Emuna Daily

“I want to share a story that I heard from Rav Shimshon Pinkus about Shabbos. He personally heard it from the grandson of the one it happened to. In the early 1900′s a young immigrant Jewish family were being kicked out of their home as they were not able to afford the rent. The family had remained true to their Jewish traditions and the father refused to go in to work on Shabbos. He had lost job after job and finally his reputation got ahead of him, and he was not able to get a job at all. It was a cold bitter winter when the entire family were kicked out onto the uninviting streets of New York. With the falling snow the caretaker had mercy on them and allowed them to remain in the coal-room of the building, until they find a proper roof over their heads.

A few weeks later a wealthy Jew walks down the street and sees two little black boys playing in the street speaking Yiddish. He says to his friend “hey look at these black kids speaking yiddish”

The boys turn to him and say “we are not black, we are Jewish and we are white”
In astonishment the wealthy Jew asks them “so why are you so black?”
“we are black because we live in the Coal-room” reply the innocent kids.

Absolutely baffled, the wealthy Jew asks to meet their father. The father is summoned and explains that he couldn’t hold a job, because he refused to go to work on Shabbos! Right then and there the wealthy man pulled out his check book and wrote the family a check for $500 (worth today around $13500). The father looked at the check and then asked the wealthy Jew, “do you keep Shabbos?”

“No I don’t, but what has that got to do with anything”? asked the wealthy Jew
“I’ve never violated Shabbos and by receiving your money I feel like I will have partaken in you violation, and I am not yet willing to do that” replied the father to the flabergasted wealthy Jew!

“However since we are currently in a desperate situation, I feel it only right to first ask my wife what she wishes I do.”

He went back to his wife showed her the check and explained to her his communicability about taking the money. His precious wife agreed with him, saying that if he hadn’t ever partaken from the violation of Shabbos, he should’nt start now!

The father returned the check to the shocked wealthy man who couldn’t believe the stupidity of this irresponsible Jew. When he got home, he excitedly told his wife about this crazy couple who were living in a coal cellar, who had refused his gift of $500!
“can you imagine such crazy people?” he asked his wife “why wouldn’t they take the money?” she asked “because he said something about not wanting to partake of money I earned through violation of Shabbos” he replied.

At the sound of those words a cold shiver ran down her spine, she sat down and began to sob. She cried and cried reminding her husband that when they came to America they also tried to keep Shabbos, but it was too difficult.

She reminded him that they had agreed that he would begin to work on Shabbos just to get by, but getting by was never enough, and now they are so wealthy through the violation of Shabbos that even a Jewish family wont touch their money.

At the strong realization of his wife’s powerful words the two of them resolved to keep every Shabbos from that day on. Together they walked back and found the poor family who were in the coal cellar and they explained to them their new resolution their commitments. The poor family moved in with them and they became closest of friends.
Subsequently the children and grandchildren of the wealthy man remained true to their commitment and faith. Their family grew and today they have hundreds of offspring who are committed to the Shabbos and the Jewish religion.” ~ http://www.theshabbosproject.org