 A Lover of Kindness in Our Times
By Yonason Rosenblum If a Jew could have done what he did in his forty-four years without becoming the subject of great fanfare, without other Jews from around the world flocking to Monsey, New York just to see him, then maybe our generation is not as bereft of spiritual heroes as we think. If a Jew working around the clock on every form of kindness project imaginable, projects whose scope staggers the imagination, is not yet viewed as a curiosity, then we can only assume that there are others like him. But for now let us tell of Rabbi Shmuel Avraham Myski. I. The Kindness Fund The proliferation of free loan societies -- gemachim is one of the identifying characteristics of all religious Jewish community. While there are literally thousands of gemachim around the world, one in Monsey stands out from all the others. In 1971, a recently married man decided to use five hundred dollars from his wedding money to begin a gemach in a small basement in Monsey, New York. Its "office" consisted of a brown desk, black book, and Parker pen. Over the next twenty-two years, Keren HaChessed -- 'The Kindness Fund' -- grew to loan more than a hundred million dollars; by the late '80s, it was lending over ten million dollars a year! The mere paperwork involved from one-night weekly of interviewing of loan applicants, and handling the dozens of bank accounts, kept a staff busy all week. In addition to his full-time work and other projects, Rabbi Myski himself spent at least fifty hours a week on gemach related work. The four phone lines in his house rang constantly, with him often on two lines at a time, with one of his ten children on his lap helping him to push the buttons. From its humble beginning, Keren HaChessed took on a crucial role in the Monsey economy. Short-term loans of up to fifty thousand dollars regularly allowed yeshiva and other institutions to meet their payroll. Anytime there was a communal emergency or tragedy -- fire, illness, etc.-- the checks were made out to Keren HaChessed, though this involved hours of added paperwork for the officers and staff of the gemach. A newcomer's typical tour of Monsey would inevitably include a drive past the Myski residence, where the Keren HaChessed offices occupy the ground floor, and the comment, "Here's Myski's if you need advice or any kind of help." A Need to Give How did a gemach, begun with no significant financial resources, grow to dwarf every other gemach in the world? The answer starts with Rabbi Myski's desire to give. He did not wait to be asked for a loan, but would tell people, "I hear you're making a wedding. Perhaps you need a loan?" Before Passover one year, he noticed that a store was not properly stocked for the peak season. Discreet inquiries revealed that the owner lacked money to purchase what he needed. A loan was forthcoming without having been requested. One man, who was mired in debt, still remembers with astonishment how "one night this Chassidic fellow knocked on my door and handed me a check for $50,000, and told me I should pay him back when things got better." Rabbi Shmuel Avraham would go to weddings, pockets filled with cash. If he saw an argument developing between the host and the caterer, he would hurry over, pay the caterer, and tell him, "We'll settle this later," so that monetary disputes would not diminish the joy of the occasion. If someone was too embarrassed to come to the Keren HaChessed offices, Rabbi Myski thought nothing of waiting on an unlit street corner to deliver the money. He was himself the most frequent co-signer on loans. It was easy for him to give because he begrudged no one any worldly enjoyment. An applicant for a loan to buy his newly-married son a house was never asked, "Why can't he rent like everyone else?" The starting assumption was that every loan application would be responded to affirmatively. One of Monsey's most successful businessmen suffered sudden, dramatic business reversals. His only hope of saving his business from bankruptcy was the immediate infusion of over a million dollars in new capital. But before the Federal Bankruptcy Court would permit new capital to be put into the business, a way had to be found to protect the new monies against prior creditors. When Rabbi Myski was approached as to whether Keren HaChessed would serve as a guarantor for the new funds, he agreed without hesitation, even though the responsibilities involved consumed fifteen hours a week of his own time over the next year. A half million dollars in receipts from the man's business came into the gemach a week, and most of it had to be wired to other accounts within hours of receipt. To make that possible, Rabbi Myski was forced to put his own reputation and long-term relationships on the line. Nearly every day, he had to ask the local banks, with whom he had built up a close relationship over the years, to stretch their rules on clearing checks. As each new hurdle in restructuring the business was overcome, Rabbi Myski's pleasure was as great as if it had been his own business. Keren HaChessed became in time a convenient cover for Rabbi Myski's other charitable activities. Using monies he had raised separately, he would tell hard-pressed borrowers that