The Otzros Hatorah continues by relating the following story:
The Vilna Gaon zy”a had a student named Rav Yeshaya of Zochovitz, who was known as a tremendous machnis orech. One Friday afternoon, a few merchants arrived in town. They were passing through on their way home from a large fair in one of the big cities. R’ Yeshaya went out to greet them and invite them to be his guests for Shabbos. Since they didn’t know him, they thought he probably wanted to be paid well for the accommodations, so they refused.
R’ Yeshaya pleaded with them, “It is already Friday afternoon and you have a long way to go to get home. Stay by me and I will give you very good meals and a room to sleep in. Why should you keep traveling so close to Shabbos?”
The merchants still refused to stay and went on their way. However, a short time later, a wheel on their carriage broke and they could not continue. The wagon driver had to walk back to R’ Yeshaya to tell him what happened, who told him to quickly bring the merchants to his home, as they now certainly didn’t have to time to make it to their city for Shabbos.
The men came to his house, and R’ Yeshaya greeted them warmly. He put their horses in his barn and told his servant to feed them. He then turned to the merchants and said, “This is my inn. I will tell you the price upfront. The cost of three Shabbos meals and Melava Malka, plus beds to sleep in for two nights, will be 50 gold coins each.”
The merchants said to each other, “That’s what I thought. He wants to make money off of us.” However, since they had no other choice, they agreed to his price.
Since they knew they were paying good money for the accommodations, they ate as much as they could and ordered R’ Yeshaya to serve them. He was only too happy to do so.
On Sunday morning, the men prepared to leave. Each one of them took 50 gold coins out of their pockets and offered the money to R’ Yeshaya but, to their surprise, he refused to take it. He said, “Chas v’shalom! I would never take even one penny from you. I am simple man and I don’t know how much reward I will get for my mitzvos, but I do know one thing. I once was in Vilna and saw the Gaon learning with his students. He quoted the Gemara (Shabbos 127A) that says that hachnasas orchim is greater than greeting the face of the Shechinah. He then said, ‘We say in Kiddush Levana that if Yisroel would merit to greet their father in Heaven once a month, it would be enough for them. However, we can do the mitzvah of hachnasas orchim at any time of day or night. We can do something even better than greeting Hashem at any time of day!’
“Now that I merited doing this great mitzvah, how could I exchange it for money? I only want to make one request of you: From now on, don’t travel on Friday afternoon.”
The men asked him, “Why did you tell us that it would cost money to stay by you?”
He answered, “I wanted you to eat as much as you wanted and to make yourselves at home with no restraints. I knew you would do this if you thought you were paying for it.”
This is real chesed!
