Kaf Zechut - A Rav Aharon Margalit Story of Giving Kaf Zechut That Will Leave You Speechless

0:30It's very, very critical that people learn to give the benefit of the doubt to individuals who have a chazakah of being kosher. Even if you see them do something that doesn't look so kosher, such as seeing the local rabbi—who until now has been a great rabbi—drive on Shabbat. Now, who here believes you're allowed to drive on Shabbat? Who here believes you're allowed to play with your phone on Shabbat? So if you see a rabbi driving on Shabbat, you are obligated to give him the benefit of the doubt. Use that imagination HaKadosh Baruch Hu gave you for free and say, why is the rabbi driving on Shabbat? You look in the car, and you don't see anything. Now you have to be creative. Why? Because if you saw somebody in the car, immediately you would say, ah, he's taking someone to the hospital, right? But what if you don't see anybody? Maybe someone is dead on the road or in the rabbi's trunk; the next week, he's already giving shiurim.

2:01Maybe he is misleading the person, maybe something is happening here that you don't see. It's not happening. The point is if somebody has a chazakah of being a kosher person, you have to give them the benefit of the doubt. On the other hand, if someone has a chazakah of being a rasha, you are not allowed to give him the benefit of the doubt. Not that you shouldn't, you are not allowed to give him the benefit of k'f zechut. Meaning, if Hitler, yimach shemo vezichro, comes and starts giving sandwiches in a Jewish community, and... You are obligated to say there's poison in those sandwiches. Why? There's no way that Hitler did what he did, and now he's becoming a kind person giving sandwiches for free. No way. Not allowed to give him kaf zechut. If someone's a missionary, someone's a missionary, he went and took people and brought them to Yoshke, brought them to Avodah Zarah. He comes to me and says, "Listen, Rabbi, I want to do teshuva." Rambam says we're not allowed to help him. Yeah, but he wants to do teshuva. Go do teshuva with your friends in the church. Go do teshuva with yourself. I'm not going to help you. He can do teshuva, but you're not allowed to help him. If he does teshuva, no problem. But we're not allowed to help him. Why? He's not a kosher person. Until now, he's been destroying the Shemot. But there are times, Rabotai, that if you don't use kaf zechut, you're simply going to live a miserable life. Such is this following story.

3:25In the book, Italech, by Rav Aharon Margalios, he writes a very extraordinary story that he experienced himself. He says that one of the times he gave a shiur, he came to a certain place and gave a shiur about kibud av va'em, honoring the parents. Honoring the parents is one of the most important mitzvot that we fail at on a regular basis because we don't even know how to honor our parents sometimes. Do you know that they say that when your father comes into the room you are obligated to stand up? Did you guys know that? Are you standing up every time your Abba walks in the room? Probably not, right? If your Abba is a kosher person... He's not a missionary. Your Abba is a kosher person who gave you life, gave you parnasa, gave you this, gave you that. When he walks into the room, you don't stand up? It's like eating pork. Why? The Torah says you have to stand up. Why? Now, what about if your father says, "No, no, son, son, you don't need to stand up. You don't need to stand up. It's okay." Do you know what the halacha is? You have to stand up anyway.

4:51that's how important it is. It's important to learn a little bit about it so you know how to treat your parents. Because how you treat your parents is how your kids are going to treat you. If you treat your parents like they're working for you, guess what? You're going to have a bunch of gremlins running around your house one day, telling you, "Abba, I want this. Abba, I want this. Abba, I want this. Abba, where's this? Where's that?" They'll yell at you like you're yelling at your parents. Now, Rav Mark Galiot says that one time he gave a shiur about kibud av va'em and after the shiur he came downstairs and he saw two, you know, two chareidim, two religious people, a couple, husband and a wife, older, in their 60s, waiting for him by the car. He says, how can I help you? He sees the guy doesn't look so good and he says, yeah, Harav, I listened to your shiur and I didn't want to talk next to people but I was hoping you could help me.

