Ahron was a wealthy businessman who saw success in everything he touched. He was involved in all sorts of business ventures, ranging from diamonds to imported rugs, and managed to increase his bottom line exponentially with each deal he closed.

As his business grew and his wealth increased, Ahron built up a large corporate empire, comprised of many employees. While he stood at the top of the tower, directing and deciding, his staff took care of the everyday aspects of the business, enabling it to run as efficiently as possible.

Working hand-in-hand with Ahron was his trusted assistant, Yaakov, who had been with him from the early days of his business activities. Over the years, Yaakov had proved himself to be capable, efficient, and loyal, and his responsibilities grew along with the company. Eventually, Yaakov was promoted to a top finance position within the company, where he was responsible for handling tremendous sums of money. It wasn’t the kind of job that Ahron could entrust to just anyone, but he was comfortable leaving

Considering the size and scope of the business deals that Ahron was involved in, whenever he closed a deal, there was a tremendous amount of money due as a down payment. One of Yaakov’s roles, therefore, was to deliver the down payment safely. It was a job that involved travel, and it was even a little dangerous, but time and again, Yaakov proved himself, completed his missions faithfully.

One day, Yaakov was sent, along with a large bundle of cash, on a journey to a large city on his boss’s behest. The trip was long and tiring, and by the time he and his weary horse trudged into the city limits, the sun was already high in the sky. Shabbos was fast approaching. He went directly to the hotel where he’d planned on staying and rented a room.

Realizing that there would be no time to hand over the money and complete the transaction before Shabbos began, Yaakov knew he had to find another place to leave the money over Shabbos. There were many Jews in the hotel lobby, and he approached one of them.

“Hi,” he said, somewhat uncomfortably. “I was just wondering… is there someone I can trust with my money over Shabbos? I don’t want to leave it unattended in my hotel room.”

The other man nodded understandingly. “Of course not,” he agreed. “Why don’t you give your valuables to the innkeeper, Feivel? He is a pious and honest Jew, and he has a safe. He’ll put everything away for you until after Shabbos.”

Yaakov’s mouth curved upward in a small smile. It was a good idea. “Thank you for your suggestion,” he thanked the man and then hurried to the innkeeper’s room to catch him before Shabbos.

Feivel, it appeared, had been in middle of learning when Yaakov knocked on his door. He came to the door, a Gemara tucked under his arm and looked at Yaakov questioningly.

“I just came to town, and I have a lot of money on me,” Yaakov explained. “It’s almost Shabbos, and I don’t want to leave it unattended in my hotel room. Would you mind putting it away for me? I’ll come back for it after Shabbos.”

“Sure,” the innkeeper agreed kindly, accepting the heavy bundle from Yaakov. “I’ll put in in my safe for you.”

“Thank you, I really appreciate it,” Yaakov said, relieved that the burden had been taken off his shoulders. With Shabbos nearly upon them, he hastily left to prepare himself. He did not even think of asking Feivel for a receipt.

But he never could have imagined what would happen next.

Over Shabbos, the hale and hearty Feivel suddenly became very weak. He went from being healthy and able to frail and deathly ill almost overnight. He lay, burning hot, in a feverish stupor, and his family rushed to ask the rav and mekubal, Rav Yitzchak Horowitz, what to do.

“You are allowed to desecrate the Shabbos to save his life,” the mekubal ruled. “Do whatever it takes to nurse him back to health.”

The desperate family tried whatever they could. They called doctors and tried remedies and sought any solution that might bring the innkeeper back to his former healthy self, but as the hours ticked by, Feivel slipped away more and more. Just a few hours after Shabbos, the innkeeper passed away.

The news shocked the entire city. Everyone knew and admired Feivel, the beloved and upstanding innkeeper. He had been a talmid chacham of the highest caliber, and with such a zest for life! He had been so involved in his family and the community, an energetic and capable doer, and it was difficult to believe that he was no longer alive…

The funeral was large and well-attended. The eulogies were lengthy but inspiring, punctuated by bouts of sobbing. The loss of the innkeeper was a tragedy for the entire community. Everyone felt the pain of the fresh widow and poor orphans.

