By Rabbi Moshe Hirschberg
A mechanech in Brooklyn recently shared with me an incredible story — one I was hesitant to believe. But I contacted the ba’al ha’maaseh to verify every detail, and here’s the story.
As the month of May 2025 was drawing to a close, Mrs. Gruenson* wasn’t sure how they would manage. The credit cards. The mortgage. They were short $2,000.
Yet, it didn’t trouble them too deeply. Many months had come and gone with similar uncertainty, and somehow — in ways they could never have predicted — everything had worked out.
That afternoon, as Mrs. Gruenson closed the doors of her Toyota Camry outside their Flatbush home, a middle-aged Chinese man approached her with an unexpected question.
“Isn’t it true,” he asked sincerely, “that one must give ten percent of their earnings to the Almighty?”
She confirmed that it was.
He nodded thoughtfully and walked away.
Mrs. Gruenson then went about her day — preparing supper, helping with homework, etc. — nearly forgetting the unusual exchange.
As the family sat down to eat that night, there was a knock at the front door. Standing there was the same Chinese man from earlier that day, asking to speak with Rabbi Gruenson. He explained that he wished to give money “to the Almighty” and trusted that they would know how to handle it properly. With that, he placed a white envelope into Rabbi Gruenson’s hands, offered a warm gesture, and left.
After supper, Rabbi Gruenson opened the envelope, and to his astonishment, he found twenty crisp one-hundred-dollar bills neatly inside. $2,000 cash.
The family was stunned. It was the exact amount they needed for the month!
Had the story ended there, it would have been remarkable enough. But it didn’t.
Rabbi Gruenson wasn’t prepared to keep the money. He had been entrusted with a mission, and he felt he could not act without guidance. He turned to his Rav, who answered simply and clearly: give it to the kollel. And so, he did.
The next morning, Rabbi Gruenson handed the money to the Rosh Kollel, who used it toward the coming month’s expenditures.
“How we finished that month,” Mrs. Gruenson later reflected, “I truly don’t know. But I do know this: We are still in this house, the mortgage is paid, and the credit cards are covered.”
“Though we didn’t take the money,” she added, “the episode gave us something far greater. It gave us the reassurance that Hashem had not forgotten us.”
And that is the true lesson. Not the envelope, not the bills, not even the perfect timing — but the quiet realization that when a person lives with Hashem, he is never truly lacking. Even before the money reaches his hands, he walks away infinitely richer.
Reprinted from the Parshas Shemos 5786 email of Zichru Toras Moshe Shemos.