5:51Yeah, sure. So you gave a whole shiur about kibud av va'em, honoring parents, and emphasizing that you have to find a way to constantly give your parents kaf zechut, the benefit of the doubt. Even though your mom didn't buy it for you, it's not necessarily because she doesn't like you. Maybe she didn't have the money. Even though your dad didn't pick you up, it's not because he forgot about it; maybe he ran into traffic. You have to give your parents kaf zechut. You have to. Sometimes you even have to give kaf zechut to your kids. He doesn't mean to destroy the things. It happened by accident, on purpose. Accidentally, on purpose, he broke your stuff. Accidentally. You have to give kaf zechut. On purpose, he broke it, but it's an accident because you caught him. So what happens is, you said you have to give kaf zechut to the parents. So I need you to help me. You chacham. Chachamim marbim shalom ba'olam. I need you to help me. How do I give kav schut to my father who died two months ago? Rav Magaliot says, wait a minute, hold on a second. Your father died two months ago and you want to give him kav schut? He goes, oh, let me tell you the story. Kav schut, but I have to tell him. Kav schut, he didn't know, so I have to tell him. So now,

7:15The guy tells Rabbi Megaleh Amukot, he says, listen, my father died two months ago, and he was a very, very wealthy person. And he was very, very organized. And he made sure to write a will in handwriting eight times. Handwriting so no one says, "Oh, and maybe yours is this or that." You know sometimes what happens? There's peace in the house until the parents die. Why? That's when the inheritance comes; inheritance comes, money comes, and all of a sudden everybody hates each other. All of a sudden, there are all types of things. Hashem, I can't believe what I've seen in my life with inheritance. Brothers and sisters grow up as best friends. All of a sudden, the parents pass away, and money comes into the picture. Suddenly, it's, "I hate you. I hate you. I hope you use the money for medicine. I hope you this, I hope you that." Hashem, You know him. After all, you're his brother, you're a sister. Why do you wish me such things? Is it all for a few dollars? People experience loss, and they start cursing their parents. "Oh, I hate my mom. I wish she's in this place or that place." Why? Chas v'Shalom! Why is it that she gave my brother more money than me and...?

8:31Hashem, you know what people do for money. Now, I saw a lot of this in the business world because I was usually the guy who dealt with the money. Anyway, this tzaddik says to Rav Margaliyot, "Kvod Harav, we're eight brothers, and my father wrote and left the will with the rabbi. As soon as he died, you know, everybody stopped crying with the levayah and everything else, and... To the rabbi to see what the inheritance is. My father had 11 million shekels—a lot of money—and everyone's reading. The rabbi's reading the will, we're all reading together, and it's as if I wasn't a son. Why? All seven of my brothers hog our money, and he doesn't even mention me. Nothing. I get zero. I

9:31Tell me, how can I give my father his share of food for this? You know what happened to me after that? People started saying, "Oh, you know, my sister said, you know what, maybe he forgot, so let's just, you know, I loved you. I loved you. Don't take offense. I loved you. Let's just split it equally, guys. Let's just split it equally. We don't, come on. No, let's just split it equally." I said, no, no, no, no, no, no. If Abba forgot me or Abba didn't want me in the world, he didn't want me, no, no, I'm going to do the ratzon of Abba. I'm going to do the will of Abba. Abba says, no, no, I'm not getting anything. But b'emet, inside I was eating my heart out. B'emet, inside I've been angry, I've been depressed. I almost did not want to go to the 30th day. I lost over 10 pounds, 10 pounds in the last two months since he died. People are talking in the neighborhood, all these Gechazis, all these reshaim in the neighborhood that heard the story. I'm saying, ah, maybe it really wasn't his son. Maybe it's some mamzer. Maybe it's this, maybe it's that. I went to, after the 30th day, everybody left. I stayed at the grave. I started crying to Hashem. I started crying to my father. I started saying, Abba, why did you do this to me? Why did you ruin my life?

10:41Why'd you ruin my life? Everybody's making fun of me. So I need you to help me, Kavod HaRav. I haven't left my house in two months. I need you to help me and tell me, how can I give my father kaf zechut? Rabbi Sarah Magliot says it's the middle of the night, and he's never heard such a story before. What am I going to tell the guy? He says, uh... You work? He says, no. Actually, I'm the only Avrech in the entire family. Everybody else works. Everybody else makes money. I live off Torah, 1,500 shekels a month. Meaning everybody else has money from their jobs, from their businesses. He's the only one who learns Torah, which means he should get more. Okay, so it's not the Avrech thing. Maybe you offended your father. Perhaps you had a disagreement with him. Maybe you embarrassed him one time. He told you, "You know, a long time ago when you were a kid, you caused me a lot of trouble." However, I was the firstborn, and he loved me a lot. So maybe you are thinking about how you can make shalom (peace) in this situation.

