A Speech in Shamayim-Language
A Jew who was living in China came to European business. After his business was done, he decided to go to Radin to visit the Chafetz Chaim before embarking on his homeward journey to that faraway land. The Chafetz Chaim asked him how the Jews in China were faring, and the visitor told him that things were in a bad state; Jewish life was hanging by a tenuous thread. The Chafetz Chaim sighed and said that the situation was similar in other far-flung places around the world, where the number of Jews was small and Torah observance was being neglected. He gave his visitor a copy of sefer Nidchei Yisrael, which he had written especially for Jews who’d been carried away by Divine Providence to such far-off localities.
Then the Chafetz Chaim asked his visitor what was going on in China in general, among the non-Jews. The visitor didn't quite know what aspect of Chinese life to talk about, so the Chafetz Chaim asked, what was the last thing he had seen reported in the newspapers in China? The visitor recalled a story about the construction of a dam to stop the flow of a certain river. Tens of thousands of people had moved into agricultural settlements on the newly-dry land. But then tragedy struck: the dam burst, and with sudden force, the mighty river’s waters flooded the new settlements. Tens of thousands of Chinese people paid with their lives.
Hearing this, the Chafetz Chaim began to cry. “So the midas hadin has reached all the way to there?” he said.
The visitor, astounded, asked, “When I told the Rav about the miserable state of Yiddishkeit in China, he sighed and gave me a book, and now, when I tell him a natural disaster that killed tens of thousands of Chinese people, he cries?”
The Chafetz Chaim answered him, “Have you ever been in Warsaw?”
The visitor nodded. Yes, he had.
“How many non-Jews live there, in the Polish capital?”
The businessman named a figure of about a million.
“And how many Jews?”
“About 300,000.”
The Chafetz Chaim then asked him, “If you were to go there and stand on a soapbox in a main square, and start giving a mussar shmuess in Yiddish, who would gather around to listen?”
“The Jews, of course.”
“But they’re the minority,” the Chafetz Chaim pointed out.
“Yes,” said the businessman, “but the Poles don’t understand Yiddish!”
“I will explain the nimshal of the soapbox speech to you,” said the Chafetz Chaim. “A flood is a speech in Shamayim-language. Who understands it? Only the Jews. And the Hand of Heaven guided you here to Radin to tell me about the flood in China, in order to alert me to pay attention, like the Gemara says in Yevamos. And that is why I’m so disturbed.”