The Wealthy Man Who Refused To Be Paid Back

By Dovid Zaklikowski for COLlive and Hasidic Archives

Everyone was surprised to see Rabbi Levi Yitzchok of Berditchev at Herschel’s funeral. After all, the great rabbi almost never attended funerals. Herschel had been rich, to be sure, but the rebbe would not be influenced by that. “What special merit did Herschel have that you should attend his funeral?” the townspeople asked their beloved rabbi.

The merit was an unusual one, Rabbi Levi Yitzchok said. On two occasions, Herschel had been summoned to his office because he was involved in a dispute. This in itself was nothing extraordinary. It was the nature of his conflicts that set him apart.

In the town, there lived a very poor man who had difficulties in his marriage. Unable to earn a living in Berditchev, he finally decided that he would leave the town and look for employment elsewhere. He knew that his wife would not agree to this, however, and so resorted to a deception: He told his wife that Herschel had hired him as a traveling merchant. She should go to the factory at the end of the month to collect his paycheck.

He knew that the ruse could not last beyond the first month, but by then he would be far away. He hoped to return with enough money to earn her forgiveness.

At the end of the month, the poor man’s wife duly presented herself at Herschel’s factory and demanded her husband’s pay. When the secretary refused, saying her husband was not an employee, she began to shout. Finally, Herschel himself came out to see what the commotion was about. She told him the story. “I’m very sorry,” Herschel said. “It is my fault. I forgot to tell the secretary about your husband’s salary.” The woman left the factory with a handsome check. She received one like it every month for the next nine months.

As he had hoped, the poor man found better luck abroad. He returned to the town a rich man. After hearing the story of Herschel’s “paychecks,” he immediately went to the factory and offered to repay all the money.

Herschel refused to accept it. “I gave that money as charity,” he told the man. “It is no longer mine.”

The man did not give up, but took Herschel to Rabbi Levi Yitzchok, demanding that he accept repayment. This was the first conflict, the rabbi told the townspeople. He did not reveal what his ruling had been.

The second time Herschel had appeared in his office because of an argument in the marketplace. A man had lost a wallet containing borrowed money. Devastated, he had begun wailing that he had been robbed.

Herschel happened to be passing by. “I found money this morning,” he told the man. “If you tell me the exact amount you had, I will give it back to you.”

The man told him the amount, including how it had been divided up in bills. Herschel went home and returned with the money a short time later.

In fact, the man had been robbed. The thief was close by and watched the entire scene. He was so moved by Herschel’s generosity that he decided to repay him. Quietly, he approached the factory owner. “I stole the money, and now I regret it. Please take the money back.”

Herschel refused, saying, as before, that the money he had given was charity and did not belong to him anymore. Eventually, the thief had taken Herschel to Rabbi Levi Yitzchok to resolve their disagreement.

“Because of these two arguments,” Rabbi Levi Yitzchok concluded, “I attended Herschel’s funeral.”

 

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