Yaakov, having found himself in the middle of this tragedy, was at a loss on how to proceed further. The entire outlay of cash that he’d received from Ahron in order to conclude the business deal was sitting in the innkeeper’s house, and he knew that somehow, he would have to get it back. The other party was waiting to finalize the transaction, and his boss was counting on him.

When the levayah was over and the mourners returned to the innkeeper’s home to sit shivah, Yaakov decided to go over and ask the widow to return his money. As intrusive as it felt to interrupt the family’s shivah for his own needs, he didn’t have much of a choice.

The innkeeper’s wife, Gitta, was sitting on a low stool, her eyes ringed with red. Yaakov approached her, feeling decidedly uncomfortable. “I apologize many times over,” he began. “I should not be speaking to you now about these matters, but I am here on business from a different city, and I don’t have the liberty of waiting until after shivah.”

She nodded, so he continued. “I came to the city right before Shabbos, with a tremendous amount of money. I heard that your husband is a pious and trustworthy man, and I gave him the money to safeguard over Shabbos. Would you be able to return the money to me, please, so that I can conclude my business? The money is not mine; it belongs to my boss and I am conducting the transaction on his behalf.”

“I am in middle of sitting shivah,” Gitta responded, her voice raspy from weeping. “But if you say that you gave my husband money, as many people have, then I will return it to you. Did he write you a note, a receipt, when you gave him the money?”

Yaakov shook his head regretfully. “No. It was right before Shabbos, and I was in a hurry. I trusted your husband.”

She looked at him strangely and shook her head. “I’m sorry. My husband never told me anything about this, and if you don’t have a receipt, there’s no way I can give you money. How am I to know if you are saying the truth? The money in my husband’s safe is the inheritance for our children, and I can’t give any of it away unless you can prove it is yours.”

Yaakov sighed. She had a valid argument, but he had no way of proving that the money was really his. Why, oh, why had he not thought to ask for a receipt?! He wanted to argue further, but he did not feel it was appropriate to antagonize a fresh widow.

Instead, he walked to the other room, where Feivel’s sons were sitting shivah, and repeated the same story. “I’m so sorry, I know that you are sitting shivah and that this is not a good time, but I deposited a lot of money with your father before Shabbos. Can you please return my money?”

The boys exchanged glances. “We are sorry, too,” they said apologetically. “But our father never told us anything about you. Do you have proof that you left the money with him? Otherwise, there is no way for us to confirm the validity of your claim.”

Yaakov was at a loss. A tremendous amount of money, money that did not even belong to him, was sitting in Feivel’s safe, and the innkeeper’s heirs did not want to return it without proof, which he could not furnish. What was he to do?

With a heaviness in his step that had not been there previously, he made his way to the home of the gaon Rav Yitzchak Horowitz to seek his counsel. He poured out the entire story, including the responses of Feivel’s mourners. “What can I do now?” he asked the rav. “The money is not mine; I have a responsibility toward my boss to retrieve it.”

“Right now,” Rav Yitzchak responded gently, “There is truly nothing you can do. They are sitting shivah, and you must allow them to complete their mourning period. After they get up from shivah, we can make a din Torah and discuss it further, but at this point, all you can do is wait.”

There was a lucrative transaction on the table, a transaction that would not necessarily be waiting for the mourners to get up from shivah, but Yaakov realized that he did indeed have no other choice but wait. He might have to lose the deal, but hopefully he would recover the money.

The days seemed to crawl by with excruciating slowness. Monday passed, then Tuesday, then Wednesday. Finally, it was Monday again, and Feivel’s family received their summons to bais din. Rav Yitzchak Horowitz presided over the case, wearing his tallis and tefillin, he called Yaakov up to make his claim.

