I am from the generation of people who bought apartments in a “project.” What is thought of today as a city like all other cities, such as Modiin Illit or Beitar, large cities filled with residents living lives of Torah and mitzvos – back then they were viewed as places on the periphery. And when they built a neighborhood in one of those far-flung places, they called it a “project.”
I purchased an apartment in one of those projects.
I continued living in Yerushalayim, near my parents, in a rented apartment, and I rented out my apartment in the distant city. The years passed, and everyone forgot that this well-established city had once been called the “periphery.” Prices in the area soared, but my tenant continued paying the same price stipulated in his contract when he’d first entered the apartment. That was a one-year contract, but after a year passed, we did not renew it or deal with it, but we continued renting an apartment in Yerushalayim and renting out our apartment for the same prices as in previous years.
People who understood such matters were telling me repeatedly, “Why don’t you raise the price? People are paying 2,600 or even 2,800 shekels a month in that area, and yet you continue to rent it out for 1,800 shekels a month!”
They were right, but I did not have the heart to raise the rent. I knew my tenant was an avreich, and I kept pushing off raising the price.
Some time later, and with pressure coming from several different directions, I informed the tenant that I was raising the price. “I won’t take the higher price they’re paying in the area,” I told him. “But from today on you’ll pay 2,400 shekels per month. It’s less than what everyone else is paying.”
He agreed, and we signed a new contract.
What happened several days later? I got a call from my landlord in Yerushalayim and heard, almost like a recording, my own words: “You know that the prices in your area have gone up a lot, and for many years I’ve never raised the rent. From today on you’ll pay an additional thousand shekels a month.”
I tried arguing. We negotiated, and ultimately he compromised with me on an additional monthly sum of 600 shekels.
Six hundred shekels! The exact amount by which I had raised my tenant’s rent!
I compromised with my tenant, and my own landlord compromised with me. I saw tangibly that I had only gained from my consideration for my tenant. Money comes and goes, and no one can make more than what was set aside for him in Shamayim. The numbers testify.
