The sefer Aleinu L’Shabeiach relates the story of Reb Avraham Badichi, a Yemenite craftsman who was hired by the Yemeni royal family to repair a valuable pearl necklace. The crown prince summoned him to the palace and assigned him a storage room to work. One day, while Reb Avraham was hard at work, one of his tools fell and hit an old rusty urn in the room. He instantly recognized the sound and realized that the urn was pure gold, hidden beneath the layers of dirt.
When he told the prince, however, the prince merely shrugged and told him he could take the urn home if he wanted it.
Reb Avraham understood that if the prince truly believed that the urn was made of gold, he would never have offered. Instead, he brought cleaning supplies from home and worked hard to remove the layers of dirt until it was clear that he had been right. It was truly made of gold, valuable beyond measure.
When the prince ascended to the throne, he invited Reb Avraham to his coronation and gave him a place of honor, despite Yemeni laws which forbade Jews to own property and prohibited them from sitting in the presence of a non-Jew. In answer to his subjects’ shock, the newly crowned king shared the story of the golden urn.
“Would any of you have done what he did?” he asked. “Or would you have taken the urn for yourself ?”
On that day, Reb Avraham Badichi’s integrity made it clear that the Jewish people were completely unlike the nations around them.
Reproduced from Living Kiddush Hashem by Rabbi Shraga Freedman with permission of the copyright holders, ArtScroll/Mesorah Publications, Ltd.
