Not all of us are interested in news about the economy – legal penalties, labor disputes, ups and downs in the stock market, etc. But if you have a vested interest, then it sure does interest you!
This story took place ten years ago in Eretz Yisroel. Chanoch and Zissel, a Lubavitcher couple, (pseudonyms) worked for years and supported themselves in a dignified fashion. They managed to keep their heads above water, or – in financial terms – above the overdraft, for the most part. Occasionally, they found themselves sinking underwater and then the struggle became not to drown. Those are the rules of the survival game.
All of Chanoch’s life, since he came of age, has been sort of an acrobatic exercise in satisfying everyone – his wife, children, the schools and transportation, the grocer, the fruit store owner, the marketing firms and credit card company, tz’daka funds, the landlord, and most importantly the bank manager. Yes, the bank manager.
Chanoch succeeded in this task. Throughout the years, life flowed peacefully. He was never considered wealthy but nor was he among the poor. Chanoch and his wife lived modestly and were satisfied with the basics; they had no need for luxuries or to keep up with the neighbors.
Once, when he had an unusual expense, Chanoch took a loan from the bank which he committed to repaying in installments. One day followed another, one month followed another, and sometimes it was easier to pay his bank debt and sometimes it was stressful. But generally, Chanoch and his wife were diligent and thought out and the size of the debt was slowly reduced. If things would have continued that way, the following story would not have happened.
It all changed when Sharon’s government came into power and decided to dismantle the religious councils. The dismantling took a long time and employees were not paid their salaries. Thousands of employees throughout the country were left without a means of support.
Despite this, life went on for the rest of the nation without a thought for their brethren who worked for the religious councils. How were they surviving? Did they have something to put in their kids’ sandwiches for school? Did they have money for tuition? What about the loans they needed to repay? Rent, diapers, gas, electricity, water, phone bills, and a thousand other details that comprise life for a Jew in Eretz Yisroel.
Committees of ministers, committees of Knesset members, meetings that began but never ended. Those who have enough don’t relate to those who are hungry, so the rectification of the injustice gets postponed, with utmost indifference, for the foreseeable future. The special committee of ministers which was formed specifically for this matter asked for weeks from the prime minister’s office, who had ordered the dismantling, to present an updated picture, council by council: how many employees there were, how much their salaries were each month, how many months were owed to them, and how much the whole thing was going to cost.
If it wasn’t so sad and affecting the lives of so many, one may have been able to laugh at the ridiculousness of our elected officials, but families were being ruined in the interim. One of these families was the family of Chanoch and Zissel.
From the position of a balabus who supported himself just fine, he became a volunteer. He worked as a volunteer, for the sake of Heaven, without any allowance for travel expenses, not to mention a modest income.
From month to month, things grew worse. The bill at the grocer was growing to alarming heights. He couldn’t show his face there anymore so he sent his children to buy daily necessities and to “write it down.” The budget deficit doubled and then tripled. Zissel’s salary placated the bank manager for the meantime. Boruch Hashem, they had those few sh’kalim.
In the meantime, everyone promised everyone that the situation was temporary; very soon, the committees would straighten things out and the salaries would be paid again.
Chanoch is known in his city as someone straight and G-d fearing. When he asks for an extension for a certain payment, everyone knows that he is serious about his commitment and the moment he gets the money he will be the first to show up with the payment. He is certainly no fraud or charlatan, which is why, until this point, he was able to continue buying and taking care of his family’s basic needs without a problem.
Chanoch overheard conversations in the hallways of the council and put two and two together. The salaries were not expected to be deposited in the bank in the immediate future. From this day forth, it would be harder to promise everyone he owed that he would be able to pay them back very soon. The stranglehold tightened. Feelings of failure and despair began to creep into mind and heart.
In the first stage of his plight, when he could still delude himself into thinking that relief was at hand, Chanoch quietly and with much angst approached a relative who was also a good friend. Yedidya, as we shall call him, had set aside a sum of money for some personal reason. Until he needed the money, he was willing to lend it out to whoever asked.
Yedidya gave Chanoch a sizable amount of money on a temporary basis. The loan was given on condition that if he needed the money, Chanoch had to return it given a reasonable amount of time. Chanoch agreed to this term and accepted the loan.
Debts continued to mount, and the snowball was growing and was racing down the slope. Chanoch and Zissel tried to live what they had learned: to realize that everything is a test, that no evil descends from above, that the nature of Ultimate Goodness is to do good, that “he should have no desires at all of matters of this world at all,” and “yes and no are equal to him with absolute equivalence.”
It was very hard; not impossible, but hard. Our couple felt that they were at the breaking point, physically and emotionally.
Our story fills a few pages of a magazine, but the pain, stress, and despair were unlimited. This situation went on for a year and a quarter. Fifteen nerve wracking months. Fifteen months without knowing from where they would provide for their household the following month. If you have not experienced this, no description will help, not even the most elaborate.
At a certain point, Chanoch had to revert to a childhood game of hide and seek. The bank manager was not at all pleased by his financial situation, especially since he was the main loser in the whole story. When there is no bread to eat and there is no knowing from where another creditor will appear, then the bank is the last place you worry about paying. After all, the banks are on a firm footing and nothing will happen to them if they patiently wait until Hashem helps and everything straightens out. The bank wouldn’t go bankrupt from the tens of thousands of shekels that Chanoch owed it. The bank manager’s salary would continue to be paid regardless of what Chanoch owed the bank. Furthermore, the bank continued to hit Chanoch with charges of interest upon interest, so nobody was losing over there.
