Bidding on Buildings and Baby Boys

After the ceremony, the Maharsha called the gabbai and made the following request: “Please ask the donor if he would be agreeable for you to divulge his identity to me alone.” When the donor heard that the Maharsha himself wants to know his identity, he immediately consented as long as it remained a secret to everyone else.

The Maharsha summoned the donor into his study. The donor did not appear to be a man of means. He explained to the Maharsha that, in fact, he was not a wealthy man, and that the 500 rubles he had paid for the cornerstone laying constituted nearly his entire net worth. He had prayed incessantly to be blessed with children and was not yet answered. He thought that perhaps in the merit of donating so much tzedakah secretly, Hashem would bless him with children.

The Maharsha was touched by the donor’s words and blessed him that he would have a son who would study in the new yeshiva. Within a year, the donor’s wife gave birth to a boy. When the child reached bar mitzvah age, his father brought him to the Maharsha’s yeshiva. The gabbai, however, rejected him on the grounds that he was too young for yeshiva gedola. The father introduced himself and his son to the Maharsha. The Maharsha immediately accepted the boy into his yeshiva.

HaRav Moshe Dov HaLevi Soloveichik commented that, in fact, the Mahrsha based his blessing for a son on a Gemara in Moed Katan 9a. The Gemara says that when the first Beis Hamikdosh was completed, the Jewish nation rejoiced for seven days. One of those seven days was Yom Kippur. Yet based on the counsel of the sages, they even ate and drank on Yom Kippur. However, they were nevertheless nervous that they would be punished for this infraction until a Heavenly voice proclaimed, “You will all merit the World to Come!” Further, the Gemara notes that all who participated in the festivities merited to have a baby boy that year. HaRav Soloveichik explained that the Maharsha reasoned that if someone who took part in the Chanukas Beis HaMikdash merited a son, then someone who had such an integral role in the inauguration of a beis medrash will likewise merit a son.

One could ask that perhaps all those who celebrated in the time of the completion of the Beis Hamikdash rejoiced solely for the sake of heaven and therefore merited sons, whereas this individual gave the charity with the ulterior motive that he merit a son. The Maharsha notes that the Heavenly voice proclaimed, “All of you will merit the World to Come.” The Maharsha explains that the term “all of you” comes to include even those who ate and drank on that particular Yom Kippur not for the sake of heaven but rather for their own gastronomic pleasure. Even they will merit the World to Come. It is clear from the Maharsha’s comments that not everyone who rejoiced back then did so solely for the sake of heaven and yet they still merited having a baby boy that year.

My father and Rebbe, shlita, pointed out that there is a medrash that expresses a somewhat related idea. The medrash Tanchuma in Parshas Emor says, “Rebbe Tanchuma expounded the verse (Iyov 43:3), ‘Who came to meet Me? I will pay [his reward]. Everything under the heavens is Mine.’” This refers to a bachelor who lives in the country and pays the wages of the teachers of Torah and Mishnayos. Hashem says, “I will pay the reward for his exertion to grant him a son.”

According to the Maharzu, the reward for paying the wages of rebbeim is not only that he’ll have a son but that he’ll find a wife as well. This is evident because the individual in the medrash was a bachelor!