Rabbi Noach Greenberg (name changed) brought his wife to the hospital for elective surgery. They arrived the night before the operation, and a nurse asked if she had followed all the instructions, including taking specific pills. Mrs. Greenberg admitted she had not. “You can’t go into surgery without them,” the nurse said. “The operation will be postponed.”
A distraught Mrs. Greenberg raced to the pharmacy downstairs, hoping to obtain the medicine, but it was a few minutes after closing time and the doors were locked. She pounded on the door until a pharmacist came out, and she explained the situation. “I’m sorry,” he said kindly, “but our computers are already turned off, and I have no way to take payment for the prescription from you.”
“Please,” Mrs. Greenberg begged, “my husband will bring the money first thing in the morning.”
The pharmacist hesitated, then finally relented. “All right,” he said, “but you need to realize that if he doesn’t pay for the pills, the money will be coming out of my paycheck.”
The next morning, Rabbi Greenberg returned to the store and asked a pharmacist where he could find his benefactor in order to pay his debt. Another worker overheard then and piped up, “Dan won!”
It emerged that the pharmacists had taken a bet on whether the money would be repaid. One of the losing pharmacists turned to a colleague and said, “You didn’t tell me she was Jewish. I wouldn’t have taken the bet if I had known!”
Reproduced from Living Kiddush Hashem by Rabbi Shraga Freedman with permission of the copyright holders, ArtScroll/Mesorah Publications, Ltd.
