We met in shul, as usual, in the afternoon. In the winter, when the sun sets so early, Mincha and Maariv are davened soon after the end of the school day. Right after school, we rush home to put down our briefcases and from there we go to shul for Mincha and Maariv.
We meet there every day at the neighborhood shul, me – Dovy, and other classmates who live in the area, Yossi, Eli, Sruli, Moishy, and other boys. The truth is that although Yossi lives nearby, most of the time he does not daven with us because he davens in his father’s shul. His father is the rav in a non-Chabad shul. But aside from him, they all usually come.
Today I met Moishy at the entrance to the shul, near the sink. A minute later, I noticed Sruli and Eli, right under the “It’s Forbidden to Talk During Davening” sign. A minyan began to form and we hurried to say korbanos so we could join it.
A moment before R’ Dovid the gabbai, who volunteered to be the chazan, began Ashrei, I noticed that Sruli was eyeing a tall man with a gray beard who stood near him. It is not polite to stare at someone, but when I glanced over I saw what had drawn Sruli’s attention.
The gray-bearded man held a pushka in his left hand and a half shekel coin in his right hand. There is nothing odd about that; many people give tz’daka before every t’filla. What was strange was his face. His forehead was creased and he closed his eyes as though thinking about something.
“What is there to think about before giving tz’daka,” whispered Sruli. “It’s just half a shekel …”
I did not manage to respond because R’ Dovid had begun Ashrei. By the beginning of Kaddish, the gray-bearded man had already put the coin in the tz’daka box.
When davening, I try to use a siddur. It’s a good resolution that I made in camp this year. Like the Rebbe davens, without looking out of the siddur. So I didn’t really look at the pushka or at the strange things going on around it.
It was only at the end of the davening, after proclaiming Yechi, that I noticed something peculiar. This time, it was someone we know, R’ Moshe. He’s a smiley, nice man who works in a vegetable store not far from yeshiva. He was standing next to the box, looking at it, deep in thought, as though there was something fascinating about the typical, yellow box. There are several of them in shul.
I ignored it. I am not the type to take an interest in what people are thinking before they donate a few cents, but Sruli soon told Shloimy and Moishy about it.
“What a strange pushka that is,” he commented. “Before people put money in it, they think a lot.”
Shloimy and Moishy looked in the direction of the pushka and once again, we saw this unusual sight. This time, it was our teacher who picked up the pushka. He smiled to himself, thought a bit, and then put a coin in the slot.
By this time, it had become a real mystery. There are many interesting tz’daka boxes in the world. We even heard about pushkas that play a tune or display a blinking light when you put in a coin, but a pushka that causes the donor to meditate before putting in a donation?!
The gray-bearded man disappeared so we could not ask him about it. Our teacher was in the middle of learning with a mekurav, so we couldn’t ask him either.
We went over to R’ Moshe, hoping that he could solve the riddle. But R’ Moshe was in the middle of giving a shiur on Moshiach and Geula, so we couldn’t ask him. The mystery only became greater as whoever went over to the pushka stopped for a moment before putting in a coin.
We sat on the shul benches and listened to the shiur. Then the rabbi said, “When you give tz’daka with the intention to hasten the Geula, this intention itself is part of learning inyanei Moshiach and Geula, the teaching of the Chazal, ‘Great is tz’daka which hastens the Geula.’”
We looked at one another excitedly. This was the answer!
We all leaped forward to the pushka. Shloimy won the race and grabbed it first. We were not mistaken. A white paper was pasted on the pushka which had the lines that the rabbi had just read in the shiur.
That was it! Whoever went over to the pushka, saw the note and before putting in a coin stopped to think about the line, “Great is tz’daka which hastens the Geula.”
Sruli took a coin out of his pocket, got change and gave each of us a coin. Then each of us in turn took the pushka, read the note, thought for a moment, and then put in the coin.
We suddenly noticed that some boys from our class were giving us strange looks. They did not understand what we were doing. We surely looked just like them ten minutes earlier, before we discovered that it is good to think about the Geula when giving tz’daka.
Now it was our turn to explain it to them, how by putting in a coin you get both the mitzva of tz’daka and Torah study and the main thing – speeding up the Geula!