It was a sad story that this penniless Chassid wrote to his Rebbe, Rabbi Shlomo of Radomsk. His daughter was of marriageable age, and he did not know where to begin to find all the money needed for a dowry and a wedding. All this was written out in the kvitel note which he handed the Rebbe.
The Tzaddik read it through, and exclaimed, "what is this I read here about your being 'a poor man'?! You had better leave my house at once, for our Sages teach us that 'a pauper is accounted as if dead,' and I am a Kohen, and the Halacha is that a Kohen may not be defiled and become Tamei by exposure to the dead!”
The man ran out from sheer fright, but the Tzaddik called after him, "Come now, come back in! This must surely be a case of a mes mitzvah, a dead body who is attended to by nobody, in which case a Kohen is allowed to defile himself."
Those present laughed at the seeming joke, little suspecting that there were more to come.
The Tzaddik addressed himself another time to the poor fellow, "you are worrying about marrying off your daughter? Tell me: do you have bread to eat?"
"To be honest," stammered the pauper, "I haven't."
"But you do say the Beracha of Hamotzi over bread every day, don't you? So where do you get the bread from?"
"Most of it comes from my wife. She works, and earns a little."
"What a fine business!" cried the Rebbe. "His wife supports him! Shouldn't we be warned by the example of Adam, whose wife gave him something to eat? And this fellow says that his wife supports him! Tell me how does your wife earn her income?"
"She goes to all the courtyards [in Hebrew: chatseiros] of the squires in the area, sells fruits and vegetables, and earns a little from that." the poor man replied.
"If so," said the Tzaddik, "we have a verse in the Torah (Devorim 1:1) which lists place names, and there it says 'vachatseros vediy zahav' - that if she goes to chatseiros, she will no doubt encounter vediy zahav (literally, 'ample gold'). Go home in peace, my good man, and Hashem will help you, and your wife will prosper with vediy zahav – plenty gold."
But when he came home and his wife asked him what he had brought back from the Rebbe, he did not know what to answer.
After some time his wife came home with a package, and said. "Look here. I found this thing today lying about in the mud."
They opened it, and found three hundred rubles, quite a sum in those days. Half of it they set aside for their daughter's dowry and the wedding expenses and with the rest the happy man set up a little business in which he prospered for the rest of his life.
After the passing of Rabbi Shlomo of Radomsk, this Chassid came to visit his son and successor as Rebbe, Rabbi Avraham Yissachar, and told him the above story.
"My father," said the Tzaddik, "was a remarkable man. Every expression of his supernatural powers and his divine inspiration he managed to clothe in jests and witticisms, so that no one should detect that there was anything extraordinary afoot."
Rabbi Shlomo Hakohen Rabinowitz zt"l
Grand Rabbi of Radomsk
Author: Tiferes Shlomo
29 Adar 5626 (1866)
