In Parashah Vayeilech, on the last day of his life, Moshe Rabbeinu says, “I am a hundred and twenty years old today.” It was Moshe’s birthday – Adar 7; he died on his birthday. Chazal (Sotah 13b) teach, “Hashem completes the years of the righteous from day to day and from month to month.” The righteous will live out their years fully. Hashem sees to it that the righteous live complete lives, even if their birth and death dates do not coincide. Amalei, “I will fulfill,” means that the tzadik will not die before his time; only once his goal and achievements are complete.
I would like to suggest another point of view with regard to providing the tzadik with a complete life. First, a little background. Horav Yisrael Salanter, zl, founder of the Mussar movement, was the paragon of ethical sensitivity which was matched only by his extraordinary brilliance in Talmud and its commentaries. In addition, he was a powerful orator and prolific writer. He spent his life traveling from Lithuania to St. Petersburg, as well as to Berlin and Paris, reaching out to audiences throughout these bustling communities in order to inspire them to study mussar. He established kollelim and kloizen, places where men could study Torah and mussar. All of this cost money which he did not have. People of means, however, considered it a privilege to support him. He took only the barest minimum that he needed to survive. He was so poor that he did not even have sufficient funds for travel expenses to attend the weddings of some of his children. When he died, his sole possessions were his Tallis and Tefillin. He spent the last twenty-five years of his life traveling across western Europe, engaged in his battle to preserve adherence to Torah and mitzvos.
Now, for the story. Rav Yisrael was humble – so humble that he believed he was neither genuinely deserving of the designation tzadik, nor was he worthy of any titles of honor. He was kulo l’Hashem, every fiber of his being was devoted to Hashem. He feared that he was misleading the public by allowing them to bestow upon him any undue honor. He believed in this so strongly that he issued a remarkable halachic ruling concerning himself. Should he become dangerously ill on Shabbos, he instructed that no one should desecrate Shabbos on his behalf. He based this ruling on a passage in the Talmud (Avodah Zarah 12b) stating that, if a thief falls into a deep pit on Shabbos, he is not worthy of having anyone violate Shabbos to rescue him.
Why would Rav Yisrael apply such a source to himself? Because he felt that people erred in viewing him as a great tzadik. If, in fact, since he was not deserving of that title, then by allowing others to think otherwise, he was, in a sense, taking something that did not belong to him – stealing their esteem under false pretenses. Therefore, he reasoned, he was comparable to the thief which the Gemara described.
Word of Rav Yisrael’s ruling reached the ears of the Rav of Kovno, Horav Yitzchak Elchonon Spektor, zl, who knew Rav Yisrael quite well and held him in the greatest esteem. He countermanded Rav Yisrael’s ruling saying, “Tell Rav Yisrael that the Kovner Rav has ruled that one should desecrate Shabbos to save his life.”
Rav Yisrael died in the winter of 1883 in Koenigsberg. Despite the ruling of the Kovner Rav, the will of Rav Yisrael prevailed in that Shabbos was never desecrated on his behalf. His last illness began on Motzei Shabbos, and his pure neshamah left this world the following Erev Shabbos. Hashem completed his years to the point that He respected the tzadik’s wish. His boundless humility, selflessness, and total devotion to Klal Yisrael revealed the true nature of the tzadik who never saw himself as others saw him. Hashem “sided” with public opinion.
