Weekly Chasidic Story #972 (s5776-44 / 5 Tammuz 5776)

The Rejected Ruble

"Now remember," the Tzemach Tzedek told him, "pay me back at the end of the term!"

Connection: Weekly Reading of Chukat (outside of Israel), where we learn that the Jews' clothes did not wear out during the 40 years, in the merit of Aharon, brother of Moshe.

 

The Rejected Ruble

 

When I (Yochanan Gordon) was in Lubavitch, the venerable chassid and shoemaker, Reb Alter Berachs, looked back over his life:

In his youth he had learned with a melamed (Torah tutor) whose fee for a half-year's study was 75 kopeks. Most of his fellow students came from the villages around Lubavitch, and the custom those days was for the boys' fathers - when they came to collect their sons at the end of the term to bring them home - paid the melamed's fee then. In the interim the melamed lived... on air. He still needed clothes, though - and where was he supposed to find them?

He went to the Tzemach Tzedek (3rd Lubavitcher Rebbe) to ask for a one-ruble loan. "When will you repay me?" the Rebbe asked. At the end of the term, the melamed replied, when the villagers come to pick up their children - and I will have been paid.

"Now remember," the Rebbe told him, "pay me back at the end of the term!"

You have to keep in mind that a hundred or more years ago, a one-ruble coin was big money; you had to change it for smaller coins. Those were also the times when the township of Lubavitch hosted large trade fairs, when Russian merchants would come from Smolensk, pitch their tents, and show off their wares for weeks on end.

The melamed approached one of those burly characters to change his ruble, and the merchant put the coins for him on the table…but left the ruble. The melamed stood there waiting for him to take the ruble, and the merchant snapped at him: "Take the money already and get out of the way! You are blocking buyers from coming inside."

He went to another merchant to change his ruble, and again it happened; he wouldn't take the Rebbe's ruble. A third merchant turned in the same performance.

The stunned melamed looked down at his hand to make sure he wasn't dreaming. But there they were: three rubles-worth of cash - plus the Tzemach Tzedek's ruble, intact.

He went to return the ruble to the Tzemach Tzedek. "What's your hurry?" the Rebbe asked, "Didn't we make a condition you'd repay me at the end of the term?" The melamed told him what had happened.

"Petoch, Petoch, Petoch ("Fool!")," the Rebbe told him, taking the coin back.

Reaching home the melamed suddenly realized what had really happened, and pulled out hair from his head-literally! "What have I done?!" he stammered, "I could have been freed forever from my poverty - the Rebbe gave me a ruble no non-Jew would ever take!"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Source: Adapted by Yerachmiel Tilles from the original translation of Tuvia Natkin in Kfar Chabad Magazine-English.

Rabbi Gordon's comment:
This fits the Sages' comment on the verse, Maaseh yadav berachtah ("The works of his hands You have blessed" - Jobe 1:10): Everyone who takes a coin from Iyov (Jobe) is blessed.

Biographical note:
Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneersohn [of blessed memory: 29 Elul 5549 - 13 Nissan 5626 (Sept. 1789 - April 1866)], the third Rebbe of Chabad, was known as the Tzemach Tzedek, after his books of Jewish Law responsa and Talmudic commentary called by that name. He was renowned not only as a Rebbe, but also as a leading scholar in his generation in both the revealed and hidden aspects of Torah.

Connection: Weekly Reading of Chukat (outside of Israel), where we learn that the Jews' clothes did not wear out during the 40 years, in the merit of Aharon, brother of Moshe.




Yerachmiel Tilles is co-founder and associate director of Ascent-of-Safed, and chief editor of this website (and of KabbalaOnline.org). He has hundreds of published stories to his credit, and many have been translated into other languages. He tells them live at Ascent nearly every Saturday night.

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