Rav Yosef Shaul Nathanson was a brilliant gaon and a giant in Torah. He was also a tremendous masmid who learned around the clock, eating and sleeping just enough to keep him going. When he was a young man of marriageable age, there was no dearth of shidduch offers that came his way. Everyone, from the rich and connected to the poor and learned, wanted a son-in-law of his caliber.
Rav Yosef Shaul married the daughter of a great talmid chacham. In the process, he acquired a dear friend and chavrusah, his new brother-in-law Rav Mordche Zev. Rav Mordche Zev was also a tremendous talmid chacham, and their father-in-law watched with pride as his two illustrious sons-in-law learned together day and night, developing chiddushim and excelling in their studies.
The rav of their city was a distinguished talmid chacham called the Yeshuas Yaakov. He guided the spiritual state of the city with wisdom and clarity of mind, and spent a great many hours devoted to public service. From around the city, there were questions constantly being posed to him, and he helped the Jews resolve their problems with dedication and warmth.
When the Yeshuas Yaakov passed away, the community was devastated, and they knew that it would not be easy to fill his larger-than-life shoes. At the same time, however, the questions and issues didn’t take a hiatus with the rav’s passing, and it became urgent to find someone competent to become rav.
It did not take long for the community to decide that they wanted Rav Yosef Shaul Nathanson to assume the position. They heard about his vigorous personality, his unyielding diligence and absolute brilliance, and they knew that this was what they wanted in their new rav.
A delegation of three representatives went to the bais medrash where Rav Yosef Shaul was learning with his brother-in-law and waited patiently for his learning session to come to a close. As Rav Yosef Shaul stood up to leave the bais medrash, they walked alongside him, and took the opportunity to ask him to assume the position of rav.
But Rav Yosef Shaul was not interested. “I am not a rav,” he protested. “Rabbanus is not for me. It will take me away from learning too much. Thank you, but I cannot accept it.”
The delegation refused to take no for an answer, since they were convinced that he was the only suitable replacement for the Yeshuas Yaakov. Again and again, they approached Rav Yosef Shaul, pleading with him to accept the position, but each time Rav Yosef Shaul turned them down with the same response.
Seeing that their efforts were not leading anywhere, the representatives decided to try a different approach. They went to Rav Yosef Shaul’s father-in-law and asked him to put pressure on his son-in-law to accept the position. At first, his father-in-law was reluctant to intervene, not wanting to take responsibility for the disruption to Rav Yosef Shaul’s learning, but after the delegation put enough pressure on him, he agreed to speak to his son-in-law.
However, even with his father-in-law involved, Rav Yosef Shaul did not want to accept the position. The delegation kept pressuring his father-in-law, who in turn continued pressuring Rav Yosef Shaul, but the young talmid chacham kept resisting their pleas.
Even his brother-in-law and chavrusah, Rav Mordche Zev, tried to convince Rav Yosef Shaul that it was his responsibility to the community to become the rav, but Rav Yosef Shaul shrugged off this argument as well. He wanted to sit and learn in a quiet bais medrash; he did not want a job that would require hours away from his Gemara.
But the pressure was relentless. The people did not give up. They hounded and pushed and prodded and pressed for months on end until they succeeded in squeezing an agreement out of Rav Yosef Shaul. After so many months of non-stop pressure, Rav Yosef Shaul was forced to give in and assume the rav’s seat.
However, when he accepted the rabbanus, Rav Yosef Shaul stipulated strict conditions. He made rules and regulations for everything in the city that would fall under his responsibility, and asked to be allowed close vigilance over the city’s religious businesses, such as shechitah. These conditions were unconditionally agreed to, and Rav Yosef Shaul became the rav.
He was given a peltz, a distinguished rabbinical coat, and a cane to walk with in the street, also a sign of rabbinical distinction, and assumed his new duties. In addition to the packed learning schedule he’d retained up until then, he was now also responsible for checking the weights in the stores and confirming the kosher status of the shechitah knife and the slaughtered animals. There were tens of questions to address and issues to resolve.
Before Pesach, Rav Yosef Shaul had many duties related to the upcoming yom tov. Every day, he visited the matzah bakery, where he spent a long time supervising and checking to ensure that the matzos were being baked properly. He needed to give a stamp of kashrus on the wine produced locally, as well as help people with their shailos on koshering their pots and utensils for Pesach. As well, he looked after the many poverty-stricken families and made sure that they had what they needed for Yom Tov.
