It was erev pesach, and Mr. Gold, the butcher, was very busy in his shop. People were coming and buying their large pesach orders. Business, one could say, was booming. R' Yosef, a kollel yungeleit from the neighborhood, walked into the shop. He looked around at the hustle and bustle of the many customers selecting their meats for pesach, at the rush of the per-pesach poultry shopping, and he got an idea. He approached Mr. Gold, and asked to speak with him.
"Mr. Gold," began R' Yosef, "I am a yeshivah student. You know I don't have much money. You have so much business during this time of the year, can't you please give me a reduced price on my meat?" Mr. Gold looked at R' Yosef and shook his head. "You are better off than I am."
R' Yosef was shocked. How could that be? He asked Mr. Gold for an explanation. So Mr. Gold explained. "All day, I every day, I work from morning to night, preparing chicken and meat for ther store. I am busy with animals, with fleish, all day long. And you, I am sure, also work from morning to night. The difference is, when I go to sleep at night, I dream about what? I dream about fleish, about the shop, and worst of all, I dream about money. You? You go to sleep and dream about amar R' Abaye.... And if you think that the shop is busy, and therefore I have lots of extra money, you are sadly mistaken. Nobody ever has too much or too little money. Hashem has many ways of ensuring that the correct amounts of money are distributed.
"For example, All year long, I manage with the money I have. Suddenly, it's erev pesach, and I am making more money than before. So what happens? One of my children gets a toothache, and needs a root canal. Another child falls and breaks a bone, and needs to be seen by a fancy private doctor. The car needs repairs... All these things never happen to me normally.
"And what happens with you? You need the extra money, as Pesach is coming, so you get an idea into your head, and you make a shidduch. Then someone needs you to tutor their son. All kinds of extra sources of income that you normally don't have...because you need the money now. Just because you are learning and I am working...you don't make less money than I do."
Reb Yosef understood what Mr. Gold had said, but he had one last question. "So why have you chosen to work, rather than learn?" Mr. Gold's answer was simple. "My nature is that I can't sit. So instead I have to work, therefore, I go out and I supply the tzibur with kosher meat."
Imagine if we could all reach the level of bitachon that Mr. Gold is on?
(Names have been changed.)
2 comments:
Wow! What an beautiful and powerful story!!!!!
Are you sure your level of bitachon is so far from his?
OK, I get your point and accept it. Great story.
But I still have to point out that with that view of things, the butcher could have given him the discount, believing that to make up for it he'd have, say, one less toothache that year. His words ring true but his actions are contradictory.
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