A wonderful story happened to a Yid named Michael. After davening one Friday morning, Avraham, one of the congregants in the shul he attended, approached him with a request: “I urgently need a 500 NIS loan until Sunday. Could you kindly lend me such a sum?”
Michael’s heart hesitated to immediately help Avraham with the loan. Although Avraham seemed totally honest, Michael only knew him superficially. How could he lend him such a large sum of money? But, given the urgency of the situation, he decided to act mercifully. His hand reached into his pocket, took out the bills from his wallet, and handed them to Avraham.
Avraham took a piece of paper and wrote at the top: “Acknowledgement of Debt.” He wrote his name and last name, but he was taken aback because he didn’t remember Michael’s name! Embarrassed to ask, he simply wrote: “I, the undersigned Avraham So-and-So, recognize I received a loan in the amount of 500 NIS and commit to reimbursing the lender this coming Sunday.” Michael took the piece of paper and stuck it in his wallet.
As agreed, both men met on the following Sunday at Shacharis, and the borrower returned the money to the lender. Avraham was surprised to notice that Michael was overjoyed as he was handed back the bank notes.
The latter explained the reason for his good mood: “I traveled somewhere for Shabbos by bus, and upon returning Motzaei Shabbos, I realized that I had lost my wallet. My wallet has no signs of identification other than the bills I had inside, which totaled a significant amount of money. This is why I am overjoyed to receive the 500 NIS you borrowed. I needed this money for today, and you returning it now is just what I needed!”
But this is not the end of the story. “That same evening,” Michael recounted, “when I returned home, the phone rang. It was Avraham, announcing joyfully that my lost wallet was waiting for me!
“But how was it found?” I asked.
“It’s quite simple,” Avraham explained. “The person who found it was riding on the bus Motzaei Shabbos as you. He found a wallet stuffed with bank notes, and when he looked inside to identify the owner, all he found was a piece of paper entitled: ‘Acknowledgement of Debt.’ My name appeared clearly, so he made a few calls to locate me. He asked whether I knew the owner of the wallet, and I assured him that we daven together at the shul and that I am the one who gave you the ‘Acknowledgement of Debt.’ This morning, when I returned the loan, you’d told me that you’d lost it, and so I knew the wallet was yours.”
That evening, to everyone’s great joy, the wallet was again in Michael’s hands. Michael thanked Avraham and said: “I thus need no further explanation about the teaching of the Sages that says: ‘The poor man does more for his benefactor than the latter for the poor man.’ Not only did I save 500 NIS, but thanks to the mitzvah of giving a free-interest loan, I recovered my wallet and the big sum of money.”
Observing mitzvos is for our very best interest — whether we see or not.
We can draw a great moral lesson from this story. Sometimes it is decreed that a man must lose money. But Hashem gives him a way to annul the decree by sending an opportunity to do a mitzvah. Not only will he recover the money, but he will also receive a reward for the merit of performing a mitzvah.
