Community Magazine August 2021

20 COMMUNITY MAGAZINE King David teaches in the Book of Tehillim (89:3), “ Olam hesed yibaneh – The world is built on kindness.” Hashem created the world with kindness, with the intention that we will emulate His graciousness. In order to fulfill our mission of bringing hesed into the world, we must understand what hesed really means. It means an action that is motivated by a spirit of generosity, an action that we are not obligated to do, isn’t repayment for an act done for us, and for which we expect nothing in return. Hesed means giving out of a spirit of genuine and selfless generosity. Avraham Avinu is known as the embodiment of the virtue of hesed . Rav Eliyahu Dessler, zt”l  (1892-1953), explains that Avraham dispensed kindness not out of a sense of duty, but out of a burning desire to give. Avraham’s soul was infused with the spirit of hesed. The prophet Michah instructs: “… do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your Gd. ” We fulfill our spiritual destiny not by doing acts of kindness – but rather by loving those acts. Our focus must be not on the acts themselves, but on the joy we experience when we perform such acts. We are to not just act kindly, but to love acting kindly. Rabbi Shlomo Lankry, zt”l, was such a person – someone overcome by a burning desire to help those in need, filled with compassion for his fellow man, who dedicated his life to alleviating other people’s pain and distress, with no expectation of honor or of anything in return. Not Letting Anyone Feel Alone on His Watch Just as Avraham sat in the doorway of his tent hoping to welcome guests, Rabbi Shlomo stood on Kings Highway waiting for an opportunity to help another person. And just like Avraham, who not only served his guests water, but fed them an entire meal, Rabbi Shlomo extended himself above and beyond, looking after all of the person’s needs. His son, Rabbi Moshe Lankry, recalls that as a young boy, he would see his father standing in front of Sisu, his bookstore on Kings Highway, looking “to the left and to the right – not only once, but a few times. I didn’t understand what he was doing. Then one day he said to me, ‘Moshe, you see that lady? Walk her home.’ So I did. I spent an hour with her listening to her life story. And when I got back, my father asked, ‘Nu, how was it?’ I learned a lot about my father then, and a lesson for life.” The Mishnah (Avot 1:5) instructs, “Let your house be open wide, and let the poor be members of your household.” Likewise, the Gemara (Shabbat 104a) teaches, “The way of those who do hesed  is to run after the poor.” Rabbi Aaron Lankry experienced this every Friday night alongside his father. “Every Friday night after shul, my father would take us to every shul in the neighborhood looking for a rabbi, a shaliah , anyone who didn’t have a place to go, and bring them home with us. And many times they didn’t leave; they would stay for months.” Rabbi Shlomo Lankry’s daughter, Emily Antar, says she does not remember a week without guests. “And I don’t mean cousins or other relatives,” she clarifies. “Our guests were people who had no place to be.” Rabbi Aaron said his father was committed to “not letting anyone feel alone on his watch,” and he attributes this commitment to the rabbi’s own experience as a refugee arriving on American shores, when he and his family were greeted with an outpouring of kindness. A Mission of Torah and Kindness Rabbi Lankry was born in the village of Beni-Mellal in Morocco, which had a small but vibrant community of Torah-observant Jews. Prior to his bar-mitzvah, he was sent to learn in the Schneider Yeshiva in England, where he studied under the yeshiva’s founder, Rav Gedalia Schneider, a disciple of the Hafetz Chaim. (The Schneider Yeshiva produced a number of other outstanding rabbis, as well, such as Rav Eliezer Lopian and Rav Alter Alperin.) During his period in the yeshiva, Shlomo learned Yiddish and became acquainted with the culture of European Jewry. He would later credit his experience in the yeshiva with engendering within him the feeling that every Jew is a brother to whom one is committed to help. MOZELLE FORMAN THE LIFE AND LEGACY OF RABBI SHLOMO LANKRY , ZT '' L FOR THE ON CALL COMMUNITY