Personal Stories

The 103-Year-Old Grandmother Who Taught the Power of Gratitude

A remarkable woman’s heartfelt message shows how even one blessing can light up a lifetime.

  • פורסם ז' כסלו התשפ"ב
(Photo: shutterstock)(Photo: shutterstock)
אא
#VALUE!

"There is an amazing story about Grandmother Eisenbach," says Rabbi Eliezer Yudkovsky in the beautiful Passover Haggadah Doresh Tov. He mentions that the Eisenbach family is one of the largest in Jerusalem. It was said that Grandmother Eisenbach left behind nearly a thousand descendants.

Rabbi Yehoshua Leib Diskin, the Rav of Jerusalem, had a unique and touching custom every Shabbat. He would walk through Jerusalem visiting two kinds of people. The first group were those who were distant from Torah—people who no longer came to shul (synagogue). He would approach them with a warm smile and say, “Shabbat Shalom! Shabbat Shalom! How are you? How is your health?” These simple visits had a powerful impact, often inspiring people to come back to Torah and mitzvot (commandments).

The second group he visited were those who were physically ill. One Shabbat, he visited the neighborhood of Meah Shearim and entered the small, humble home of Grandmother Eisenbach.

“Gut Shabbos!” said Rabbi Yehoshua Leib to the elderly woman.

“Git Shabbos!” she replied. “Thank you for coming—and since you're already here, give me a blessing!”

Of course, the Rabbi agreed. He closed his eyes and said, “Rebbetzin Eisenbach, be healthy. There can be no greater blessing than that!”

But the grandmother wasn’t impressed. “Honorable Rabbi,” she said, “I asked for a good blessing, and you gave me such a simple one?”

It’s worth mentioning here, notes Rabbi Yudkovsky, that she was already 103 years old. She suffered from heart issues, diabetes, digestive problems, pressure sores, and many other difficult health conditions.

Rabbi Yehoshua Leib was surprised. “I gave you a blessing for health—isn’t that a good one? What could be better than that?”

But he understood that you don’t argue with a Jewish grandmother. “You’re right,” he said gently. “I bless you to have joy from all your descendants.”

Could there be a greater blessing than that? To know that your children and grandchildren are following Hashem’s path and bringing light into the world?

But she still wasn’t satisfied. “Honorable Rabbi, are you making fun of me? I asked for a good blessing!”

The Rabbi explained, “I blessed you to have joy from all your descendants. Do you know how powerful that is? The Gemara (Talmud) says that bad behavior in a person’s home is harder to bear than even the war of Gog and Magog—one of the worst catastrophes we can imagine. I bless you that there should be only joy and peace in your family.”

Still, she didn’t seem content. So the great Rabbi asked, “Tell me, what blessing do you want?”

She answered without hesitation: “Rabbi, bless me to have long life!”

A 103-year-old woman, with so many health issues, asking for more years of life—it amazed him.

“You enjoy this life so much?” the Rabbi asked. “The Mishnah in Pirkei Avot (Ethics of the Fathers) says that at 100, a person is considered as if they’ve passed from this world. And yet this is what you still ask for?”

Grandmother Eisenbach answered with a depth that moved him to tears.

"Honorable Rabbi! The angels and heavenly beings wait for thousands of years just to say 'Kadosh'—'Holy'—once before Hashem. Have you ever seen someone wait an hour at a health clinic? It causes such a commotion! Yet the angels wait patiently, and for them, it's worth it."

At that, Rabbi Yehoshua Leib began to cry.

The grandmother continued, her words coming straight from the heart. “Almost all week, I cannot say Tehillim (Psalms) or anything holy because I am not ritually clean enough. A person in that state isn’t allowed to say words of Torah. But once a week, volunteers from the neighborhood come. They bathe me, dress me in fresh clothes, and give me a cup of tea with lemon. And in that moment—I make a blessing.

‘Baruch’—You are the source of blessing. ‘Atah’—We get to say ‘You’ to the Creator! ‘Hashem’—Who was, is, and will be. ‘Elokeinu’—Our powerful God. ‘Melech ha’olam’—King of the world. ‘Shehakol nihyeh bidvaro’—that everything exists through His word!”

She looked at the Rabbi and said with deep feeling, “Is it not worth all my suffering—the pressure sores, the diabetes, the heart troubles—just to be able to thank Hashem for this cup of tea? Not once in tens of thousands of years like the angels—but every single week I have the privilege to do this!”

Rabbi Yehoshua Leib couldn’t hold back his tears. “Oh, how right the grandmother is!”

Rabbi Yudkovsky ends the story with a heartfelt lesson. “Do we feel this way after we finish studying Gemara for two hours? Do we dance with joy?

One word of Torah is equal to 613 mitzvot. You can say two hundred words in a minute. So when you finish learning, when you leave a prayer or a Torah class—are you filled with joy? Do you say, ‘Thank You, Hashem, for letting me do something angels wait tens of thousands of years to do?’

If we don’t feel that joy—something is missing.”

Purple redemption of the elegant village: Save baby life with the AMA Department of the Discuss Organization

Call now: 073-222-1212

תגיות:spiritualityJewish wisdomgratitude

Articles you might missed

Lecture lectures
Shopped Revival

מסע אל האמת - הרב זמיר כהן

60לרכישה

מוצרים נוספים

מגילת רות אופקי אבות - הרב זמיר כהן

המלך דוד - הרב אליהו עמר

סטרוס נירוסטה זכוכית

מעמד לבקבוק יין

אלי לומד על החגים - שבועות

ספר תורה אשכנזי לילדים

To all products

*In accurate expression search should be used in quotas. For example: "Family Pure", "Rabbi Zamir Cohen" and so on