Money was scarce in R’ Shabsi’s home, but viewing the world through his simple, black and white lenses, he accepted his poverty as a challenge chosen specifically for his family by Hashem. He saw no need to seek training in a different, more profitable field or to take on a side hustle in addition to bookbinding.
“If we are poor, then it is because Hashem desired it,” he would tell his wife, Perel, when things were tight. “We accept it with joy and will continue to serve Him in the best way we can given our situation.”
Perel would agree wholeheartedly as she stretched each penny thin and taught herself to manage without some basic necessities. Life wasn’t about ease and comfort, but about living up to the circumstances one was placed into.
If bookbinding brought in meager earnings on a good day, bad days meant no money. And too many bad days, too often, meant starvation.
“There is nothing left in the house, nothing,” Perel said to her husband one Thursday evening as they finished their paltry supper consisting of a handful of crumbs that had remained in the breadbox. Her matter-of-fact tone was neither bitter nor complaining. “It doesn’t seem that we’ll have anything for Shabbos.”
R’ Shabsi nodded. “I know,” he said with a rueful frown. “I feel terrible about it, but this is the will of Hashem, and we accept it with joy.”
On Friday at midday, when R’ Shabsi prepared to leave for shul, Perel turned to him beseechingly. “Shabsi, perhaps you can… arrange for some money in shul?” she asked delicately. “So that we can have candles and food for Shabbos?”
“You know what I feel about collecting, Perel,” R’ Shabsi replied apologetically, opening the front door. He didn’t elaborate further, and he didn’t need to.
Perel already knew her husband’s position in this matter. R’ Shabsi believed that collecting money was not included in the hishtadlus he was required to do to earn a living. “Hashem can send me the same money from the same person through my business,” he would often tell her. “It’s not like we’re talking about life and death here, but about a question of feeling a little fuller, a little warmer. And money for comforts like that will come to us through normal channels if Hashem wants us to have them.”
As he left the house, calling out a cheerful goodbye to his wife, R’ Shabsi caught glimpse of the raw pain on her face. The situation is hard on her, he realized, and his heart ached.
The shul was mostly empty when he arrived, and R’ Shabsi settled down with a tehillim. He was not a well-versed or scholarly man, but he was literate, and even if he could not learn a page of Gemara, he could say tehillim. As he carefully recited each word out of the well-worn volume, the tears began to fall.
Eibishter, he pleaded over the timeless words of tehillim. My wife is suffering terribly. It’s difficult for her to handle such poverty. Please, Hashem, ease the suffering of my pious wife…
He finished his tehillim as the shul began filling up with people before Mincha. R’ Shabsi closed the aging volume, kissed it tenderly, and picked up a chumash to review the sedra.
Back in their tiny, cold, and damp cottage, Perel watched her husband leave, a sad smile on her face. R’ Shabsi was so good, so noble, so firm in his faith, and it truly inspired her to observe his fortitude at times of despair.
Gently, she closed the door and turned around to survey the house. The small, bare, unsteady table greeted her with a decided unfriendliness, joined by the unsmiling oven, cold and silent. The house was emptier than empty, and an unsettled feeling overcame her.
What would she prepare for Shabbos? She could not cook food since there was none in the house. She could not set the table since there was no food. The table was completely clean, the room neat and tidy, and she owned nothing other than the threadbare dress she was wearing. She would have to welcome Shabbos, it seemed, just as she was, with no preparations.
Her gaze fell to the floor, dejectedly, but then she saw the handful of leaves sprinkled over the floor. “I’ll sweep the floor l’kavod Shabbos,” she exclaimed out loud, pleased to have found something to do in honor of Shabbos. Suddenly, she was grateful for the wind and her husband’s shoes for tracking in particles from outside, providing her with the opportunity to prepare for Shabbos even on a Friday like this one.
She didn’t own a broom, but their one-room house was not that big. She sat down on the floor and began sweeping with her hands, beginning from one corner of the room and steadily making her way across to the other side. With nothing else to do, she could afford to work slowly and thoroughly.
As Perel squatted over her small pile of dust, soil and leaves, she reached into a groove in the corner and swept out whatever was inside. A wave of buttons rolled out, black ones and colored ones and—was that a gold button?
