In 1877, during the war between Russia and Turkey, there were no esrogim available in the Russian Empire, as their enemy Turkey was the source of the esrogim. In Vilna, only one esrog was for sale; a sailor had smuggled it in, even swimming it through the Black Sea while holding it in his teeth! Reb Leib, a Litvish man, who was not a wealthy man, sold his house for 150 rubles to purchase the esrog.
On the first day of Sukkos, Reb Leib first made a brachah himself on the esrog before giving it over to the line of people lining up several blocks long to shake the esrog. However, the eagerly waiting crowd pushed, causing a jostle that made the esrog fall, breaking off its pitom.
The people standing there were filled with intense pain, that they weren’t able to shake the esrog. On top of that, they now had to somehow tell Reb Leib what had happened.
Seeing the crowd standing there silently, Reb Leib asked what had happened. When someone told him, Reb Leib calmly responded, “If there is no esrog, then there is no brachah!” In other words, Reb Leib was saying, that until now our obligation was to shake it, and now not, very accepting of the situation with simchah.
“Which act showed more greatness?” asked the Chofetz Chaim. “Selling his house to purchase an esrog, or accepting its loss in the way he did?”
“Surely,” continued the Chofetz Chaim, “what he said upon hearing the loss was a far greater thing! That shows how he understood Hashem is running the world, and that’s the greatest demonstration of emunah!” (R’ Yechiel Perr’s father-in-law shared it with him shortly after hearing it from Rav Yosef Kahaneman, the Ponovezher Rov, who heard it directly from the Chofetz Chaim.)
