A poor Lithuanian Jew once came to see the Me’or Einayim. He cried to him that his children had reached marriageable age but he had no money to marry them off. In fact, he didn’t even have any money for his daily living expenses.
The Rebbe was happy to help this poor man. He gave him the large sum of 50 silver coins, and he even gave him his own overcoat.
This man was an alcoholic and as soon as he had this money in his hand, he hurried over to a bar and got drunk. When those close to the Me’or Einayim saw this, they took away the rest of the money from him, took off the overcoat, and brought those things back to the Rebbe. They told him that the man was wasting money on whiskey, so they took the rest back.
The Rebbe told them, ‘I heard a proclamation in the Upper worlds saying: ‘Nochum of Chernobyl possesses Hashem’s middah of ‘hatov v’hameitiv l’ra’im u’’tovim’ – helping both bad and good people. Do you really want to take that away from me?’
He told them to quickly return the money and coat to the man, and they did.