אלה הדברים אשר דבר משה אל כל ישראל בעבר הירדן במדבר בערבה מול סוף בין פארן ובין תפל ולבן וחצרת ודי זהב ... (א-א)
A penniless chasid once made the arduous journey to visit his rebbe, R’ Shlomo Hakohen Rabinowitz zt”l, of Radomsk. He was distraught. His daughter was of marriageable age, and he did not know where to begin to find the money needed for a dowry and a wedding. All of this was written out in the kvitl which he handed to the rebbe.
R’ Shlomo was in a jovial mood - as was his natural state - and as he read through the kvitl, he suddenly exclaimed, “What is this I read here about you being ‘a poor man’? You had better leave my house at once, for our Sages teach us that 'עני חשוב כמת' - ‘a pauper is considered as if dead.’ As you probably know, I am a kohen, who may not be defiled by such contact!”
The poor man turned beet red and jumped up from his seat in sheer fright. He was about to run out of the house but the tzaddik motioned to him. “Come now, come now! This must surely be a case of mes mitzvah, a dead body which can be attended to by no one else, in which case a kohen is allowed to defile himself.”
Those present laughed at the seeming jest, a tactic the Rebbe would employ to try to make his visitors relax and remain at ease. Now, the tzaddik turned serious and addressed himself once more to the poor fellow. “You are worried about marrying off your daughter, is that right? I can see that here. But before that, tell me, do you have bread to eat?”
The man fidgeted nervously. “To tell the truth,” he stammered, “I haven’t any bread to eat.”
“So you don’t eat at all?” asked the Rebbe. “How do you survive?”
“I do eat and I even make a beracha Hamotzi every day,” claimed the pauper.
“Please explain,” asked the Rebbe. “If you make a Hamotzi every day, where do you get the bread for that?”
“Most of it comes from my wife. She works, and earns a little money, so we have what to eat.”
“What a fine business!” cried the rebbe. “His wife supports him! Shouldn’t we be warned by the example of Adam Harishon, whose wife gave him something to eat? Tell me, what does your wife do to earn her income?”
“Well, she goes to all the courtyards of the squires in the area, sells fruits, vegetables and whatever else she can muster, and earns a little from that,” the pauper replied. The Rebbe listened pensively as the man spoke.
“If so,” said the tzaddik smiling now, “it seems that your problem is solved. The posuk in Parshas Devarim lists a number of places where the Jewish people encamped, and there it states: 'וחצירות ודי-זהב'. My advice to you is to follow the lead of our ancestors. Tell your wife that if she goes to 'חצירות' - the courtyards of the noblemen, then she will no doubt merit to encounter 'די-זהב' - an ample amount of gold, to support your family and produce a dowry for your daughter in her upcoming nuptials. Reb Yid, go home in peace and the Almighty will help you, and your wife will prosper with 'די-זהב'.”
The poor man was unlearned and did not fully grasp the Rebbe’s play on words of the posuk, but it was clear to him that he had received a blessing and that was good enough for him. When he came home and his wife asked him what he had brought back from the rebbe, he tried to explain it to her but found it really was quite difficult.
His wife was not satisfied with her husband’s effort. Until one day, when she breathlessly ran home carrying a package and exclaimed, “Look here. Today I found this lying about in the mud. Before anyone could see, I grabbed it and brought it home.”
They opened it together, and found a sum of three hundred rubles - quite an exorbitant amount in those days. The man realized that this bounty came from the Rebbe’s blessing. Part 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 the Radomsker, this chasid came to visit his son and successor, R’ Avraham Yissachar Rabinowitz zt”l, and told him the above episode. “My father,” said the tzaddik, “was a remarkable man. Every expression of his ruach hakodesh he managed to clothe in jest and witticisms, so that no one should detect there was anything extraordinary afoot."
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