Rav Yosef Shaul was so consumed by the needs of the community before Pesach that he did not have a moment to prepare himself for his own seder. In fact, he arrived at the seder extremely late, having been held up by some men in shul with urgent questions. Keeping one eye on the clock, he recited Kiddush with deep emotion and proceeded to lead his family’s seder, aiming to reach Motzie Matzah and eat a kezayis of matzah before chatzos.
Suddenly, there was a knock on the door. Two Yidden stood framed in the doorway, their faces wreathed in concern and shock. Quietly, they told the rav that they had witnessed observant Jews eating chametz that very night of leil haseder.
Rav Yosef Shaul stood up and put on his peltz. “Please take me to them,” he requested of the two Jews. He hurried after the two men, who led him through the city until they reached a decrepit hut at the very outskirts of town.
Rav Yosef Shaul looked into the window and saw that the two men were telling the truth. There was indeed a loaf of bread on the table. He sighed in pain and knocked on the door gently.
“Whose there?” a male voice called from inside.
“Rav Yosef Shaul Nathanson,” the rav replied.
The door swung open. A man, dressed in rags that had more holes than material, stood there, and when he saw his visitor, he fell to the floor, crying. A mouse scurried across the room, and Rav Yosef Shaul could see children sitting at the table, nibbling at slices of bread. In the corner of the room, the woman of the house was laying on a bed, clearly ill. The entire house was in disarray.
“Rebbi,” the man cried from his seat on the floor. “My wife is terribly sick; she is dying! And we are so, so poor. There is absolutely no food in this house. I am not eating chametz on Pesach, and neither is my wife, but the children are crying for food. They found bread, and they are so hungry that they are eating it.”
Rav Yosef Shaul’s heart broke at the sight before him. He turned to the two men with him and asked them to quickly call some of the city’s askanim. Within the next half-hour, the entire house was sparkling clean. Matzos, wine, fish, and meat were brought to the family, and the children were all taken in for Yom Tov by kindhearted people in the community. Even a doctor came to visit, along with a regimen of medicines for the ill mother.
It was with a very heavy heart that Rav Yosef Shaul returned home to finish the seder. Although the family was now comfortably taken care of, he was consumed with guilt over his own failure to ensure that every family in his city had matzos and food for Pesach. A Jewish family had eaten chametz under his watch and his responsibility.
By the time the seder was over, Rav Yosef Shaul knew what he needed to do.
He was calling it quits, giving up the rabbanus. He was not cut out for the job.
The next morning, the entire city was talking about the story. There had been people involved in the rescue operation, and details were flying from person to person. It was a heartbreaking story, one that the community hoped would never be repeated.
But when the second day of Pesach drew to a close, after Havdalah, Rav Yosef Shaul called a meeting of all the rabbanim in the city. In a somber voice, he took responsibility for the grave occurrence of Jews eating chametz on Pesach for lack of other food, even though they were only children. “I am no longer the rav,” he concluded. “I am resigning from this position.”
As soon as Yom Tov was over, he took off his peltz, as though to cement his decision to step down from the rabbanus. To the community, it was a double blow. First, the terrible story that had occurred on leil Seder, and now, the rav had left them! Isru Chag Pesach was like Tisha B’av that year.
The people did not take the rav’s resignation so easily. When they could not convince Rav Yosef Shaul to remain on board, they went to his father-in-law for help. “Ask him to remain the rav until you find a new rav,” was the father-in-law’s advice.
Armed with this idea, a delegation went to speak to Rav Yosef Shaul, and they were overjoyed when he agreed to stay on while they searched for someone new. “Only for three months,” Rav Yosef Shaul cautioned. “I’ll stay for another three months, and by then, you need to find someone else.”
The representatives nodded, but they did not go out in search of a new rav. As far as they were concerned, there was no one competent enough to replace Rav Yosef Shaul.
In the ensuing three months, Rav Yosef Shaul spent an exorbitant amount of time answering questions and ruling on halachic matters. Anyone who needed a din Torah made sure to have it scheduled in this time frame, because they wanted Rav Yosef Shaul to preside over it. As a result, the rav found himself presiding over many interesting cases.
Toward the end of the three-month period, there was a very unusual case regarding a food wholesaler named Chaim.
Chaim dealt in the food industry, buying large quantities of food cheaply and selling them in smaller quantities to retailers for a higher price. He would buy the wholesale goods on credit, and pay back his suppliers once the food was sold.
