A rebbetzin, who is a tzaddekes, went over to her washing machine intending to turn it on. For twelve years she’d been using this machine six days a week. She fulfills her job faithfully and washes the dark, light, and colored clothing, each load in the way it needs to be done. Truthfully, the rebbetzin never thought about the great wonder – how a machine that was expected to lasts about five years was working so well and never needed to be repaired, but this is the way of the world. People don’t ask why a machine is working. They only ask why it stopped working, and now her machine had stopped working.
Suddenly, with no prior warning, it would not respond to any of the rebbetzin’s attempts to get its attention. She pressed here, banged there, but the machine informed her soundlessly that it had finally died.
That evening, someone close to the rebbetzin met an avreich at a wedding. “Are you the rebbetzin’s relative?” he asked. “Yes, I am,” the relative responded. “And I’ll tell you something interesting. When I was a bachur, the rebbetzin would come from time to time to encourage my mother, who was widowed. She also helped me a lot when I was preparing for my wedding, twelve years ago, and she gave me a washing machine as a gift. Today the machine we got from the rebbetzin broke down.”
The relative told the rebbetzin about this conversation, and she became very emotional. She realized that it was around the time of his wedding that she had bought herself a washing machine, and she made sure to buy one for the orphaned chassan as well. That week both machines, which had held up far longer than usual, broke down. When she gave with all her heart, she did not know that she was lengthening the life of her own machine; and when it broke down for the recipient of her chessed, hers broke down as well.
How important is it to give; how much giving helps the giver!
