1. The Missing Ruble

00:16 This coming story shows you how important it is to do a mitzvah in the most special way. What is a mitzvah that's done in the most special way? Is when no one knows about it, only Hashem, 'cause Hashem knows everything. But if you do a mitzvah because you don't want people to say, "Oh, look at him. Look at her. They're so special. They did such a big mitzvah." And everybody says, "Yay, you're so great," but then you're doing it for people. You're not doing it really for Hashem. You're doing it so people would say nice things about you. So you get a lot of kavod, and you feel good, but that's not what a good mitzvah, a special mitzvah is. A mitzvah is special, special, special, beautiful when it's done only so Hashem knows. You know, honestly- So once there was a story with a famous tzadik, Reb Zusha. You ever heard of Reb Zusha? Can you say Reb Zusha? Reb Zusha. And you know where he came from? From a city called Hanipoli. Hanipoli. Ah, it's a funny name, Hanipoli, right? But that's a, that's the name of the city where he came from. Reb Zusha of Hanipoli. He was a great tzadik, and he was very poor. He was also very poor. Yeah, I mean- He once traveled to his rebbe. His rebbe was the famous Mezritcher Maggid, the Maggid of Mezritch. He was also the teacher of the Alter Rebbe. The Maggid of Mezritch was the teacher and the rebbe of many

01:59 great tzadikim, including the Alter Rebbe and Reb Zusha. So Reb Zusha was traveling to his rebbe and, and what happened was that his rebbe gave him a lot of Torah, taught him a lot of Torah, and gave him a lot of brochos. And then Reb Zusha went back home. He went with a horse and buggy, traveled all the way back from Mezritch back to the city of Hanipoli. On the way, he stopped by... He drove through a town. You know, when you tatti and you travel from Chicago to Ithaca, you travel through a lot of cities on the way, right? So Reb Zusha of Hanipoli was traveling from Mezritch, which was far away from Hanipoli, far away from when his home. And he traveled through many different little towns till he came to Hanipoli, but on the way, he stopped in a city, and that city had a lot of Jewish people. And when he arrived in that city, he saw that a lot of people were, like, walking the streets, and they were very happy. People were singing and dancing. He said, "What's going on? What's going on? Why is everybody so happy?" They said, "Didn't you hear? There's a wedding going on. There's a chassan and a kallah. They're getting married, and everybody's invited to the wedding. Everybody. Everybody's invited to the wedding. It's gonna be such a happy wedding. We're gonna have so much food, and it's gonna be so much fun and music, and the band is gonna play so much

03:31 Jewish music, and people are gonna dance and dance all night. It's gonna be great." Everybody's so happy. So Reb Zusha said, "Oh, it's... You know, it says in the Torah it's a big mitzvah to go to a wedding and make the chassan and kallah happy because the chassan and kallah are very happy when you come to their wedding, right?" So Reb Zusha said, "Okay, I'm gonna do the mitzvah of going to dance at the wedding in front of the chassan and the kallah to make them happy because it's a big mitzvah." And so he goes to the wedding. Nobody knows who he is because he didn't live in that city. He just traveled through that city, and so nobody knew who he was. But, eh, Reb Zusha didn't care. He just wanted to dance and do the mitzvah. And, I mean, he was dancing away and suddenly, suddenly, in middle of all the music and the dancing, guess what happened? Somebody was screaming loudly, screaming like something terrible happened. And they looked around. Who is screaming? The father of the kallah. Yeah. The bride's father is screaming. They said, "Why are you screaming?" He said, "I had in my pocket 300 ruble." That's a lot of money. "And I was supposed to give the money to the caterer." You know what a caterer is? Is the guy who brings all the food and prepares all the food and pr- and serves all the meals to all the guests. You know, he doesn't do it for

05:02 free. He does it so you pay him, and he likes you to pay him on the night of the wedding because he did all this work and brought all the food, and he bought all the food, and he prepared it, and he cooked it, and then he serves it to all the guests. He needs to be paid. So the father of the kallah was supposed to pay him 300 ruble. That's a lot of money. But listen, it was a big wedding. A lot of people there with lots of food, so it cost a lot of money. So Reb Zusha hears how the father says, "Oi, s- my, my, my 300 rubles are gone. I, I don't see them in my pocket." And the caterer says, "Hey, where's my money? I, I... Look what I prepared for you. It's such a big wedding with so much food and so much drinks, and everybody's so happy, and now you don't have the money for me? Uh, you need to pay me. You need to pay me." The father says, "I don't know what happened. I had the money in my pocket, and now it's all gone. What should I do? Oh, no." And he started crying. "Where's my money? Somebody stole my money. Somebody must have stolen my money. Some bad person is here in this wedding hall and stole e- My money. And everybody's wondering, "What happened? What happened? Where's the money? Where's the money? Where is the money?" Now, look what happened. Reb Zusha sees

