In the home of a certain avreich, the sefarim were weighing heavily on the shelves, which were on the verge of collapse. Several shelves had in fact fallen apart, and the sefarim were then placed ceremoniously on the dining room table. Other sefarim were in cartons, and the woman of the house came to the conclusion that she could not go on this way. They needed a new bookcase.
She went to a furniture store and found a simple bookcase that suited their home. At the register she opened her checkbook and asked to pay in as many installments as possible. “We don’t take checks,” the seller told her. “You can pay by credit card or cash.”
She had neither cash nor a credit card, and so she called my wife and asked her if perhaps she had a credit card and would be able to help her by paying for her in installments. Obviously, she wasn’t asking for money, just for a means of payment. She had every intention of giving us the sum we would pay for her on our card.
When I heard what she needed, I told my wife to tell her we’d see what we could do. My credit card could not make the type of payment the company wanted, but Baruch Hashem, a Yid is never left alone, and there are many Yidden who want to do chessed. I thought about who I might ask to pay with his credit card, and I called a Yid whom I know to be someone who loves to help. He heard my request, and he was simply excited by the offer: “Tell them,” he told me, “that I have cash for them. This is ma’aser money that I wanted to give to a talmid chacham. And I see that this is the perfect address for the money.”
I was so happy to be the agent to connect the giver with the receiver. I saw tangibly how when a Yid needs something, Hakadosh Baruch Hu provides it.
