In the town of Moost Galizia, there lived a Belzer chossid by the name of Reb Moshe. One Sunday he was walking in the street, when his shoe ripped. He went and looked for a shoestore, and found one owned and operated by a goy. He went to the home upstairs. He asked the goy if he could please fix his shoe. The goy said to him, “Don’t you know today is Sunday? We goyim are not allowed to work on Sundays.” We were taught that we are not allowed to work on Sundays. Reb Moshe said to him, “Why are you being foolish? What kind of stupidity do you believe in? Why would anyone forbid people to work on Sunday, and waste a whole day doing nothing when you could be making money. Just go to your shop and don’t be afraid. Fix my shoe, and you’ll be well paid for the work.”
“You’re right,” said the goy. He took the shoe from Reb Moshe and sat at his work bench, fixing it. The goy’s neighbor, also a goy, saw the shoemaker working on Sunday. He asked the shoemaker, “How could you undermine our holy rest day?” So the shoemaker told his neighbor what Reb Moshe had said. “Our beliefs are nonsense. The Creator of the universe never told anyone to rest on Sunday. We don’t have to be afraid of anyone or anything. We are allowed to work on Sunday.” The neighbor liked what he heard. He was a poor man, and he could use the extra work and extra pay if he worked on Sunday as well as the rest of the week. So he went to work. Other goyim in the neighborhood saw the two goyim working, and they asked them about it. They also started to work on Sundays. The priest of the town found out that his goyim had suddenly begun to work on Sundays, since they stopped coming to church. This meant he was losing money, as on Sundays the goyim would listen to his sermons, from which he made a lot of money.
He began to investigate what happened. He eventually found out that it was all started by Reb Moshe, who had “ruined” the shoemaker and took him away from his beliefs. And that had brought about that much of the town had stopped coming to church. The priest immediately went to the police and lodged a complaint against Reb Moshe. “He’s starting a rebellion against the Church by taking away people from the Christian religion. Anyone who took someone away from the Church could be arrested. They instantly began a search for Reb Moshe, to arrest him and bring him to court. At that moment, Reb Moshe happened to be in the city of Belz, visiting his Rebbe, Harav Yisachar Dov. Someone from the town of Moost let Reb Moshe know that the police were looking for him, and he decided not to travel home and to stay in Belz. That information also came to the Belzer Rov, who began to pace the floor of his office. He paced for several hours, and finally called Reb Moshe to come to him.
“Tell me, Moshe, what exactly did you tell the shoemaker?” the Belzer Rov asked him. Reb Moshe was afraid to tell the Belzer Rov what he had said, in case the Rebbe would scold him for it. He knew he had risked his life with what he had done. But the Belzer Rov asked him again, and he said to him, “Tell me clearly every word that you told the shoemaker.” Reb Moshe saw that he had no choice, so he told the Belzer Rov exactly everything he told the goy, word for word. ‘If so,” said the Rov “everything you told him was correct and truthful! You don’t deserve any punishment at all!”
The town of Moost had just one policeman, and his superior was a general who was appointed by the government. The general lived in Zhelkov and he was in charge of all the smaller towns. The policeman prepared an entire campaign he wanted to execute against Reb Moshe. He was a antisemite, so he put finding Reb Moshe as top priority, and arrest him. But since he couldn’t find him, he began asking questions, gathering testimony, and finding out what he could about Reb Moshe’s convincing the goyim to work on Sunday. Before long, he had a suitcase full of papers with evidence from the numerous goyim he had spoken to.
Precisely on the day that Reb Moshe went to see the Belzer Rov, the general from Zhelkov called together all the policemen under his authority to attend an important meeting. The policeman of Moost was busy gathering his evidence against Reb Moshe. He was so busy that he forgot to travel to Zhelkov for the meeting. He suddenly remembered the meeting. He harnessed a fast horse, taking with him his suitcase of evidence against Reb Moshe. He rode as fast as he could to Zhelkov, but he arrived after the meeting had ended. The general grew very angry, as the policeman was the only one who had come late to the meeting.
The general became furious, lost his cool, and grabbed the suitcase away from the policeman and threw it into the burning oven that was in the auditorium. He also ripped off the policeman’s badge and all his ribbons, and yelled at him, “You’re fired! You are no longer a policeman!” That put an end to the investigation and search for Reb Moshe, and he was able to come home peacefully. The policeman became a simple laborer. One winter Reb Moshe hired him to chop wood for a fire. The Former policeman said to Reb Moshe, “I know that your Rebbe in Belz took away my position and demoted me to a simple worker”? I also heard that he is a great man, and I am afraid to start up with him! The Belzer Rebbe was niftar (22 days in Cheshvan 5687).
