Q&A: A Question About the Chafetz Chaim
A Question About the Chafetz Chaim
Question
Someone came to the Chafetz Chaim and asked for a blessing. He had severe stomach pains, or some stomach illness, I think. The Rabbi checked with him and found that he was God-fearing and careful about everything, but he had a son who had bought a taxi in Radin and would drive people on the Sabbath. The Chafetz Chaim told him: regarding the Sabbath it is said, "Let us go forth to greet the Sabbath, for she is the source of blessing," and it is also said about it, "you, your son, and your daughter." The son heard this, repented, and the father recovered. "For she is the source of blessing" is from a liturgical poem, so can one really derive anything from that? And regarding the other verses… "your son and your daughter"… I don't know what to say. Are parents punished for their children's sins even when the children are already adults?
Answer
What is there to discuss in story tales? Especially since nobody derives anything at all from the liturgical poem. It's an illustration.
Discussion on Answer
There's a special liturgical poem for people like that, who buy all kinds of old wives' tales
and then have all sorts of blockhead questions about them.
Very interesting what you're saying. And what is the liturgical poem? Surely you do not mean the poem of Rabbi Shlomo Alkabetz, who was Sephardi, thank God, and did not understand the language of Yiddish, namely Yiddish.
Alright, it's just that the Chafetz Chaim told him, look, this is the situation and this is what is written. So the Chafetz Chaim connected the two things and told him that it was because of that. And the Chafetz Chaim also learned it from the verse, "you shall not do any labor, you, your son, or your daughter…"