they had miscalculated the amounts they owed, and their debts had either been paid in full or were much smaller than they had thought. He supported a number of needy families with weekly stipends, which he told them came from a "Special Fund" for people in their situation. These activities only came to light when he became ill, and his associates in the gemach could not locate the "Special Fund" they were continually being asked about. Rabbi Myski was accused, with some justice, of trying to grab all the kindness in Monsey for himself. If he heard of a successful charity project anywhere in the world, he wanted to bring it to Monsey. A home for mothers recuperating after childbirth, a food co-op for students -- these were just a few of the projects that he dreamed of or had brought to fruition. At the time of his passing, he was working on a multi-million dollar project to build 300 homes for the poor using funds from Keren HaChessed. Built on Trust Neither the desire to give, nor the willingness to undertake risks in order to do so, are sufficient if the money to give is not there. The key to Keren HaChessed's fundraising was the trust that people had in Rabbi Myski. People regularly lent him sixty or seventy thousand dollars on the promise that their money would always be available to them upon two day's notice. Not once has Keren HaChessed failed to make good on that promise. The trust people placed in Rabbi Myski was a direct reflection of his own faith in God. There were times he began the day with two hundred thousand dollars in loans from banks or private individuals that had to be paid back. Invariably someone would approach him after morning prayers and tell him that he had seventy thousand dollars that he did not need for the time being. "If I begin the day happy," he used to say, "then I know I'll have success from Heaven. Sometimes it took dozens of phone calls to raise the entire sum needed, but in the end it was always done. He was, in addition, an innovative fundraiser. One of Keren HaChessed's major sources of funds was a Purim comedy skit put on in the homes of thirty or more contributors. If a former large contributor had fallen on hard times, however, the comedy routine was also performed in his home as in years past. II. A GENIUS IN CHARITY The kindness-seeker is marked by an acute sensitivity to people that enables him to give to others in ways others could not. He devotes himself to finding opportunities to give and the proper way of doing so. The sophisticated computerization of Keren HaChessed, the mastery of electronic banking required, the absolute minimum of waiting time, the layout of the offices -- each room sound-proofed, with music piped in, to ensure that what is said in one room will never be heard in another -- all attest to the attention to every detail. The Slonimer Rebbe, under whom Rabbi Myski studied in Jerusalem once told him that with his acute sensitivity to the feelings of others, he would have made a good psychiatrist. And, in fact, he was widely consulted by couples experiencing marital difficulties. One time a man started screaming at Rabbi Myski, but the latter took all his abuse with perfect equanimity. "Better that he should yell at me than his wife," he said. Rabbi Shmuel Avrohom's kindness was not limited by the worthiness of the recipient. A man once threw him rudely out of his house when he came to solicit a contribution for Keren HaChessed. Two months later, the same man applied to the gemach for a loan and received it. Teacher Par Excellence Nowhere was Rabbi Myski's sensitivity so clear as in the classroom. His warmth naturally attracted children, and he was rarely seen on the streets of Monsey without a crowd of youngsters around him, holding his hands. He gave himself fully to his students. Despite the enormous demands on his time -- the normal day began with Talmud study before morning prayers and ended at two or three in the morning He never permitted himself the luxury of recycling the previous year's lesson handout sheets. Each year there were new drawings, new stories, and new ways to excite the curiosity of his young students. Each day he recorded the day's class on tape so that boys could call up a special "Dial-a-Rabbi" line at night and review that day's material. Rabbi Myski once asked a boy who had to repeat second grade, to join him for a ride in his car. In the course of the drive, he said to the boy, "I have a very big class coming in next year, and I'm going to need a helper. Would you be willing to stay with me another year to be my special helper?" When the boy agreed, Rabbi Myski took a bicycle out of the back seat of the car as a present. The bonds he forged with his students continued beyond the school year. At the end of the year, each boy received a picture of himself together with Rabbi Myski; many referred to him for years after as "my special Rabbi." He kept a pocketful of lollipops at all times to give to former students he might meet on the street, and any friends that were with them. One former student was critically ill in the intensive care unit. Rabbi Myski and a friend came to the hospital and danced and sang in front of the boy's bed. The boy's mother recalls: "All of a sudden, they