By Rabbi Nissan Mindel
Many are the stories about the piety and unusual qualities of the little boy [who grew up to become the Rebbe Reshab of Chabad]. One of the stories worth remembering:
Shalom Dovber was then about four years old. He happened to be with his mother when the tailor brought her a garment he had made up for her.
The boy busied himself around the tailor, and, without any particular thought in mind, pulled out a piece of material from the tailor's pocket. The tailor blushed and began to stammer an explanation that he had really meant to return the piece of cloth which was left over, but had forgotten to do so.
When he was gone, the mother said to her boy, "See, what you did to that poor man; you shamed him and made him unhappy. You must be careful never to shame anybody, even if you do not mean any harm."
The boy felt very sorry and cried bitterly. For a few weeks he carried the burden of the sin, then one day he asked his father, "Father, how can one make good the sin of shaming someone?" His father told him what to do, and asked him what had happened.
"I just wanted to know," the boy replied.
Later, his mother asked him why he didn't want to tell his father what had happened. To which the boy replied gravely, "Is it not enough that I sinned by shaming someone? Would you have me sin again by bearing tales and saying bad things about someone?"
To tell the whole story to his father would have meant telling him also about the dishonesty of the tailor, and this he did not want to do.
Reprinted from this week’s website – Chabad.Org
