Saved by the Challah

Stories of Tzadikim

Gut voch everybody, I’ll tell you a mayseh. One of the great tzadikim, was Reb Yitzchak Vorker. He was known for his Ahavas Yisroel, he was known for his overflowing kind heart. It was once an erev shabbos, he was getting ready with his rebbetzin.

There was a knock on the door, and it’s a beggar. It’s not a jewish poor person, it’s a non jew who’s begging. Usually when a poor person comes they ask for money, or don’t ask for anything specific. But this beggar asked for something specific, he said that he wants some challah. He said he was hungry and he knew it was before shabbos and every jewish home has challah so he asks specifically for challah.

The Rebbetzin is thinking to herself, if it was a jewish beggar it wouldn’t be a question but for a non-jew it’s different. She goes to check what she has and she sees that all she has is the 2 challahs for lechem mishna for them. They were going to have the tish so they only needed 2 challahs at home for 1 meal Friday night.

The halacha is even if the Rebbetzin decided to cut a piece the halacha is you need 2 whole loaves in order to fulfill the mitzvah of Lechem Mishna. She says listen, I apologize we don’t have any challahs here and she’ll give some money instead. Reb Yitzchak of Vorke is in the other room and he hears what’s happening he comes over to the rebbetzin and says it’s okay we’ll cut a piece and give him half the challah it’s not going to bleed, no blood will come from it.

Okay that’s what the Rebbe said that’s what the Rebbetzin did and that’s it, that was this part of the story. Months go by, years go by and one day Reb Yitzchak Vorke was traveling with a small group of chassidim. In those days, especially in that part of the world, traveling was extremely dangerous and you’d have gangsters going after people and ransoming them to their communities for money.

So this is what happened, Reb Yitzchak Vorke is traveling and they’re attacked by a group of bandits. They’re all tied up and brought to the leader of the gand to then be sold for ransom from the Jewish community. They knew the yidden would pay so much money for any yid, especially someone who looks like a rabbinic figure.

Once the head gangster is standing there and sees the Rebbe he immediately says let them go. What happened? Reb Yitzchak of Vorke notices this head gangster and after looking at him for a second he realizes he was that poor beggar that years ago came and asked for challah. Eventually he became the head of this gang, when he saw the rebbe, he said this jew saved my life when I needed saving so we’re going to let him go as well.

Reb Yitzchak Vorker and the chassidim go on their way and by the time they get home the Rebbe tells his rebbetzin what happened. He says to his rebbetzin, remember years ago there was a situation where a non-jew came on erev shabbos with a funny request and I said cut the challah no blood will come from it.

Even when I said that I meant it as a joke, I didn't even know what it meant. It turns out that what I said was true, because we cut the challah and gave it to that poor person, no blood, no damage, no danger is going to come because of that particular mayseh.

There’s so many things we can take from that, just the kindness not just to a poor yid, but to a poor goy. To the extent that he sacrificed his lechem mishna for that. We see that the Ribbono shel olam always plants seeds. You never know what yeshua you need years later.

The ribono shel olam gives us a mitzvah right now, and we don’t see the immediate schar or how it might change our lives. We have emunah, we plant seeds, we plant chesed then yeshuos come. It might be years later, we might realize it or not but every single act of chesed is planting a seed that produces peros of a yeshua.

Hashem should bless us that this week should be zorea tzedakos, a week filled with giving of shefa bracha and tzedaka b’vias goel tzedek amen.