started dancing and singing with intense joy. It was a sight to behold, like a painting that was moving. They brought such joy into my son's life." In the Hands of an Angel The Hatzola volunteer ambulance corps was another natural activity for one who never passed an accident on the highway without getting out of his car to see if he could help. The heroics of the rescue work itself were of no interest to him, though even here he was graced with special abilities. One mother described the way he treated her baby daughter who was choking on a bone: "The way he cuddled my baby with love, all the while working on her, relaxed me. I felt she was in the hands of an angel." After providing the initial care, he retreated as soon as possible into the background to let the other volunteers take over. Then he would look around to see what he could do for the family of the victim. One time a young boy was in an accident just before Shabbos. As soon as he was no longer needed, Rabbi Myski went into the house and set up the Shabbos candles. When the Hatzola ambulance had to take someone to the hospital on Shabbos, Rabbi Myski would sing Shabbos songs the entire way. He once took a seriously ill boy to his sister's wedding in a Hatzola ambulance, and tended the oxygen tanks throughout so the boy would not miss the festivities. Giving in Secret There were rarely less than twenty people at the Myski's Shabbos table. Orphans, divorcees, newly observant all basked in the warmth of the Myski home. Rabbi Myski spent hours preparing inspiring words appropriate for his children of different ages and for his guests. It was not uncommon for him to translate his dramatic presentations into two or three languages for the benefit of all those present. Charity Begins at Home His kindness did not end, as is too often the case, at home. In the middle of a conversation with the biggest contributor, Rabbi Shmuel Avraham would stop to take a call from his wife upstairs or mother next door, and if they needed anything, would excuse himself to take care of the matter. Rabbi Myski's father became an invalid at a young age, and as the oldest of the ten children, the responsibility fell on Rabbi Myski to marry off all his younger siblings. They naturally looked to him whenever in need. One time a sister was unable to prepare for Passover, and she and her family joined the Myski family for the festival. Throughout Passover, Rabbi Myski kept repeating, "Isn't it nice that we could all be here together. Thank you so much for enhancing our holiday." He was the special uncle to all his nieces and nephews. They never left for yeshiva or to camp without him coming over to say goodbye. As long as his father was alive, he called him every day in Montreal to lift his spirits. He used to make a special effort to recall amusing stories for his father. One his favorites involved a middle-of-the-night emergency call for Hatzola. In his pajamas, he rushed through the snow to the home of an elderly Jew, who feared he had suffered a heart attack. Yet when he arrived, the would-be patient's only reaction to his dedication was, "That's how you come to a person's house?" During Rabbi Mysky’s final illness, the Skulener Rebbe told him not to tell anyone the severity of his condition, and he swore all his doctors to secrecy. His spirits were so high and he always exuded such confidence that he would recover, that he convinced everyone else as well. To shield his mother, he would visit her with his intravenous needles hidden under his coat, and when he had to be hospitalized for days at a time, would call her each night. Rabbi Myski was not just a doer of kindness but a teacher of kindness. III. THE THREE-STRANDED THREAD Rabbi Myski inherited his love of doing charity from his mother. When left at thirty five with the sole responsibility of supporting ten children, she did not slacken in her own charitable activities. Three times a year, she would make mass mailings from her house on behalf of different charity projects. She would prepare food packages in the house for needy neighbors and send her children out with instructions: "This one needs eggs, this one can't eat such and such..." Rabbi Myski, too, was not just a doer of charity but a teacher. A boy from a nearby seminary once came to visit and Rabbi Myski asked him if the school had a gemach for newlyweds. Informed that it did not, he gave the boy two hundred dollars to start one. One of Keren HaChessed's most innovative projects was the creation of gemah savings accounts for children throughout the New York area. Each child received his own "GemachBook," just like for a bank savings account. Instead of spending their money on sweets or nicknacks, children were taught the mitzva of lending their money from a young age. Though more than a million dollars was raised through such accounts, only the educational purpose could have justified the time the whole project took. In the Myski home, the children were not told, "Tatte (Father) is busy doing an act of kindness." Whatever he did was natural, like breathing, and needed no special notice or title. Not surprisingly, his oldest children are now actively involved in Keren HaChessed.
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