This week we take a break from our regularly scheduled parsha (weekly Torah reading) and read about Pesach (Passover). Last year I shared some insights on Passover and you can read them here.
This year I want to share a story. It takes place a few hundred years ago in a small town in Russia. It was your usual Jewish village with a rabbi and a couple of beggars, lots of children and poor people, and a wealthy miser.
This miser was special. He was the most miserly of the miserly. Children would run behind him and shout out how miserly he was and how bad and evil he was for not sharing even one ruble with the poor Jews of the town.
Eventually this miser was on his death bed. The chevre kadishah (Jewish burial society) and the rabbi were at his side, pleading with him to save his soul and do tshuvah (repent) by giving just 1 ruble of his vast sum to the poor. What would it hurt? After all, you can’t take it with you.
The miser refused and passed on. Nobody would stay with the body that night as is Jewish custom, not even the rabbi.
The next day, the rabbi pleaded hard with the townsfolk in order to get 4 men willing to take the miser’s body to the cemetery. When they got there, they thought to themselves, “This miser was so evil, he does not deserve to be buried in a Jewish cemetery.” So, they dug a shallow grave just outside the walls of the cemetery, through a couple of big rocks over the body barely covered by dirt, and left him there.
The next day was Friday and the rabbi was in his office as usual in the morning. One of the townsfolk came in and asked him for a ruble in order to buy food for shabbat. The rabbi opened his desk drawer and pulled out a ruble and gave it to him (he always kept a few ruples on hand for the poor – when he had any money at all). A little while later, another person came in asking for 2 rubles for shabbat food. Then another and another. Quickly the rabbi was out of money, and very puzzled.
It seemed like the half the town had come to him asking for money. Granted the town was poor, but never like this. At most it was 2 or 3 people who came to him for money for shabbat.
The rabbi decided to investigate and see what was going on. He left his office, closing the door behind him, and went to the marketplace. On the way he stopped one of the townsfolk he had given money to, “I don’t want to pry, but tell me, how is it you came to need money for shabbat this week?”
The young man looked a little uncomfortable as he answered the rabbi, “It was the strangest thing, rabbi,” he started. “I had no money when I first came to this town and shabbat was coming. I knocked on the door of the miser and he let me in. He sat me down and fed me and stated to ask me questions. Things like what I did for a living and if I was married and how many children I have. Eventually he asked why I came and I told him I needed money for shabbat. He asked me how much I needed and he was so nice and interested, I didn’t hesitate. I told him the exact amount. Well after I told him he flew into a rage. How dare I come to him asking for money and worse! He then through me out of his house and told me never to come back. And I never did.”
The man paused for a moment and raised his eyes and looked directly at the rabbi. “The funny thing, ” he continued, “Is that the next Friday morning, and every Friday morning since, I found an envelope under my door for the exact amount I needed for shabbat. Well, every Friday morning, until today.”
The rabbi thanked him for sharing his story and wished him a good shabbos and walked away. Soon he found an older woman who he had given money to and asked her the same question and got the same answer. Over and over again, the rabbi heard the same thing.
Slowly the truth dawned on him with a great horror. The man they called a miser and was so disliked by the town (himself included) was actually a hidden tzaddik (righteous man) . It was this miser who gave the town the money they needed for shabbat and was pretending to be a miser so as to not embarrass them by having them come to him and beg, or feel ashamed or obligated to him whenever he walked by. And this man was now buried outside the cemetery without even a proper burial. At this point it was late in the day and he didn’t know what to do. The sun was setting and shabbat was about to begin.
That night, as he was going to bed, he decided he was going to tell everyone about how bad they were in misjudging the miser.
He never told the people a thing because that night the miser came to him in a dream. The rabbi saw him and fell to his need begging forgiveness for not having attended his body after he died and for not accompanying the body to the cemetery and giving it a proper burial inside the Jewish part of the cemetery.
The miser stopped him and picked him up off the ground and sat him down on the bed and sat down next to him. He said to the rabbi, “Do you think my body wasn’t attended to? I had Eliyahu (Elijah) the prophet with my body the whole time. And you think nobody accompanied me to my burial? The procession was led by King David and Moshe (Moses) was right behind him, along with his brother Aharon. Avraham and Sarah, and Yitzchak (Isaac) and Rebecca, and Yaakov (Jacob) and Leach and Rachel were behind me. All around me were Yaakov’s 12 sons, and his daughter Dinah. And behind them were our sages of blessed memory. No, I was well accompanied, do not feel bad. And where I am buried is also nothing to worry about. In the future, this town will became a major center for the Jews. The cemetery will expand and my body will be within its new boundaries, and will be surrounded by scholars who passed on after long lives. So, do not feel bad in the least. All I ask of you is to say kaddish for me, as I have no children, and to please not reveal to anyone what I did. If you are willing to do those things, I will tell you where I hid my fortune so you can continue to help our people enjoy the holy shabbat as it is meant to be enjoyed.”
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This story I heard when I was in Israel. However I do not remember where the story came from. If you know please comment below. Thanks and chag samayach and shabbat shalom!
About the Author
Shmuel Shalom Cohen spent 10 years studying Torah in Jerusalem. Six years ago, he started Conscious Torah to help Jews connect to their tradition in ways they didn’t think possible. Shmuel also started, and is the executive directory of Jewish Events Willamette-valley, a non-profit whose mission is to build Jewish community, pride, and learning. In his free time, Shmuel likes walks in nature, playing music, writing poetry, and time with good friends.