A Yid from Boro Park relates:
For many years I did not understand how the Yidden in Yerushalayim’s Me’ah Shearim neighborhood have parnassah. Every time I came to Yerushalayim and passed by Meah Shearim, I saw countless Judaica stores, and I simply could not understand how all of them could profit and succeed when the competition is so fierce. How do the storeowners make ends meet?
In my neighborhood in Boro Park there are several Judaica stores at least several minutes’ walking-distance apart. But in Meah Shearim you encounter another Judaic store almost every time you take another step.
Until Hashem helped me and I understood the secret. The secret that I now want to share with Am Yisrael.
I traveled to my Rebbe for Rosh Hashanah, and since we wear a kittel only on Yom Kippur, I did not bring my kittel along with me. But after Rosh Hashanah my plans changed, and I decided to stay for Yom Kippur as well. But I needed a kittel.
I told myself, Meah Shearim is the place to go.
I entered the first store I encountered and asked the seller for a white kittel. The friendly seller asked me, “What’s your size?” I did not know what to answer him, so asked him to bring me a kittel to try on. He responded, “I don’t have any open kittels, so you can’t try one on here. Go to my neighbor to the right. He has open kittels, and you can try one on and buy one there.”
I left the store amazed. To send off a potential customer to the neighboring store?!
But my amazement had only begun.
I entered the neighboring store and told the shopkeeper that the owner of the shop next door had sent me to buy the kittel in his store, where I would be able try it on to see that it fit me correctly. The seller told me, “I don’t understand why you have to buy it from me. Try it on here and buy it from him.”
At that moment, I understood what I had not understood for many years. The Yidden in Meah Shearim live with emunah. They do hishtadlus, because this is what Hashem wants, and they know they can open dozens of stores, one next to another, and “Meah Shearim” – one hundred gates of parnassah will open for them, because parnassah comes only from Hashem.
When Yidden do their hishtadlus with simple emunah, Hashem sends them the parnassah in His own ways.
Gut Shabbat
Pinchas Shefer
