The overseers of the Brisker Synagogue decided to discharge the shammes, sexton. They asked the rabbi, Reb Yoshe Ber, to break the news to him. Reb Yoshe Ber refused.
“Why won’t you do it?” the overseers questioned. “You are the rabbi. And he is your shammes!”
Reb Yoshe Ber answered, “You recite every morning the passage where God ordered Abraham our Father to bring his son Isaac to the altar as a sacrifice. That command God gave himself. But when He told him to hold back his hand and not strike his son, God spoke through an angel. Why didn’t God send an angel to speak at the beginning? Because an angel would have said, ‘If you want to kill a Jew, do it yourself’.”
Lesson? We need to protect one another.
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