The Rabbi Who Said 'Shabbat Shalom' to a Dog...

I’d like to tell you a true story about the huge impact we can make when we love and respect one another. We can literally accomplish things we never dreamed of.

On Shabbat, I make a habit of greeting everyone I meet with a cheery, “Shabbat Shalom,” even if I don’t know them personally. Why not? Doesn’t everyone deserve such a greeting?

Going back to a certain Shabbat one summer... I was heading to the synagogue for Maariv (the evening prayer) after the afternoon meal, Seudah Shlishit. On my way, I encountered a man whose face was familiar but whose name I didn’t know. I greeted him with a warm “Shabbat Shalom,” and he stopped me and asked if he could have a few moments of my time.

“Sure,” I said.

“Rabbi, I owe you a great debt of gratitude; because of you, my entire family has become religious,” he said.

“Wow, because of me?!” I was intrigued. “What did I do?”

He stared at me for a minute as if he was trying to figure out how I would take his words, and then continued: “The truth is that I became religious because of the ‘Shabbat Shalom’ greeting you used to give my dog.”

Now it was my turn to stare. I asked him what he meant.

“It’s like this. Around fifteen years ago, my mother-in-law lived quite a distance away, and I used to visit her every Shabbat evening. To get there, I had to pass through a religious neighborhood and I actually passed you plenty of times, on your way to the synagogue.

“I’m a smoker and naturally I smoked on Shabbat too... so you saw me walking my dog, smoking a cigarette... and each week you would wish me ‘Shabbat Shalom.’ At first I ignored you but as the weeks passed, I started replying with a greeting of my own, even though I thought it was really dumb. In fact, when I got home I would laugh at you to my wife, at how ‘the rabbi had blessed our dog.’

“You see, it didn’t occur to me that you were actually greeting me. I mean—how could you be wishing a nice Shabbat to a Jew who was smoking and desecrating it—in public?!

“Years passed. You continued to greet me with Shabbat Shalom, and I continued to laugh at you behind your back. Then, my daughter fell ill. During that very difficult period, a neighbor of mine stopped by one day and brought me a newspaper cutting with an article about you, I suppose to lift my spirits. There was a picture, too, and I stared at it.

“ ‘Look—there’s the rabbi who blesses our dog!’ I said to my wife. I don’t know whether I’d even have read the article if I hadn’t recognized your picture. In the end, we both read it and we both started thinking about the power of emunah [faith].

“ ‘Just imagine—this rabbi, who’s been through so much, is such a happy person,’ I said to my wife. ‘His face seems to glow. How come his life didn’t make him bitter?’

“We didn’t change overnight, but over the next few months, we started reading books, going to classes... and eventually we decided to start keeping Shabbat and then everything else too. Rabbi... I really can’t thank you enough.”