12:07He says to him, "Are you married with children?" He responds, "Yes, I have a wife." He then asks, "Do you have any children?" He answers, "Yes, we have 12 children, Baruch Hashem (blessed be God)." He asks in disbelief, "What? What do you do for a living? Are you a kollel avrech?" The man confirms, "Yes, that's right." The man inquires further, "You're an older person. You probably got married when you were older?" The response is, "Baruch Hashem, all of them are married." The question followed, "So, how did you manage to marry them off with only being an avrech, earning 1,500 shekels a month?" He goes on to explain, "Oh, my father helped me." How did he help you? He says, for every kid, he gave me $50,000 for the wedding. And then, on top of that, for every kid, he gave $10,000. When he said this, he was saying it like it was nothing. He's saying, listen, what does this have to do with the inheritance for the love? I'm a girl. You had a smile from ear to ear. She said, hold on a second. When he gave you the money... Was the shekel about 4.9 shekels per dollar? Maybe 4.92? He said, yeah, about that, yeah. Well, I was doing something. He goes, look at this. How many kids do you have? 12 kids. How much did you get for each kid? 50,000. 50,000 times 12, how much? 600,000. 600,000 times the 4.9, you almost got 3 million shekels.

13:30Now, what is the minhag? What are we supposed to do when we give yerushah? The firstborn gets double of the rest of the brothers. What did you get? Three million. What did the rest of your brothers get? They get a little over a million. Your father actually gave you double what your brothers got, because your brothers didn't get this 50,000. He goes, "No, they didn't get. Nobody else got, only I got." Your father got it. He gave it to you, double what they got. He goes, "Yeah, but how come he didn't tell me? How come he didn't write it in the paper?" Let me ask you something. If your father wrote in the paper, "My dear son, remember, I gave you double what I gave everybody else," do you think your brothers will be happy about this? Because, to tell you the truth, they probably wouldn't be. So, your father was such a tzaddik; he not only gave you double, but he also wanted to make sure that there's peace, that the relationship between you and your siblings is not destroyed. The guy starts crying hysterically. He says, "I have to throw a party now." They ask, "What party? You didn't get any money." He replies, "No, no, no. I have to throw a party to clear my father's name. And you have to come for the love. I'm going to invite all my brothers and sisters, and they all have to come. Why? Because I have to clear my father's name." And that's what he did. He organized a nice, fancy schmancy party.

14:57And he told his brothers and sisters, "I want to tell you something." He tells them the whole story. He says, "Listen, Abba really did give me something. He gave me something while he was alive. He gave every kid $50,000. Really, in the end, it was double, so on and so forth. He didn't write it in the will because he didn't want to get you guys mad. And I hope that now that I'm telling you, you're not going to get mad." The brothers and sisters were so happy that this happened. He says, "Listen, enjoy what you have. Just stop being so sad about Abba." They were happy, and everything happened. Why? Another story illustrates that if you use Torah, you're always going to reach a peaceful resolution, as long as everyone is on the same page. Now, Rabotai, sometimes, sometimes the confusion can be something as deep as this. Sometimes the confusion can be something minor. There was a very famous mechanic, a very famous Rav, Rav Moshe Turk. He was a mechanic for probably 60, 70, maybe even 80 years, some people say. He was a teacher for kids, and in one of his years, it was the first time that the Americans allegedly went to the moon.

16:24went to the moon. Conspiracy theories aside, with the waving flag and the lack of gravity and so on, it was a very big event in those days. Now, the Rabbi repeated the story to the talmidim in the yeshiva, the hareidim. He says, the astronaut said, "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." And you could see God from here. That was, in essence, the point of the sentence. One step for mankind on the moon is a giant leap for mankind and humanity, and so on and so forth. But one of the big things that he said is that you could see God from here. You know how great God is and so on. Now, while the rabbi is telling the story, one of the kids in the class, little kid, goes like this: "Meshuga. Meshuga. Meshuga." Now, if it was me, Taking the table back on the key. Why were you guys making fun of me? I mean, an average person sees a kid calling, you know, saying this "Meshuggah, Meshuggah." You're crazy, crazy. Who do you think he's talking about? The teacher. Because you're the one telling the story. But with all of that experience and all of that Torah, he held himself back. He stopped and he asked the kid, and...

17:53Who's a Meshuggeneh? What do you mean Meshuggeneh? Why are you doing this? What does this mean? And the little kid says, I don't know, you're telling us the story about this astronaut. And he says he had to go all the way to the moon to see God. This guy's a Meshuggeneh. Why does he have to go all the way to the moon to see God? You can see God over here. The Rav says, what if I hadn't contained myself? And I immediately would have punished the kid, sent him to the principal, called his parents, thrown him out of the house, thrown him out of the yeshiva, thrown him out of everything. Where would this kid be today? Where would this kid be today? That's the kav zechut of the teacher to the student. That's the kav zechut of the son to the parent.