ears ago, they did not have fire departments, and if a fire broke out they would need to quickly form a human chain to the river that was closest to the village.
In a lot of big towns, they decided to build high watch towers where there would be people who would stand there and look all around the city to see if there is any fire coming from any house. If they saw fire they would pull a little but strong string! and then guess what happens! When the person pulls that string there would be a loud noise all over town! Which would tell everyone to get their buckets and form a human chain to the river! usually another house would catch on fire but the people would manage to put the fire out in the end. Once there was a person who came from a small little shtetl. When he entered the city, he heard a huge bang and a lot of noise came from somewhere, and everyone began running towards the gates of the city. The man was confused “what is going on?” he said to himself. He decided to ask somebody, what is happening. The person told him that a fire broke out! The man then asked the person “so how does sounding a bell help?” the person answered “when the bell sounds the fire is quickly put out!” the man not understanding what the person meant said “genius! Why didn’t I think up of that in the first place?!” and then went on to the next city to buy a bell. When he returned to his city he called a meeting and showed everyone what he purchased. He said “now whenever there is a fire we do not need to worry all we do is ring the bell and the fire will go out! The people believed him. The next time a fire broke out the people gathered around the man, but as much as he may shake it, it did not put out the fire. And in the end the village burned down to pieces.
The dubno maggid zt”l, told this story as a moshel. Just like the bell did nothing to put out the fire the shofar is not enough to save us on the day of judgment because the sounds of a shofar are only to remind us to repent to have a happy sweet new year
Jew Perfect | 3
Y
Yisroel Stiefel
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