New York and Gibraltar are two places, which don't immediately invite comparison. Look up at the buildings in New York and you look up and up and...well, up! Look up at the Buildings in Gibraltar and you find you haven't had to lift your head very high at all.

New York is an "Og Melech HaBoshon" of a place with a population of about eight and a half million. Gibraltar is a "Paroh" of a place and has a population of about thirty five thousand. Economically, culturally, artistically academically and by almost every other measure, New York reflects it's giant status. Gibraltar is, well ...small. You would have to try very hard indeed to find any comparison beyond those made in the most general sense. Except in one area their...Jews.

A few weeks ago, I was saying Shiurim in New York. One of my closest friends is Rabbi Dovid Gotlieb Shlita of Yerushalayim. He also spends a large amount of his time speaking abroad. I recall him once telling me that one of the compensations for being away from your family is that you invariably find yourself staying with the nicest people. On this New York trip I struck gold. My hosts were a Chasidishe couple whose children have already grown up and married. The Baal HaBayis found a few days off work in which he treated me to a conducted tour of Boro Park. He showed me scores of Shuls, Yeshivas and the splendour of the insititutions of Bobov. He worried about whether I had phoned home and had enough food. When he was happy I had everything that I needed he would go off to one of the several Shiurim he attended each day. We would rendezvous at Maariv and return for supper. At one meal his Rebbetzin mentioned the difficulties involved in maintaining a true Jewish perspective surrounded by the wealth and opulence of America. "While we are busy trying to live it down," she commented, "Others are busy trying to live it up!"

For this couple and their family and friends there was Torah, Davening and helping other people, "Al Shlosho Devorim HaOlom Omeid..." "On three things the world stands, on Torah on Prayer and on acts of Kindness.

The week before, I was speaking in Gibraltar. The tiny Jewish community manages to maintain a Jewish school system from primary to separate boys and girls secondary schools, four synagogues a Kosher Restaurant and a Kollel.

Here, overlooking the narrowest bit of the Mediterranean where you can look across to Morocco can be heard the sound of Torah being learnt and taught.

One of the synagogues, which must be the most beautiful Shul I have ever seen is called Nefutsot Yehudah. It's patterned ornate plasterwork and hanging Silver candleholders combine with a stunning Aron HaKodesh of absolutely unique design.

The Chazan of the Shul is an elderly man whose voice still maintains a gentle beauty and whose passion for Sephardi Melodies has only grown with his seventy-seven years.

He found me in the Shul one night. I had arrived early before my Shiur and he approached me with a concerned expression. "You look as though you are worrying about something." he said and indeed I had been thinking over a problem or two. He looked up into my eyes and put his arms on my shoulders and started to sing to me. The Nigun was one I had never heard and in Hebrew he very quietly sang the words of Tehilim 121,

It was this Jew's Brocho; expressed in the way he knew best and could do most sincerely. Someone told me he often does it if he likes someone or sees them looking worried.

Another town, another place but here too Torah, Tefillah and tremendous Chesed.

At the end of Mishpotim, Moshe, Aaron, Nodov, Avihu and the Elders ascend Har Sinai. The Posuk reports that the saw a vision of HaShem. Under His "feet" was a floor made of Saphire bricks. Rashi comments that the flooring was like this throughout the enslavement of the Jews in Egypt to act as a constant reminder of the situation of Klal Yisroel. The obvious difficulty with the Rashi is the fact that HaShem doesn't need a reminder. He is constantly aware of everything.

Reb Simcha Zissel Zt'l explains that if you are going to be able to be concerned about people and want to help them you must picture their situation clearly in your mind. After that you must take it a stage further, imagine the same picture only with you in it. That was the message HaShem was showing Moshe in this vision.

Earlier in the Sedra when the Torah demands

Rashi questions why the verse says "The poor man with you." and makes the same point. "Picture yourself as though you were the poor man."

There is a famous Gemora in Nedorim 39b which states,

The Gemora exclaims then let sixty people visit a sick person to cure him. The statement of Reb Acha Bar Channinah is then qualified. The first visitor takes away a sixtieth of the persons suffering the second visitor takes away a sixtieth of the remainder and the next takes away a sixtieth of the remaining fraction. Sixty visitors will not be enough. Then the Gemora makes a further qualification. It is only if the visitor is "Ben Gilo" that he will alleviate the person's condition.

Rashi says "Ben Gilo" refers to a young man visiting a sick person who is also a young man or an old man visiting a sick person who is also an old man.

The Ran says Ben Gilo means that the visitor has to have been born with the same Mazal as the ill person. Both are saying the same thing, the visitor needs to be able to picture himself as though he was the one who was ill.

In heaven they have decided that the invalid should have an exact amount of suffering, no more and no less. If someone feels so much empathy with the sufferer that he sees himself as though he was lying there then he will take some of the suffering that was intended for the person he is visiting. That amount of pain is no longer available to give to the patient.

While I was in New York I went into the Lakewood Beis HaMedrash on 16th Avenue to Daven Mincha. There sat scores of Chavrusos, most of whom were well over sixty years old.

Chairs scraped the floor as people stood up and started to Daven. When they did so, it was with the sincerity and concentration that a lifetime of Davening produces. There was total concentration and sincerity. I turned my mind back to the elderly Chazan who had sang to me a few days before in Gibraltar.

Here too was Klal Yisroel. Whether young or old, in one city or another you can find them learning HaShem's Torah or Davening with complete devotion. If you are a guest from out of town you'll find them bombarding you with the most unbelievable Chesed. Just before they approach you, they will have pictured themselves standing as the stranger in town and wondered, "If I was in that situation, what would I like people to do for me." Then they will be asking if you have place to stay or would you join them for a meal and worrying about whether you've had the chance to phone home.