When One Prayer Matters Most: The Chafetz Chaim’s Timeless Message

A yeshiva student was traveling from his yeshiva in Lithuania back home, and along the way he passed through Radin in order to receive a blessing from the Chafetz Chaim. While on the train he met a distinguished looking man and asked him where he was headed.

“To Radin,” the young man replied.

“I too am traveling to Radin,” the man answered. During their conversation the student realized that his companion was Rabbi Tzvi Levinson, the son in law of the Chafetz Chaim. The student asked him to help arrange a meeting and blessing with the Chafetz Chaim.

A Warm Bed on a Freezing Night

When the train arrived in Radin it was already very late. Rabbi Levinson invited the young man to his home, prepared a warm meal for him, and offered him a bed for the night.

Exhausted from the difficult journey, while a bone chilling cold raged outside, the student climbed into bed and warmed himself beneath the blanket. Suddenly he remembered that he had not yet prayed the evening prayer, Ma’ariv.

“How difficult it is to leave this warm blanket and go out into the freezing cold,” he thought. He decided to remain under the blanket for just a few more minutes to warm up, and afterward he would rise and pray. But his fatigue overcame him, and he fell into a deep sleep that lasted until morning. When Rabbi Levinson awoke him for Shacharit, the previous night’s Ma’ariv had completely slipped from his mind.

The Parable of the Lost Coin

After Shacharit and breakfast, Rabbi Levinson brought him to meet his father in law, the great sage of the generation, the Chafetz Chaim. Before the young man even managed to speak, the Chafetz Chaim said:

“In earlier times, when there was great wealth in Russia, if a person dropped a silver coin from his pocket he would not bother to bend down and pick it up. But nowadays, when wealth has diminished and poverty has taken its place, if even a small copper coin falls, a person immediately hurries to retrieve it, because in such times even a small amount is considered valuable.”

The student was puzzled. What did the Chafetz Chaim mean?

The Value of One Prayer

The Chafetz Chaim continued: “When the Jewish people lived on their land and the Holy Temple stood in its glory, with the priests serving, the Levites singing, and Israel standing in their service, it was as though there was great spiritual abundance in the upper worlds. Perhaps then, the Ma’ariv prayer of a certain young man would not have been considered so significant. But in our times, when darkness covers the earth and those who guard Torah and mitzvot have become fewer, there is, so to speak, spiritual poverty above. Therefore even a single prayer of a young man has tremendous value, and in Heaven it is not easily overlooked.”

Immediately the student remembered the Ma’ariv prayer he had forgotten the night before, and he understood the Chafetz Chaim’s words through his holy insight.

Who Was the Chafetz Chaim?