Rebbe Rebbe

A Mini-Series on Ahavas Yisroel and Ahavas Chesed

HaRav Ahron Walkin: My Zaidy was a big giver; he was ac- customed to giving and not taking. The first Halacha in the Shulchan Aruch is, “Be brazen like a Nemer (leopard) and Gibor (strong) like an Ari (lion). My grandfather would of- ten remark that the law could have been written, “Gibor kanamer, be

strong like a
Leopard as well”.
However, as he
would explain
with wordplay in
the Yiddish lan-
guage, “a nemer
is nisht kain
giber, un a giber
is nisht kain ne-
mer”, a taker
(nimer) is usual-
ly not a giver
(giber), and a giver is usually not a taker. My Zaidy was a tremendous giver and not a taker.

We Ashkenazim have a custom of calling up the groom to the Torah on the Shabbat before a wedding; this is called