One day, he purchased many bushels of wheat on credit and spent a week selling the smaller amounts to mills and bakeries. Once the wheat was all sold, earning him a hefty profit, he returned to his wheat supplier to pay up what he owed for the wheat. It was then that he realized that his pocket was completely empty. All the money from the wheat sales were gone.
Worry gnawed at him as he hurried to retrace his steps in an attempt to find the money, but wherever he looked, he could not find it. For two days and nights, he did not stop looking, but he couldn’t find the money. Tears swelled in his eyes, and he simply could not stop them from rolling down his cheeks. Dragging his feet limply, he made his way to the nearest shul and put his head down, crying and crying.
The people in the bais medrash were sympathetic when they heard his story, and they offered to help him look for it. Thankfully, Chaim had a good memory, and he knew exactly what kind of bills and coins had been in the money bag he lost. He gave an exact description of the denominations he lost to the small crowd of people who had gathered around him, and they all promised to keep an eye out for the money.
Just a short while later, the textile merchant came running back into the shul, his face flushed and excited. “I think I found it!” he called, running over to Chaim, a bag dangling from his outstretched hand. “Is this the money you lost?”
Chaim took the bag, his fingers shaking so badly that he had a hard time opening it up. But inside was his money, every last bill and coin! “Thank you!” he exclaimed, jumping up and hugging the merchant. “You saved me!”
The merchant just smiled. “I’m happy to have been able to help,” he said sincerely.
Chaim rushed out of the bais medrash, clutching the money tightly, and headed straight for his wheat supplier to pay up what he owed. To his surprise, the wheat supplier greeted him with a broad smile and astonishing news. “I found your money!”
Chaim’s face registered confusion. “What?!”
“I found your money, the money you lost,” the wheat supplier said again. “It must have fallen out when you were talking to me. We found it earlier today amongst the bushels of wheat in our stock room.”
“Let me see,” Chaim requested in a trembling voice.
The supplier handed him a bag, identical to the one he’d received from the textile merchant. Chaim counted the money and found every last bill and coin inside. “I don’t understand,” he stammered. “This is my money, but how can that be? The textile merchant already found my money at the marketplace!”
It was the day before Rav Yosef Shaul’s last day as rav, and Chaim hurried to speak to him, holding both bags of money. A large crowd gathered curiously, amazed at the story, and waited to hear what the end would be.
Breathlessly, Chaim related how he’d lost his money, and the textile merchant had gone to help him find it. “He found the exact money bag I described, down to every last coin. But when I went to pay the wheat supplier, he told me that he, too, had found my money!”
Rav Yosef Shaul heard the story in silence. When Chaim finished speaking, he said, “Come back tomorrow, and I will have an answer for you.”
The following day was the last day of Rav Yosef Shaul’s rabbanus. When Chaim came to speak to him, an even larger crowd followed, eager to hear the rav’s take on the strange occurrence. Amongst the crowd was the textile merchant, who had found the first sack of money.
“It is clear to me,” Rav Yosef Shaul told the wholesaler, “That the textile merchant didn’t find the money that you lost, but rather that he decided to give you his own money, in the exact denominations you lost, because he couldn’t bear to see your pain. This was an unbelievable mitzvah. However, now that the wheat supplier indeed found your money, you may return the merchant’s money to its rightful owner.”
The textile merchant stepped forward from the crowd, blushing furiously. He had assumed that the original money would never be found, and thus no one would ever know about his deeds. “But Rebbi,” he cried. “I don’t want to give up this mitzvah! I don’t want my money back.”
“How about you donate the money to tzedakah?” Rav Yosef Shaul suggested. “In that way, you will continue to retain your merits in this mitzvah, as well as gain additional merits by providing for the poor.”
The textile merchant smiled and nodded, happy with Rav Yosef Shaul’s suggestion.
But the best was yet to come.
“I have decided to stay on as rav,” Rav Yosef Shaul announced emotionally. “Today was supposed to be my last day. Now, however, I’ve seen what kind of Jews live in this city. Jews who give up their own money so that others should not be pained. Holy Jews who fight over mitzvos, unwilling to give them up! This is the kind of city where I want to be the rav of!”
And with that, Rav Yosef Shaul Nathanson remained the rav of his very grateful community.
Have a Wonderful Shabbos!
This story is taken from tape #A423