However, the manager was not at all impressed with this reasoning and Chanoch had to start hiding from the manager. Chanoch would check the caller ID before picking up the phone. He had to refrain from visiting the nearest branch of the bank lest he be seen. Chanoch was definitely not laughing all the way to the bank.
But in recently, the game ended. The manager demanded a significant sum of several thousand shekels deposited in Chanoch’s bank account by Wednesday morning (Parshas Lech Lecha 5765). Where should he get it from? The manager didn’t care. He even threatened that the next step would be to freeze the account. No games; this time it’s serious.
What could he do? Cry, wipe tears, try to get the gray cells to come up with a solution, despair, and cry again.
Suddenly, a spark of hope: Yedidya! He would ask Yedidya for additional help. He was a warmhearted person who suffered upon hearing of someone’s sorrow. He was the answer. The couple breathed easier. Yedidya would help them, maybe not with the entire sum, but with enough to appease the bank manager.
The phone rang in Yedidya’s house. He could see it was Chanoch on the caller ID. I wonder what he wants. Probably not to pay back the loan that Yedidya needed now, which he had held back from asking for, for a while now, since he knew of Chanoch’s situation. He knew that he would have to wait much longer for the loan to be repaid.
Chanoch spoke to Yedidya, sounding unlike himself. It was hard for him to ask for more money when he hadn’t repaid the previous loan. But he did it because he had no choice.
For the first time since they knew one another, Yedidya had to refuse Chanoch’s request. He himself was strapped. He was sorry and he understood, and he was willing to think of ideas to extricate Chanoch out of the quicksand, but he had nothing to offer then and there. He had connections; he would call friends and other relatives. “Give me a few days to arrange at least a partial rescue,” he said.
Chanoch hung up the phone in despair. That was it; that frail straw that he had held on to with desperation had slipped away. What would happen? The clock showed that the next day was fast approaching; way too fast. What would be?
Zissel, as a true woman of valor, decided to take action. She would speak to Pessia, Yedidya’s wife, woman to woman. Who knows what the results might be? Maybe she’d be able to convince Yedidya to come up with a practical solution by the next morning!
Zissel called the familiar number. Without being able to restrain herself, she burst into tears and begged for help.
“Zissel, calm down! Let’s think together. What can we do … One minute, what did the Rebbe have to say about all this? What?! You didn’t write to him? How can that be?!”
“Pessia, I need thousands of shekels now, thousands of shekels by tomorrow morning. Not an answer in the Igros Kodesh. MONEY! If you don’t help, we will have no choice but to go to the loan sharks …”
Pessia herself knew what troubles are and did not think badly of Zissel for her response. Instead she focused on her goal which was to get the couple to turn to the Rebbe for help. “Where is Chanoch? I want to speak to him right now.
“Chanoch,” she reminded him, “remember when you were in a bind many years ago? You needed a big miracle – and who helped you? Only the Rebbe, the Rebbe who is the father of us all. You must turn to him. Now take a clean white piece of paper and a pen, wash your hands and write a letter.”
Chanoch was dumbfounded. How was it that he hadn’t thought of turning to the Rebbe? Under Pessia’s influence, he quickly wrote to the Rebbe with a heavy heart, seeking to shift his burden on to the right shoulders. He finished writing, looked at the Rebbe’s face and put the letter into Volume 17 of the Igros Kodesh. The answer was on pages 180-181:
In response to your writing a pidyon nefesh – without a date – full of complaints and describing your situation in the blackest colors…
In the letter, the Rebbe goes on to explain that despair and sadness are nothing more than ploys of the Yetzer Hara and that every person is given the means to overcome them. As far as the questioner’s writing about the need for a light or lamp to illuminate the dark road, the Rebbe writes that the road is not dark at all, as there is clear guidance in Torah and Chassidus for every situation. In conclusion the Rebbe expresses his hope that upon receipt of this letter, you will turn your mind away entirely from sighs and increase in actions…and within a short time you will see that you were completely mistaken in your description of the situation…
A few minutes later the phone rang in Yedidya and Pessia’s house. This time, Chanoch was on the line. His voice sounded strong. The first change had already begun!
“I must thank you. From the moment I wrote to the Rebbe, I’ve been feeling better. If you are interested, you can look at the answer in Volume 17.”
Yedidya and Pessia went to the bookshelf to see what the Rebbe had written to have had such an effect on Chanoch. They were astonished when they read the letter that was so on target. Was there any doubt that the Rebbe is chai v’kayam and personally taking care of each of his children?
How the matter would be resolved, especially as the Rebbe wrote, “within a short time you will see that you were completely mistaken in your description of the situation,” nu, that was the Rebbe’s business. Now, after an answer like this, it was absolutely clear that everything would work out.
Sometimes the salvation comes immediately and sometimes it is delayed, but it always comes at the right time. In this case, it was a matter of a night, twelve hours.
Wednesday morning, after a tense night in which Yedidya tried to be creative in drumming up help for Chanoch and his family, the phone rang in his house. It was Chanoch.
Yedidya picked it up, thinking he would repeat the words of comfort and encouragement of the Rebbe.
“Yedidya, what an excellent morning!”
“Excellent?”
“You won’t believe this but twenty minutes ago, the entire amount I needed to pay to the manager of the bank was deposited into my account! We were saved! The authorities authorized another payment on account of the salaries that are owed us …”
I personally know about this story with Yedidya and Pessia and all I can say is, “Yechi Adoneinu Moreinu V’Rabbeinu, Melech HaMoshiach L’olam Va’ed!