HaGaon Rav Dovid Yitzchak Mann ztz"l was, in my oh so very insignificant opinion, the greatest lamdan of our generation. His sfarim are simply mind-blowing. Not to take anything away from anybody else - but he was in a class of his own. Maybe more about him another time. This was just in way of introduction. [There is one Jew on line who has a fetish for giving over Rav Mann's Torah in a way that the common man can understand]. If you never heard of him it is b/c he never made it to the news. All he ever did was learn and teach Torah and serve Hashem with great modesty. That is not newsworthy - unfortunately. For it is for such people the world exists.
One time his brother told him that he saw a child give a "Bisli" [israeli snack] wrapper to an older man on the street and asked him to throw it away. When Rav Mann's brother [whose name ironically enough is also "Rav Mann"] told the child that this was improper the child looked at him and didn't know WHAT he was talking about. He innocently couldn't understand what he had done wrong. [He didn't litter. What did he do wrong? He just wanted to make sure the wrapper got into the garbage can!]
Rav Mann couldn't sleep the whole night after he heard this story.
It reminded me of the story of Rav Shlomo Zalman who saw an older man shlepping a heavy bench on the street one Shabbos in Shaarei Chesed. He was accompanied by his two young adult sons who weren't helping him. When R' Shlomo Zalman asked why they weren't helping their father they explained that they don't carry on Shabbos [b/c they don't rely on the the Eruv]. Rav S"Z was mortified. If I remember correctly he became PHYSICALLY ILL.
