As the gabbai of Rav Yeshayala’s tzedakah, Rav L’Hoshia, it is sometimes part and parcel to have to suffer some insults as well from people who think they are having fun. The gabbai is accustomed to this and does not at all take offense.
One such incident occurred one morning in a beis medrash after a fundraising appeal, when an elderly Yid started making jokes at the gabbai’s expense. Presently, while the man was in middle of talking, a third person who witnessed this came over and declared, "Let me tell you a story I had with Rav L'Hoshia."
"It happened this way,” the man began. "I had a non-Jewish worker who one day decided to sue me in court, claiming that I hadn’t paid him enough overtime. The penalty he was demanding from me was $200,000 — two hundred thousand dollars! This was money I didn’t have, and I didn’t know in which direction I should turn.
"The next morning, when I came into shul, I met this 'Rav Yeshayala Yid'" — he points to the gabbai — "who happened to come to make a fundraising appeal for Rav Yeshayala’s tzedakah. The sight of him gave me hope — I looked at it as a hashgacha pratis, as a sign from heaven that Rav Yishayala will help me.
"I wrote a kvittel, mentioning in it my troubles with the worker, and added a nice sum to feed the hungry children in Eretz Yisroel.
"The next morning, the worker who had filed the lawsuit drank a little more than he was used to. He was standing at the train station, and as the train was approaching the station he bent over the tracks and was struck fatally by the train.”
Since the plaintiff was no one alive, the lawsuit was dropped.
From the Gabbai’s Notebook
