10 Iyar – The Yahrzeit of Rav Dovid ben Rav Mordechai of Tolna Zy”a – Author of Sefer Magen Dovid
Trust in Hashem, Not in Money:
There once was a merchant who traveled to a certain city for business and stayed overnight in an inn. He asked the innkeeper for a private room and was given one.
Later that night, he heard a loud commotion as a large crowd made its way towards the inn. The innkeeper knocked on the door of his room and informed him that Rav Dovid of Tolna zy”a had come to the inn with his chasidim. He asked if he would agree to give up the private room so the Rebbe could stay there and move into a shared room with another man, as this was the only private room in the inn.
The merchant readily agreed. He was very happy to even have the opportunity to spend time in the presence of a great Rebbe and to observe his holy ways.
As word spread that the Tolna Rebbe was staying in the inn, a large crowd gathered to receive his blessing. The merchant was not a chasid and had never seen anything like this. He watched in amazement as the large crowd stood in awe, waiting for their chance to see the great tzadik.
A short time later, the merchant heard the innkeeper and his wife arguing with each other. From their words, he understood that the Rebbe had asked them to give him 200 rubles, which was a huge amount of money in those times. The innkeeper and his wife could not agree on whether or not they should give over the money, which equaled all the funds they had to their name. The innkeeper was saying that he trusted the Rebbe and if he asked for this amount in exchange for his blessing, they definitely should give it. After much discussion, they decided to give the money to the Rebbe.
The merchant became very angry. He couldn’t understand how the Rebbe could be so cruel as to ask for such a large sum or why the innkeeper and his wife would agree.
It was very late at night when the couple exited the Rebbe’s room. The merchant then saw the Rebbe and his Gabbai go outside and he watched as they strolled around the courtyard. The Rebbe turned to the Gabbai and said, “I think here, in this place, it would be appropriate to have a two-story house with many rooms, and here I think it would be a good place to build stables for horses...”
The Rebbe continued walking around the courtyard, showing the Gabbai what could be built and where. He then asked for the horses to be saddled and he left town.
The merchant had never been a chasid but he now became a big misnaged against the chasidim and their Rebbes.
Years later, this merchant returned to the same town and went to stay in the same inn. However, he couldn’t find it. He went to what he thought was the same place but he didn’t recognize it. In the place of what had been a simple inn stood a beautiful structure.
He then remembered everything the Rebbe had said during that late-night walk, and realized that everything had been built exactly as he had suggested. He couldn’t believe that everything had come true exactly as the Rebbe predicted.
He asked around and was told that since the Tolna Rebbe’s visit, the innkeeper had become very wealth and he had built this grand edifice. However, the merchant still couldn’t understand one thing. If the Rebbe was such a baal mofes, why did he need to ask the innkeeper for 200 rubles?
He was bothered by this question that he decided to travel to Tolna to ask the Rebbe himself.
When he asked his question, the Rebbe told him, “This man had 200 rubles in savings. Whenever he began to worry about what might happen if the landowner wanted to evict them, he would be comforted by the fact that he had 200 rubles put away and he could use that to take care of the problem.
“He also had a small side investment, and whenever he worried about what would happen if this investment failed, he would remember his 200 rubles and he would stop worrying about the future.
“This meant that the 200 rubles became their avodah zara. They placed their trust in it, rather than in Hashem. I wanted to help them get rid of this avodah zara so that they would have bitachon solely in Hashem, and I could only bless them with wealth if I could accomplish this.”
May the memory of the tzadik be a blessing for all of Klal Yisroel.
