The Human Side of the Story

For the week ending 17 March 2007 / 27 Adar I 5767

Dry Clean Only

by Rabbi Mendel Weinbach zt'l
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"You have brainwashed my son!"

This was the angry accusation that a non-religious mother of a young man who had become religious and was attending a yeshiva in Jerusalem hurled at the head of the yeshiva.

The Rosh Hayeshiva, sensitive to the pain felt by this woman at seeing her son turn his back on the secular lifestyle in which she had raised him, decided to temper her anger with a bit of humor with a big message.

Aware of how much spiritual poison had been absorbed in the brain of his student from his exposure to corrupting influences, the rabbi smiled and told the woman:

"My dear lady, in our yeshiva we do not wash brains — we dry clean only!"

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