For the umpteenth time, Yaakov repeated his story. “I came here on the behest of the wealthy Ahron, my boss, to complete a business venture. He gave me a large sum of money to tie up the deal. I arrived just before the onset of Shabbos, and I asked around, looking for a trustworthy person who would be able to safeguard the money over Shabbos.

“Someone directed me to Feivel the innkeeper, describing his honesty and piety, and I followed his advice. I gave Feivel my money, trusting him to return it after Shabbos. Unfortunately, over Shabbos, Feivel became ill and passed away, but I need back the money. My boss’s money.”

It was Gitta’s turn to respond and she stood up. “I never heard anything about this from my husband,” she attested. “And neither did my children. This man barges and demands money from us, without anything to prove his story. Why are we obligated to give some of our inheritance to him just because he says so? For all we know, he just wants to take advantage of a poor widow and orphans to satisfy his own pockets.”

The bais din began to go through the halachos carefully to determine how to rule. They determined that because Yaakov had brought some weak proofs of his position, the family was obligated to swear that they knew nothing about the story if they didn’t want to give him the money he was demanding.

Swearing is something that the Torah takes very seriously, and it is only under very specific circumstances that swearing is required. But now the family was required to swear, obligated to swear, if they wanted to keep the money.

“We are ready to swear,” the family said.

Yaakov saw them get up and prepare to take the oath. He was a pious man, and he began trembling. He knew that his story was true, but how could he make another Jew swear? How could he put them in such a position?

“Don’t swear!” he cried out. “I see that you feel that you are saying the truth. I don’t want to obligate you to swear!” He turned to Rav Yitzchok Horowitz. “I don’t want them to swear. I can’t bear to see them swearing!”

“If you don’t want them to swear, then the case is closed,” Rav Yitzchak told him. “There is nothing more that I can do.”

“Even so,” Yaakov said. “I can’t make another Jew swear.”

The din Torah was adjourned and the family filed passed him, shaking their heads apologetically. And despite his pain, Yaakov understood them. It seemed to him that they were telling the truth, that they really did know nothing of Feivel’s agreement to safeguard his money, and they therefore did not want to give him the sum he had requested.

When the family left, he turned to Rav Yitzchak. “What can I do now?” he asked the rav.

“There’s nothing really that you can do,” the rav responded. “You took away their obligation to swear, and now there is no way that I can force them to give you the money you claim is yours.”

“But it really seemed to me that they were saying the truth,” Yaakov explained. “Why make them swear for nothing?”

“I hear you,” the rav said slowly. “I, too, go the impression that they were truthful. I can’t obligate them to give you any money.”

Yaakov felt trapped. He could not return home, to face Ahron, without the money. But there didn’t seem to be any reason for him to stay in this city. What could he do? Where could he go? With no better options, he decided to stay put for another few days.

The following morning, after davening, he went to speak to Rav Yitzchak Horowitz again. “There must be some way you can help me!” he cried to the rav, tears creeping down his cheeks. “I can’t go back to my hometown, where my boss will be waiting. He will never believe me that the money was stolen! I’ll be fired, my children will be thrown out into the streets.”

“I wish I could help you,” the rav said sincerely. “But there’s really nothing I can do.”

Yaakov, however, did not give up. Each and every day, he went to see Rav Yitzchak, begging him for assistance. Until he managed to retrieve his money, his life was in limbo, and with each passing day, he felt more and more desperate. “Please help me!” he would beg the rav, over and over and over.

Rav Yitzchak Horowitz realized that if he did not find away to help the distraught Jew, the story would never finish. “You know what?” he offered one day, when Yaakov came again to beg for assistance. “We will make another dvar Torah.”

“What will it help?” Yaakov sniffled. “I don’t want to make them swear.”

“Not with the family, but with Feivel himself,” the rav clarified.

“But Feivel is not alive!” Yaakov exclaimed.

“Even so,” the rav countered. “You are in a desperate situation. You can’t return home, and you can’t resume living until this story is behind you. We’ll make a din Torah with Feivel himself and hopefully arrive to a positive conclusion.”

