Rav Moshe Mordechai Chodosh (1940-2016), the late Rosh Yeshivah of Yeshivas Ohr Elchonon in Yerushalayim, related an incident concerning his father, Rav Meir Chodosh (1898-1989), the Mashgiach of the Chevron Yeshivah in Yerushalayim. It demonstrates sensitivity that only one steeped in the study of mussar would even think of.
Rav Meir had gone through many ordeals in his life including surviving the Chevron Massacre in 1929. He had been given up for dead as he lay motionless after savage Arabs slaughtered talmidim in the Chevron Yeshivah on that tragic Shabbos afternoon. After that massacre, the yeshivah relocated to the Geulah section of Yerushalayim, where Rav Meir became the Mashgiach after the petirah of Rav Leib Chasman (1869-1935). As Rav Meir became elderly and sickly, his children tended to his medical needs. If ever a doctor wanted to perform a procedure or give any medical instructions, Rav Meir insisted that one of his children be present.
One afternoon when Rav Moshe and his brother were in the hospital with their father, a young resident came in to draw blood. Rav Meir turned to his sons and asked them to leave the room. Rav Moshe was surprised. For some time, his father had not allowed any procedure to be done without one of his children present. “But Tatteh…,” Rav Moshe began to protest. His father would not let him finish his sentence, as he understood what his son was about to say. Rav Meir held up his hand weakly and motioned for everyone to leave the room, no questions asked. Surprised and confounded, Rav Moshe and his brother left the room and told his siblings in the hallway what had just transpired. None of them could understand their father’s intention.
When the resident left the room a few minutes later, a number of Rav Meir’s children returned to his bedside. “Why did you want everyone to leave?” Rav Moshe asked. Rav Moshe told me that he would never forget the incredibly sensitive answer. “Did you see how young he was?” asked Rav Meir. “He probably did not have much experience in taking blood. Aside from that, the veins of an older man are harder to find than those in a younger man. He would probably have had to poke me a few times until he found the right vein to draw the blood. Can you imagine how embarrassing it would have been for him to stick me numerous times in front of all of you? I didn’t want him to be humiliated, and so I asked you to leave.”
Instead of asking for a more experienced doctor, which would have spared him some pain, Rav Meir was willing to be pinched and poked numerous times, just to prevent the doctor’s feelings from being hurt. Chessed includes giving when it hurts: in this case, literally.
R' Krohn
