Filling a Need

To purchase any of the author’s books (hardcopy or e-book) and get it delivered to your door, please send an email to [email protected] or visit https://amzn.to/3eyh5xP (where you can also see the reviews).

To join the thousands of recipients and receive these insights free on a weekly email, obtain previous articles, feedback, comments, suggestions (on how to spread the insights of this publication further, make it more appealing or anything else), to sponsor this publication which has been in six continents and more than forty countries, or if you know anyone who is interested in receiving these insights weekly, please contact the author, Rabbi Yehoshua Alt, at [email protected]. Thank you.

לעילוי נשמת שמואל אביגדור בן יצחק מאיר

These Torah articles can also be viewed in French and Hebrew at https://www.dirshu.co.il/category/הורדות-עלונים.

Archives: https://parshasheets.com/?s=Rabbi+Yehoshua+Alt

Please send your feedback to [email protected].

Rabbi Alt merited to learn under the tutelage of R’ Mordechai Friedlander ztz”l for close to five years. He received Semicha from R’ Zalman Nechemia Goldberg ztz”l. Rabbi Alt has written on numerous topics for various websites and publications and is the author of the books, Fascinating Insights and Incredible Insights. His writings inspire people across the spectrum of Jewish observance to live with the vibrancy and beauty of Torah. He lives with his wife and family in a suburb of Yerushalayim where he studies, writes, and teaches. The author is passionate about teaching Jews of all levels of observance.

Please feel free to print some copies of this publication and distribute them in your local shul for the public, thereby having a hand in spreading Torah.

Filling a Need

It says נער הייתי גם זקנתי ולא ראיתי צדיק נעזב וזרעו מבקש לכם, I was a youth and also old and I have not seen a righteous man forsaken nor his children begging for bread.[1] From taking a glance at the world this doesn’t seem to be the case. How are we to understand this pasuk?

There are people that see issues and continue on with their lives while there are others that act upon it. They see a gap that needs to be filled. They start schools, gemachs, programs and organizations. It is in this way that we can understand the pasuk: I was young and also old and I never just watched and stood by as a righteous man was hungry and his children didn’t have bread to eat. I acted upon it and filled the necessary need.

The personification of this idea is shown to us in how Hatzalah came about. How was Hatzalah started? In 1969, after a prominent member of the Chassidic Jewish community had a heart attack and died while waiting for an ambulance to arrive, R’ Herschel Weber as a response decided to start his own volunteer-run ambulance service which he named Hatzalah. It started with a few volunteers in Williamsburg, Brooklyn that carried oxygen tanks and first aid kits. They had minimal training but maximum motivation. Today, Hatzalah organizations function in Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Israel, Mexico, Panama, Russia, South Africa, Switzerland, United Kingdom and Ukraine in addition to ten different US states.