20 PM, I was praying Mincha in my shul.

The shul is on the second floor. Below us, on the ground level, there's a kindergarten, little girls, five and six years old. And while I'm standing there praying with a minyan full of rabbis, I keep hearing the same words drifting up through the window:

"Tehillah atzbanit, Tehillah atzbanit."

Tehillah's angry. Tehillah's angry.

Over and over. The whole minyan is praying, and I can't stop hearing it. Tehillah atzbanit, Tehillah atzbanit.

I finish Shemoneh Esrei and lean toward the window to see what's happening down in the playground.

There she is. Tehillah. A small, scrawny, dark-skinned girl. Not dressed well. And around her, a circle of other girls, better-looking, better-dressed, laughing at her. Tehillah's angry, Tehillah's angry. As she gets more upset, they escalate. Sticking their tongues out. Pushing her. Kicking her. She's trying to defend herself, and she can't. She's completely alone.

It broke my heart.

I was about to wait for the chazan to start chazarat hashatz so I could answer Kedusha with the minyan. Kedusha matters to me. Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh, that's not something I skip lightly.

But I said to myself: I'm not comfortable with this. I have to do something.

So I left the shul. I walked downstairs to figure out how to get into this kindergarten, even if there's a 1% chance I can help this girl, I have to try.

From the gate, I see three morot, three teachersm sitting and chatting with each other. Right there. Tehillah is being tormented ten feet away from them and they don't even notice.

I called down from above the gate: "Hey - why are you letting Tehillah get bullied? Why are you letting her be the scapegoat?"

They didn't know what hit them. They didn't know how to respond. I said it again - "Look at Tehillah. She's being bullied right now."

And then they saw it. They saw what was happening between the girls.

This is the time of day in Israel when kindergarten officially ends at 1:30 and the afternoon is optional. So her mother is probably working, doesn't know her daughter is being torn apart, and these aren't the main teachers, they're the secondary staff who weren't paying attention. If I hadn't said something, no one would have.

I went back up to the shul. From the window, I looked down again. Tehillah wasn't being bullied anymore.

Of course, I missed Kedusha. I missed answering Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh with the minyan. I missed sanctifying Hashem's name with the tzibbur.

Why would I do that? Why would I, out of an entire shul full of rabbis, be the only one who thought a 1% chance of helping this girl was worth leaving the minyan?

The Story I Read on Shabbat

This past Shabbat I read a story brought down by Rav Nissim Yagen.

There was an older rabbi, a tremendous talmid chacham who knew Shas, and he spent enormous amounts of time doing chesed for people. A great rav asked him: "Why are you running after chesed? You could be sitting and learning. Why are you chasing kindness like this?"

And the older man told him this story.

A few years earlier, around midnight, he wasn't feeling well. He lay down and fell asleep. In his dream, he found himself standing before the Beit Din shel Ma'alah — the Heavenly Court. They were judging him. And the verdict came down: Your time is up. Game over. You have no time left.

At that moment, an elderly man walked into the courtroom holding a letter. He approached the court and said, "Look at this." They read the letter and said, "Alright. You have more time."

The older man who brought the letter turned to him and said, "I'll take you back to your body."

As they were traveling back, this elderly stranger said: "You don't remember me. Sixty years ago, when you were ten years old, I was a refugee. I hadn't eaten in days. I smelled terrible because I couldn't shower. I came to your shul on Friday night hoping someone would invite me home, the way they invited the other poor people."

"Your father was one of the last people leaving the shul. You were with him. Your father saw me but said, 'It's not appropriate - I can't take this man home.' He walked home. And you told him: I'm not joining the Shabbat meal until this man has a meal. If no one else takes him, you go back and bring him.'"

"So your father went back to the shul as you stood there as a ten-year-old child insisting on it. He brought me to your home. Even though I smelled, even though I hadn't eaten in days, you saved my life that Friday night."

"For sixty years, I was waiting for a way to pay you back. And tonight, when I saw you being judged in the Heavenly Court and they were ending your life, I came with the letter."

What I Took From This

When I read that story, the first thing that hit me was: Yes, Shas is important. Kedusha is important. But what about saving a child from emotional harassment? That's also saving a life. Tehillah atzbanit, Tehillah atzbanit, that bullying leaves scars that last decades.

I don't know if I'll ever get paid back for what I did yesterday. I'm not doing it for that. But I felt this is a story people need to see.

Sometimes I look at my financials and I ask myself: What in the world am I doing in this coaching business? It's not profitable enough.

But there are really only two questions in life.

It's not as important *how much money you make* as it is *how you make your money.*

*Yesterday, I missed Kedusha to stop a 5-year-old from being bullied.*

I left mid-davening. Walked downstairs. Yelled through the gate. The teachers woke up. The bullying stopped.

I missed answering Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh with the minyan.

Then I remembered the story Rav Biderman tells: a ten-year-old boy who refused to eat his Shabbat meal until his father brought home a starving refugee from shul. Sixty years later, that refugee, now in the next world, showed up at the Heavenly Court with a letter that bought him more years of life.

Saving a child from emotional cruelty is also saving a life.

And that's the most important thing I could have done at that exact moment.