Yaakov had never heard of such a thing. Bringing a niftar to a din Torah was a concept he’d never stumbled upon.

“Normally, I wouldn’t do such a thing,” Rav Yitzchak said. “But this is not a regular case, and I can’t bear to see you in so much pain. We will make the din Torah on Monday.”

Gitta and her children were formally notified of the case, and it did not take long for word of the unusual din Torah to spread. By Monday morning, it was the only thing the city spoke about. Everyone wanted to witness the case himself, but only the two parties, along with Feivel’s family, were permitted to attend.

When Yaakov silently entered the room for the din Torah, followed by Gitta and her family, Rav Yitzchak Horowitz was waiting for them. “The litigant will sit here, on this side,” he said, nodding at Yaakov, who assumed the seat. “And the defendant will sit here, on this chair.” He pointed to an empty chair opposite Yaakov. “The bais din will sit near me.”

But instead of beginning the din Torah, Rav Yitzchak closed his eyes and remained utterly still for fifteen minutes, his face glowing a fiery scarlet. The, with his eyes still tightly shut, he told his assistant, “Go to the cemetery, and tell Feivel the innkeeper to that he is being summoned by Rav Yitzchak Horowitz, the av beis din, for judgement.”

The shammas began trembling in anticipation of this mission, but he took the stick that Rav Yitzchak held out and hurried out of the room without a word of protest. At the cemetery, he used the stick to bang on Feivel’s grave. “I am the shammas of Rav Yitzchak Horowitz, av beis din, and I command you to come with me to din Torah.”

Having accomplished his mission, he hurried out of the cemetery and back to the bais medrash where the case was being conducted. He didn’t want to spend a single extra minute communing with the dead.

The trip to and from the cemetery took another twenty minutes, but when his shammas returned, Rav Yitzchak was finally ready to begin the din Torah. His eyes were still closed and his face still flaming as he called to Yaakov, “The niftar is here. Litigant, please get up and state your claim.”

Yaakov stood up, his legs wobbly beneath him. He looked at the empty chair, feeling a little foolish, and launched into his account. “I brought you money on erev Shabbos,” he said, somewhat stiffly, staring at the vacant chair. “But you passed away before you could return the money to me. I need the money back. It doesn’t belong to me.”

When Yaakov fell silent, Rav Yitzchak spoke, his eyes still closed. “Defendant,” he cried out. “You heard what the litigant said. What is your response to that?”

Everyone held their breaths, but all they heard was silence. A mythical voice didn’t begin to speak, no flickers of fire rose up from the chair. Only silence.

But Rav Yitzchak Horowitz, it seemed, was able to hear what the invisible Feivel was saying. After a long silence, he said. “I hear you. I hear you.”

Then he turned to Yaakov. “The innkeeper said that you are correct. He did take the money from you on erev Shabbos, while he was in the middle of learning hilchos Shabbos in the Shulchan Aruch. He said to tell you that the bills are still wedged between the last pages of the volume, where he absentmindedly left them.”

A visible load lifted off of Yaakov’s shoulders as a smile slowly crept toward his face.

“Additionally,” Rav Yitzchak continued. “He thanks you for not obligating his wife and children to swear.” With his eyes still shuttered, he added, “And now, R’ Yaakov, please go to Feivel’s house and look in his Shulchan Aruch. You should find the money there.”

And indeed it was. Yaakov went to the innkeeper’s home and found the money exactly as Rav Yitzchak had described. With tears in his eyes, he returned to the rav to thank him, from the bottom of his heart, for saving him from ruin.

Afterward, Rav Yitzchak Horowitz was asked about the story. “Why did the rav perform a miracle for Yaakov sake?” people wondered. “It is not the rav’s style to perform nissim.”

“True,” the rav agreed. “I generally do not delve into the miraculous spheres. Bu here was a Yid who could not stop crying! How could I listen to the anguished tears of a fellow Jew and not do everything in my power to help him?!”

Have a Wonderful Shabbos!

This story is taken from tape #A238