A few months had passed since the winter had set in but the rains were nowhere in sight. People walked around with heavy hearts, although they didn’t want to utter the word ‘drought” through their parched lips. Young children pleaded with their mothers for water – but there was none. The price of bread spiked sharply and the fields that were normally green were covered with withering yellow grass.
Before the suffering reached the breaking point, the Rabbanim of the city decreed a fast day for rains. They fasted Monday, Thursday, Monday – and were not answered. They repeated the pattern again, but the gates of Heaven remained closed and the tefillos were not accepted.
Distraught, the Rav of the city pleaded to Hashem to instruct him what to do, what steps he should take to pass this terrible decree, that was endangering the lives of the city’s residents.
One night, while the Rav was sleeping, he suddenly heard a voice calling to him in his dream and saying: “Know that the rains have not come down and the land will remain arid, until the grocer will davens goes up to the amud and davens for the rains.” The Rav awoke in alarm; he replayed the dream in his mind, but his heart did not let him believe it. Was it possible that this am ha’aretz would succeed in places where such greater people had not?! The Rav concluded that the dream was just idle words and went back to sleep.
But the dream repeated itself. Again, the Rav dreamed that he was being instructed to send the grocer to the amud, because that was the only way the rains would come. Now there was no room for doubt.
The next morning, at the end of Shacharis, the Rav instructed that the community should gather in the shul that afternoon to daven for the rains. This was not the first time in recent months that the Rav had convened a tefillah, but those in the know sensed that this time, something was different. “Who knows what was revealed to the Rav from Above?” the knowledgeable ones murmured, without knowing how correct they were.
At the appointed time, the shul was filled to the capacity. Everyone waited, tense with expectation, to see who the Rav would send to the amud to daven. The Rav stood in his place and studied his flock, as if looking for someone. Finally, he eyes rested on the grocer, who sat unassumingly in his corner, and instructed the shamash to call him to come.
A tense silence hung in the air. They all followed the shamash with their eyes as he strode towards the end of the shul. When they saw the person he was approaching, they all but gasped. A buzz of surprise rippled through the crowed. Was it possible that from the whole community, the Rav was sending such an ignorant, coarse person to the amud?
The shamash was barely able to persuade the grocer to come to the Rav. A narrow path was forged in the large crowd filling the shul. The embarrassed grocer walked through it. The Rav’s request had struck the grocer like thunder on a clear day, and he tried to explain to the Rav that he didn’t know how to read, and he wasn’t fluent in Krias Shema. But the Rav explained that even if what he was saying was true, he had to muster up the strength to daven from the amud, for everyone’s sake, because this was the Divine instruction he had received, and he could not deviate from it.
For a moment, it appeared that the grocer had thought about it and accepted it, but surprisingly, a moment after that, he picked himself up and fled from the shul. The Rav understood that there was something deeper here, and he asked the community to please be patient and wait.
A short time passed, the door to the shul opened and the grocer came storming back in, breathing heavily, beads of perspiration dotting his forehead. The grocer was holding a heavy object in his hand, covered in a coarse fabric, and with the object in his hand, he approached the amud. There, he reverently removed the covering, and in front of the eyes of all the mispallelim, an old scale was revealed. Yes, it was the same scale that the grocer used to faithfully serve his customers.
Everyone looked on, puzzled, but the grocer didn’t leave them much time to wonder. He wrapped himself in a tallis, and while the scale was still in his hands, he began to speak, tears rolling down his face:
“Ribbono shel Olam, here is the scale before You, which I use to weigh merchandise for my customers. These two scales symbolize the letters of Your Shem Hameyuchad – Havay-h; the bowls correspond to the letters hey, the bar from which they hang corresponds to the letter vav, and the ring that holds the scale corresponds to the letter yud.
“Father in Heaven, I stand before You, in front of the whole community, and ask: Have I ever done anything wrong with this scale? Have I ever weighed out to a customer less than was coming to him? Have I ever violated the letters of Your Name to which this scale alludes?!”
The grocer finished his tefillah and said: If my words are sincere, and I never did anything wrong, I ask of You, that the merit of this mitzvah should advocate for my community of people who seek You out, and bring them down generous rains, quickly.”
Before the grocer finished his fervent tefillah, everyone was able to see thick clouds gathering in the sky, and strong rains began to fall. The rains were so abundant that at the end of the tefillah it was impossible to leave the shul into the street.
The Rav began to speak and said: Look at the great punishment for those who distort their weights and measures, and the great reward of those who are careful about them. So many great people davened here and were not answered, and this grocer came and presented his honesty and with his simple tefillah, he brought down the blessed rains.
Yalkut Me’am Loez Vayikra 19 35
