Chapter Sixty-Six: Eighteen Grush

I will tell a story that happened to me. There was a family from the side of the opponents — and they had many children. And I had no money for Shabbos. No one gave to me — and I and my family suffered.

Until the children of that family began to die. The children were small — they would get sick and go to the doctor once, twice… and they died.

The husband was a Torah scholar — a yeshiva student. And he had a daughter. And she — without asking her father or her mother or her husband or anyone — gave me every Friday before the lighting of the candles eighteen grush. And from that Shabbos onward the dying stopped — and all the children are alive until this day!

Her father thought he was very important before Hashem — he was the gabbai of the yeshiva. And I was such a poor man. He thought I was of no importance whatsoever — and he did not give me bread. So the children died. His children died, died, died — until his daughter gave me eighteen grush every Friday before the lighting of the candles.

The family did not know — she kept it a great secret. Only I and she knew. Eighteen grush was a large coin — it was a lot of money, a great possession. And this charity money protected — the children did not die. From that day the illnesses stopped and the children stopped dying.

I would sing the Shabbos songs — Azamer Bishvachin [Shabbos hymn] and Eshes Chayil ["A Woman of Valor"]. They were opponents. And she heard this melody — so she began to send with their children eighteen grush to me. And I had something to eat on Sunday, Monday. I did not think any such thought that she would give every Friday. When I received the eighteen grush the first time I thought: "That is it — enough. Once she gave. What — did she make a contract with me?"

No — the second Friday came, and the third, and the fourth… Every Friday I was afraid that perhaps it would stop — perhaps she would not give. But she saw that she had given eighteen grush and the children lived. So she continued and sent me every Friday before the lighting of the candles eighteen grush.

We were neighbors — I lived in some house that had an upper floor where the son-in-law and the daughter lived. I knew everything — I saw that the children were already remaining alive. She had beautiful children. She had a fifteen-year-old girl who already remained alive. Yes. And I heard from the children that they were very joyful that they had not gotten sick and had not died. And the children loved me as if they loved their own father…