She blinked. It was. It was a gold button.
Deftly, Perel scooped up the scattered buttons and began to sort them on the table. Moments later, three gold buttons were nestled in her palm, testimony to a miracle that Hashem had performed for her. Her fingers closed gingerly over them, and, abandoning the rest of the buttons on the table, she ran out of the house.
Shabbos was coming; there was no time to lose. She hurried to the goldsmith, who was already closing up shop, and pleaded with him to open back up and buy the buttons off of her right then and there. The goldsmith, a kindhearted man with an expressive mustache and flowing beard, recognized the urgency in her voice and turned back inside. With swift fingers, he placed the buttons on the scale and counted out the exact amount of coins as it was valued.
Perel hastened out of the goldsmith’s workshop while calling out her thanks, her pockets weighted by coins. Thankfully, there were still some open stalls at the marketplace, and she used some of the change jingling in her pocket to purchase wine, meat, fish and candles.
Shabbos nearly upon them, Perel tightened her grasp on her abundant packages and quickened her pace up the walk to her front door. Breathing hard, she pushed open the door with her shoulder and set down the heavy packages.
Indulging, for once, she lit many candles in addition to her standard two. It would be Shabbos, and she wanted her home to be as light as possible to compensate for the dark week. The corners of her eyes grew wet and she covered her face, whispering the special blessing on the Shabbos candles and thanking Hashem for the unbelievable miracle He had performed.
In shul, Maariv had concluded and the people were wishing each other a good Shabbos as they streamed out. Unlike the others, R’ Shabsi knew that there was no brightly lit home, no wine or challos, no delicious Shabbos meal waiting for him. He lingered long after everyone already left, continuing his review of the week’s parshah.
He couldn’t remain in shul forever, though, as dark and as cold as his home would be. It wouldn’t be fair to Perel, to leave her alone to weather the challenge herself. Besides, R’ Shabsi was a trooper, never one to abandon his difficulties. He closed the chumash and left the shul, hoping his wife was holding up fine despite their circumstances.
As he neared his home, he noticed a yellow glow in the window. He stopped short, blinking rapidly. Something was wrong. This couldn’t be his house! His house was dark. There was no money for Shabbos food, let alone candles.
Perel, however, stood there waiting for him at the doorway of the brightly-lit house, the light flooding out from behind her. If Perel was there, that meant there was no mistake and this was, indeed, his home. But how? How did she get hold of so many candles?
A huge smile bloomed across her face when she saw him. “Good Shabbos,” she called softly. “Come inside, and see what Hashem has given us.”
Still confused, R’ Shabsi followed his wife in, blinking at the sudden burst of light. He caught sight of the table, set with their only cutlery, a full cup of wine waiting for him at his place. Two golden challos peaked out from under their faded challah cover and a fragrant platter of fish rested in the middle of the table.
A sudden feeling of dread settled in his stomach. No. She wouldn’t have gone collecting, would she? She knew how he felt about begging for food or coins. How could she have defied his wishes?
She probably wanted to have to spare me the job, he thought to himself. Her intentions were surely noble. He pursed his lips and resolved not to say anything, but he could hardly look at her smiling face, let alone smile along with her.
R’ Shabsi lifted the brimming cup of wine to make kiddush, but found that he could not get the words out. He knew he was obligated to fulfill the mitzvah of kiddush, even on wine gifted as charity, but he could not bring himself to begin.
Perel, ever the aishes chayil, watched the emotions flash through her husband’s eyes, and she understood immediately. “I didn’t collect money,” she said quietly. “This money was given to us by Hashem himself.”
As she related the story of her sweeping the floor and finding the golden buttons, R’ Shabsi eyes widened in amazement. “Thank you, Hashem, for sending us this gift in the merit of my righteous wife, Perel!” he cried out and began dancing around the table as he sang. Not once did he think that perhaps his own righteousness and merits had played a part, too.
That Shabbos, the holy Baal Shem Tov was many kilometers away in a different town. He was in middle of the seudah with his talmidim when he saw, with his ruach hakodesh, R’ Shabsi dancing around his table. The Baal Shem Tov, who understood the affairs in the upper realms, laughed.
