During his stay, the talmid made the acquaintance of the melamed who had been hired to learn with the proprietor’s children. One day when the two were out walking, the melamed suddenly turned to his new friend and bitterly lamented perpetrating an awful deed. Just days earlier he had come upon an open safe at the guesthouse filled with sacks of thousands of gulden and gave in to his temptation to help himself to the riches so readily available to him.
No sooner did he arrive home than overwhelming guilt set in and he immediately decided to return his ill-gotten gains. But as he was about to do so, he overheard the owner berating his servant over the loss and realized that since he was regarded as an upright, trustworthy and responsible person, he would be creating a huge chilul Hashem with his confession.
And so the money remained hidden in his home and was giving him no peace of mind and soul. He implored the talmid to come up with a way he could return the money without implicating himself.
The chassid agreed to help him and took the gulden-filled sacks back to his room at the guesthouse. There he took up his regular learning routine until he heard the owner’s voice in the corridor. After inviting the proprietor into his room, he announced that he had a matter of great importance to divulge: he’d stumbled upon the guesthouse owner’s lost fortune. But before returning it he needed reassurance that the proprietor would not inquire how, when or where and that he, the chassid, would naturally not be considered suspect since he had arrived here at a later time.
The euphoric proprietor promptly agreed to the talmid‘s stipulation and, upon laying eyes on his sacks of gulden, tearfully hugged the chassid in his profound gratitude. Taking one of the bundles of money, he handed it to the talmid saying that he now had enough funds to marry off his daughter in fine style and added that he had no doubt the holy rebbe of Lublin had foreseen the entire episode and thus had assured his talmid that he would find his yeshua here – as he did.
The shevet representative of Av is Yissachar (whose yahrtzeit falls on the tenth of Av). Yissachar received the shortest yet most potent blessing from Moshe Rabeinu – a simple Semach be’ohalecha (rejoice in your tents), for there is no greater joy than the study of Torah and receiving the reward for doing so in olam haba. It is the tribe of Yissachar that established the leap years of the Jewish calendar and determined the dates of our Yomim Tovim, summoning the Jews to be Oleh Regel – to ascend to the Beis Hamikdosh in Yerushalayim for the rapturous festival pilgrimages.
In the merit of the learning of Torah that emanates from the countless batei midrash across the globe, may Hashem’s compassion for His children in galus be roused and the tes of the ninth of Av revert to tov – when we will witness the rebuilding of the holy Bais HaMikdosh and the actualization of Yeshaya HaNavi’s prophecy: When Yerushalayim will be reborn, the light of the moon will be as bright as the light of the sun, and the sun’s light will shine seven times brighter than today.
Written l’ilui nishmas Yehoshua a”h ben Baruch HaLevi, my beloved grandson who would have turned 21 this coming 24th day of Av.
