There are moments when heaven and earth meet – simple moments in appearance, like a knock at the door.  A Jew who merits to hear the voice of a poor person is in truth hearing a gentle call from the upper worlds.  The small act of giving, specifically when it is difficult or when one is lacking, opens gates hidden from the eye.  The following story reveals how fine the thread is that connects simple kindness with entire destinies.

Sunday, 12 Sivan 5785 – The Daily Chizzuk by Rabbi Eliezer Berland shlit”a

When a poor person knocks on your door, they’re sending you a “dorona miskena (the gift of a poor person)”

This was the story of Nachum Weissfish [Rabbi Nachum Weissfish z”l, a member of the Mea She’arim community and one of the farmers of Meir Shfeya.  He worked to unite the hearts of the Old Yishuv with the members of the working settlements and pioneers.  His murder by Arab rioters in 5698 (1938) was a harsh blow that opened the way for agricultural settlement in Shfeya.]

Nachum Weissfish, the father of all the Weissfish’s, lived in the Meir Shfeya moshava (agricultural settlement) near Zikhron Yaakov.  He lived at first in Jerusalem and moved to Shfeya, and from Shfeya he would send the milk to Jerusalem.  All the kosher milk would come from him. At the time, all the cows belonged to gentiles, and they needed a Jew to do the milking, so he would supervise the milking.  He would live in Shfeya [Meir Shfeya near Zikhron Yaakov], which was built by the Baron [Rothschild], and he was the only Haredi Jew in the entire community.  He would put the milk on the train that would come from Zikhron – to this day, the train is still in Zikhron.  He would put the milk cans on the train, travel to Jerusalem, and there they would unload it.  That was the milk for all of Jerusalem.  Every day, he would place new milk cans.  At night, they would milk the cows and place ten milk cans for the entire Haredi community.  Ten cans were enough, because every child received one cup of milk. The incident occurred on Thursday night.  A pauper knocked on the door and asked Rabbi Nachum Weissfish for tzedaka.  Weissfish said to him, “I only have a 50 [lira] note,” and asked the pauper, “Do you have change for fifty?” A 50-lira note was like 50,000 mil [the currency during the British Mandate period].  Every lira is a thousand mil.  Fifty liras is 50,000 mil.  Now, the poor man has to bring 50,000 mil in change! The pauper asked, “How can I bring change for 50,000 mil?!”

Afterwards, Nachum Weissfish regretted and said, “It doesn’t matter, he’ll return the change to me another time,” but he couldn’t find the pauper again.  On that Motza’ei Shabbat that he missed the pauper, he was murdered.

If someone knocks on a person’s door [to ask for tzedaka], one needs to immediately run with a shekel, ten shekels – something.  “Let not the downtrodden turn back in shame, [let the poor and destitute praise Your Name]” (Tehilim 74:21).   At least give him one shekel. An ashamed, downtrodden person – they send him a gift of a poor person [dorona miskena].  They send him a poor person as a gift in order to sweeten the judgments.  If they send a person a pauper who knocks on the door, he might have a decree of death on him that day, or on his child.  His child crosses the street, and a car runs him over.