His students, seated around the table, trembled when they saw the Baal Shem Tov chuckling to himself. They understood that their pious and holy rebbe was communicating with higher spheres, and no one had the audacity to ask him why he was laughing.
The more R’ Shabsi danced, the more the Baal Shem Tov laughed. Eventually, R’ Shabsi calmed down and began to make kiddush, and far away, the rebbe stopped laughing. But he remained extra joyous for the rest of the seudah.
After Shabbos, one of the Baal Shem Tov’s close talmidim, R’ Zev, dared to approach him and inquire about what had happened at the seudah on Friday night.
“Come with me,” the Baal Shem Tov said in lieu of replying. “Come with me and you will see for yourself.”
They boarded the wagon and the horse began to move. The Baal Shem Tov’s horse was known for taking him wherever he needed to go, no reins or whips or giddyups necessary. All the Baal Shem Tov needed to do was to climb into the wagon, and the horse took care of the rest.
They traveled throughout the night, the Baal Shem Tov and R’ Zev, and arrived at their destination, a typical European shtetl, in the morning. As the wagon rolled into the shtetl, Baal Shem Tov flagged down a passing Jew on the street. “Excuse me, where can I find R’ Shabsi?
“Ah, R’ Shabsi the bookbinder!” The man inclined his head in familiarity. “Head straight down this road until the end, turn right, and then your first left. His house is the first on the street, a small, dilapidated structure.”
Thanking him for the directions, the Baal Shem Tov and R’ Zev made their way down along the shtetl’s dirt roads, reaching R’ Shabsi’s house five minutes later. They knocked on the shaky door and waited.
The door opened, and R’ Shabsi graciously welcomed his guests inside. “How can I help you?” he inquired.
“Something extraordinary has occurred in this house on Shabbos,” the Baal Shem Tov said. “Please, tell us the entire story.”
And so the simple bookbinder sat with the great founder of Chassidus and related the whole story. He described the poverty that always permeated every aspect of his life and home. He spoke of his business and his total belief in Hashem for providing his livelihood. He told them about the dark, dreary Friday when there was not a single edible thing in the house, nor any candles for Shabbos.
“We knew that Hashem would take care of us,” he ended simply, as he described the tearstained tehillim he had recited. “And He did. He performed a miracle for us, planting gold buttons in a corner of the house, which my wife sold just in time to purchase food and candles for Shabbos.”
“And then you danced,” the Baal Shem Tov reminded him.
“Yes,” R’ Shabsi agreed. “I was so overcome with gratitude, so awed by the miracle, that I simply could not contain my emotions. I danced and danced around the Shabbos table, singing praises to Hashem.”
“When you started dancing with the simchah shel mitzvah,” the Baal Shem Tov told him, “The entire bais din shel maalah came to dance along with you. Your emunah was so pure and so strong that the malachim were granted permission to join you in your joy.”
He looked heavenward and turned back to R’ Shabsi. “At that moment, I was given permission to give you a brachah for anything you desire, and that brachah will be fulfilled. So tell me, what is it that you would like me to bless you with?”
R’ Shabsi looked at his wife, who was peeking in at the scene, and gave her a small, tremulous smile. “We don’t have any children,” he said quietly. “Please, bless us with a child.”
“Next year, on this day, you will have a child,” the Baal Shem Tov blessed him.
True to his word, precisely one year later, Perel gave birth to baby boy. At the bris, at which the Baal Shem Tov served as sandek, the child was named Yisrael.
R’ Shabsi wasn’t a lofty tzaddik or even a talmid chacham, but a simple Jew who found Hashem in his business and everyday interactions. He was a man who lived and breathed the principal that whatever Hashem provided for him was exactly what he needed. And the reward of such a man is not just golden buttons, but also a golden son.
Indeed, Yisrael grew up to become the righteous Kozhnitzer Maggid, a close disciple of Rav Levi Yitzchok mi’Berditchev, and predecessor of the Chassidic dynasties of Belz and Gur.
Have a Wonderful Shabbos!
This story is taken from tape # A160