Before he left, he went back to retrieve his wallet of his savings that he’d given to the Saraf’s wife to watch over Shabbos. When he requested that she return the bag, she denied having every received it.
“When Shabbos was approaching,” he reminded her, “I handed you my personal belongings to protect over Shabbos. You happily agreed then, and now you’re denying it?”
“What belongings?" she unassumingly replied. “You didn’t give me anything to watch!”
Raising his voice, he replied, “Before Shabbos, I gave you all my savings!”
Seeing the ignorance in her eyes he raised his voice louder. “That was all money that I’d been saving for many years to finally take to the marketplace. I need that money to sustain my wife and kids, and now you’re robbing it from me! What cruelty!”
The Saraf’s wife went to explain, “You see for yourself, that when something affects you deeply you also get emotional. When something is of value, you don’t remain calm, you get worked up. It’s just a matter of what affects you. To my husband it’s a davening, and to you it’s your money.”
The Saraf’s wife calmly went to get the merchant’s money, but before she handed him the money, she sat him down and told him a story.
“Many years ago, late at night, my husband returned from learning and something seemingly moved him. After questioning him, he explained that he saw a goy take a torch and engrave a ‘cross’ in the lake. The lake had frozen over, and he took a torch to engrave what he wanted.
“Shocked at his response, I turned to my husband and asked, ‘What does it matter to you what the goy is doing? In the past you’ve never related to anything they do, so what happened now that caught your attention?’
“I’ll explain,” the Saraf said. “Had the lake not been frozen, there wouldn’t be anything to melt. He therefore wouldn’t be able to melt it; the negative imprint would fall on nothing. Now that it’s cold and the water is frozen, the cross can be engraved, and its negative effects are long-lasting.
“This taught me a profound lesson in avodas Hashem. When serving Hashem is done cold, then it’s much easier to have bad things engraved, but when it’s done with warmth and bren, you can’t place such things on it.
“This is the reason why bren in avodas Hashem is important. When it’s done with bren, there’s no room for distant influences. It’s when that is missing, then it turns into a problem.”
With that, she returned the withheld wallet, and she got her point across.
(L’romeim p. 19)
Reprinted from the Parshas Pinchas 5784 email of Zichru Toras Moshe.
