Playing My Part in Hashem’s Symphony

In the booklet For You Are With Me, there’s a touching story about a rabbi who taught in a yeshiva in the United States. During the break between semesters, he went up to the mountains for a vacation. While learning in the local study hall, he noticed an elderly man sitting nearby. The man was studying from a Schottenstein edition of the Talmud with great focus and joy, though it was clear that he was struggling to understand the complex page of Gemara and its commentary.

Despite the effort it took, the man’s face radiated happiness and satisfaction as he learned.

Eventually, the rabbi and the elderly man struck up a conversation. The man shared that he had an incurable illness. “The top doctors have given up,” he said. “But I’m still happy because a few years ago I was lucky to become close to Judaism, and now I study Gemara. This learning gives me life. It gives my days meaning. Every page I understand gives me strength, and I don’t worry about what tomorrow will bring.”

The two became friends. They often sat together, and the rabbi helped him grasp the more difficult parts of the Gemara. One day, however, the rabbi entered the study hall and found his friend looking unusually sad.

“What happened?” he asked.

The elderly man explained, “Earlier, a few talmidei chachamim (serious Torah scholars) were here, discussing Torah with such depth and brilliance. I watched them and thought to myself: who am I? What does Hashem need my learning for, when He already has such great Torah scholars in the world? I can barely make it through a page…”

The rabbi responded with a smile. “This morning at breakfast, I read a story in the newspaper about a famous American composer named Sachs. He spent his life writing complex musical pieces. A journalist had been interviewing him for a biography. One day, the journalist asked to visit him, but the composer said he couldn’t and that he wanted to stay home that evening to listen to the New York Philharmonic perform a concert featuring only his music. The performance was being broadcast on the radio, and though he didn’t have the strength to attend in person, he wanted to hear it live.”

The journalist asked to join him, and the composer agreed. That night, the concert was beautiful. The music was rich and moving, and the journalist was deeply impressed. But he noticed that the composer looked unhappy.

“Why aren’t you smiling?” the journalist asked. “The orchestra played your work so beautifully!”

The composer replied, “They were missing one violinist out of the fifteen needed.”

“How can you possibly know that?” the journalist asked. “No one else noticed, not even the conductor!”

The composer answered, “I wrote the music. I know every note, every role in the orchestra. Each musician has unique parts to play, some for a few seconds, some for longer. I could hear that one violin was missing, and without that part, the composition wasn’t complete.”

The journalist later confirmed with the Philharmonic that indeed, one violinist had fallen ill last-minute and wasn’t present. Even they hadn’t realized the difference.

The rabbi turned to his friend. “Do you understand now? Most people don’t know what their exact mission in this world is. But the Composer, Hashem, knows. Every Jew has a unique and irreplaceable note to play in His symphony. You, with all your effort and your heartfelt learning, are playing yours beautifully. And without you, the composition is not whole.”

A year later, the rabbi returned to that vacation town and searched for his friend. Sadly, he was told that the elderly man had passed away not long before. But they added something touching.

“Every single day until his last,” they said, “he continued to study Torah with devotion. And before he would begin learning, he would say with joy: ‘I am now going to play my special and unique part in Hashem’s composition.’”

This beautiful story echoes the teaching of our Sages in the Gemara, Tractate Sanhedrin:
“Therefore, man was created singly, to teach you that whoever destroys a single soul from Israel, it is as if he destroyed an entire world. And whoever saves a single soul from Israel, it is as if he saved an entire world.”

Every Jew matters. Every act of Torah, every mitzvah, every note we play in Hashem’s grand symphony has infinite value.

Courtesy of the Dirshu website.