It was a scorching hot Friday afternoon in Yerushalayim. Dressed in his Shabbos clothing, the tzaddik, R’ Aryeh Levin, was busy walking by all the shops, urging the shopkeepers to close up in time for Shabbos. R’ Aryeh spotted a very long line of customers snaking around the corner in front of the ice cream shop.
The owner seemed to have no intention of closing up anytime soon. The hot weather was highly conducive for his booming Friday afternoon business. It was already candlelighting time, and R’ Aryeh walked quickly towards the ice cream shop. He understood that it would be very difficult for the owner to pull himself away from the numerous customers. But Shabbos was Shabbos...
R’ Aryeh weaved his way through the crowd until he reached the front of the store. He strode into the store, sat down on a stool and placed his shtreimel on the table. The owner understood why this rabbi had entered his store; R’ Aryeh was a familiar figure from his weekly pre-Shabbos rounds. The owner looked at the surge of customers. He was not going to lose out on business like this, he decided. It was not every day that he could sell his entire stock in less than an hour.
“Still, Shabbos is Shabbos...”
Then he heard R’ Aryeh’s soft words: “What can I tell you? You are facing a very hard test. Still, Shabbos is Shabbos...”
R’ Aryeh then got up slowly, put the shtreimel on his head, and shook the hand of the owner like an old friend. Then he hurried out of the store. After R’ Aryeh walked quite a distance, he glanced behind him. The line had dispersed, and people were walking off in all directions. The owner was shooing the last of the crowd away and locking up his shop.
R’ Aryeh breathed deeply and shook his head, “I envy that shopkeeper,” he thought to himself. “He succeeded in passing a difficult test.”
...You Were Feeling the Pain of the Holy Shabbos
A few years later, the store owner met R’ Aryeh and told him, “I will never forget the words you said to me that Friday afternoon. You felt that I was facing a very hard test. You understood what I was going through. The words ‘Shabbos is Shabbos’ that you whispered to me penetrated my heart. I felt that you were feeling the pain of the holy Shabbos. At that moment, I made up mind that I would not cause a Jew like you pain. I immediately locked up my store.”
R’ Aryeh grabbed his arm and said, “If only there were more like you within the Jewish people!” (excerpted from the Feldheim book - “Reb Aryeh”)
Reprinted from the Parshas Balak 5784 email of The Weekly Vort.
