וזכרת את ה' אלקיך כי הוא הנתן לך כח לעשות חיל למען הקים את בריתו ... (ח-יח)
When the Chazon Ish zt”l departed Vilna for Eretz Yisroel in 1933, a small sum of money was owed to a distributor who supplied his wife’s store with merchandise. Despite many sincere efforts on behalf of the Rebbetzin, she could not locate the person and repay the debt. Twenty years later, after the Chazon Ish passed away in 1953, the creditor, who had relocated to Tel Aviv, heard the news on the radio and attended the funeral. Before it began, he happened to mention to R’ Shmaryahu Karelitz zt”l, a nephew of the Chazon Ish, that his uncle had once owed him money from 40 years ago. R’ Shmaryahu immediately repaid the outstanding sum and even before the Chazon Ish was buried, the full debt had been discharged.
“This was a special zechus the Chazon Ish enjoyed because of his life-long scrupulousness in financial matters,” R’ Aharon Leib Steinman zt”l later concluded. It was known that R’ Aharon Leib would only accept “kessef naki” - money that was above any suspicion of being obtained dishonestly. If he thought a potential donor to his yeshivah, Orchos Torah, received his funds via questionable means, he would not take them. A yeshivah, he said, must be built al taharas hakodesh.
Every year, the Israeli government disburses UN-claimed funds from dormant bank accounts to charity. The owners of most of these assets are deceased, and they have no known heirs. But one day, the administrator mentioned to R’ Aharon Leib in passing that Orchos Torah was joining many other yeshivos in Israel in obtaining funds from the unclaimed accounts.
R’ Aharon Leib objected. “Since a person likely has halachic heirs, even if nobody came forward claiming to be his next of kin, that doesn’t mean an heir does not exist.” The administrator countered, “But most yeshivos do accept money from this source. Furthermore, if our yeshivah doesn’t get the funds, a university or other secular institution may get the money, thereby depriving the deceased from the merit of donating to Torah! We would be giving the niftar a zechus by allowing his unclaimed funds to support our yeshivah!” R’ Aharon Leib listened to his logic, and smiled. “That is not our calculation to make,” he replied. “Since halacha dictates that the money should go to the deceased person’s relative, we can’t be looking to ‘give’ people ‘merits’ if our actions are not in line with halacha.”
R’ Aharon Leib was once out of town giving a drashah, having left his home in the morning after the netz minyan. A person familiar with his schedule, the inner workings of his household, and the large amounts he habitually distributed to avreichim and yeshivos monthly, walked in and when no one was looking, stole the large amount of cash that was in the tzedakah drawer, adjacent to the one in which R’ Aharon Leib stored his personal funds.
When he and his grandson returned home late that afternoon, they were greeted by a huge mess. Drawers and closets had been overturned and rummaged through, and piles of clothing and house-hold possessions were strewn about. Obviously, the thief had searched every corner of the home for valuables. His grandson opened the drawer that contained R’ Aharon Leib’s paltry personal funds. To his shock and relief, not a shekel was missing! R’ Aharon Leib was very saddened that the tzedakah funds were stolen and immediately began calculating how much he could replace.
“Sabba,” said his grandson, “a real miracle occurred! At least the ganav didn’t touch your personal funds!”
“It wasn’t a miracle,” R’ Aharon Leib replied. “You know I am scrupulous that all the money I earn should be ‘kosher.’ Hashem watched over the money.” R’ Aharon Leib then lifted his hands and related the following: “I have always been extra careful to never steal from anyone. However, there were two times in Switzerland during the war that I may have inadvertently taken things that weren’t mine. I once picked flowers from an open field and only later realized that the field wasn’t public property but belonged to a non-Jew. I also mistakenly reused a stamp. In both instances, I did my best to repay the owner of the field and to make a payment to the postal service in Switzerland.” It no wonder that R’ Yosef Shalom Elyashiv zt”l said that he didn’t know anyone with such clean hands in financial matters as R’ Aharon Leib.