06:22 that, uh, the father of the kallah is so upset, he's crying, so he thought, "You know what?" Um, uh, phoo. Reb Zusha also didn't have any money, but when he went to his Rebbe, he told his Rebbe that he has no money, and he needs to do a wedding for his daughter, too, 'cause Reb Zusha had a daughter in Annopolye was gonna get married, and he doesn't have any money for that wedding. So the, his Rebbe gave him you know how much? Exactly 300 rubles. So his Rebbe, the Mezritcher Maggid... Remember, that was the name of the Rebbe of Reb Zusha. His name was the Maggid of Mezritch. And the Maggid of Mezritch said to him, "Here, Zusha, I'll give you the 300 rubles. You can go do the wedding for your daughter in Annopolye." But now Reb Zusha was traveling, and he was in that city, and the father of that bride, of that kallah, didn't have his 300 rubles. It was stolen. So Reb Zusha um, said, "Oh, well, okay, okay, okay. Uh, uh, um, I have the money. I, I, I, I have the money." And everybody said, "Ah, you're the ganav, huh? You're the one who stole the money." People didn't know who Reb Zusha was. Nobody knew that he was a big tzadik. He walked around like a poor man, and nobody knew that he was such a big tzadik. So they said, "Oh, hey, where's the money? Uh, you stole the money. Come on, give the money back quickly."

07:46 And Reb Zusha said, "Okay, wait, wait, wait, wait. I'll take out the money from my pocket. Wait." And of course, he took the 300 rubles that his Rebbe, the Maggid of Mezritch, had given him before he left the city of Mezritch. Before he left and came here, he got the 300 rubles from his Rebbe, but it wasn't the money from the father of the bride. He didn't steal anything. He just pretended that he's the one who found the money or that he stole the money. And everybody said, "Okay, come on, give it back. Give it back." He said, "Okay, don't worry. Don't worry. I'll give it all back." And he started counting $20, $40, $30, all the bills, you know, the, the dollar bills, the, the ruble bills. He was counting them and counting them. Finally, he comes to almost 300 rubles. He only gives them 280. That means we don't have the entire 300. Reb Zusha only came up with 280, which is 20 rubles less than he was supposed to give them. So they start yelling at him and beating him up, "Hey, where's the other 20 rubles? You stole it. How come you stole 300 rubles and you're only giving back 280? Where's the other 20 rubles? We need it back. We need it back." And Zusha said, "I, I don't have it. I don't have it. I'm sorry. I don't have it." "Ah, you ganav, you thief. You thief, you stole the money. Where is it? Where is it?" And as

09:18 they're beating him up, suddenly you hear another scream in the room. Everybody turns around to see who's screaming again. It is the father of the bride again, the father of the kallah, and they ask him, "Why are you screaming again?" "I found the money. It was in a different pocket. I looked in the wrong pocket. Nobody stole my money." They said, "Oh, no. Really? You really had the money all along? We were beating up this guy. We thought that he was the ganav." But he said, "Nobody stole the money. It was in a different pocket." He looked in the right pocket of his pants, but really it was in the left pocket of his pants. So they said, "Wait a second. Then whoa, now we're all confused. Now we're all confused. How come this guy, his name is Zusha, he says that he stole the money. The money wasn't actually stolen. Then why, why is he saying that he stole the money? This is not stolen money. This is his money." So everybody went over to him and says, "Zusha, first of all, here is your 280 rubles. These are your 280 rubles. You lied to us. You told us that you stole the money." He said, "Yes. Yes, because I saw how the father of the kallah was so upset, and he was crying. I didn't want him to be upset, so I got 300 rubles from my Rebbe in Mezritch to make a wedding for my daughter. But when I saw I was

10:48 here traveling on the way to go home to bring the 300 rubles for my daughter's wedding, but on the way, I came here, and I saw that the father of the kallah was so upset. He was crying. I said, 'You know what? I'll pretend that I'm the one who stole the money, and, and I'll give it to him.' So I won't have any money, uh, uh, um, to do a wedding for my daughter. I'll have to go back and to my Rebbe and tell him that I don't have any money again." So they said to him, "Oh, so you tried to do a mitzvah, right? You tried to give the father of the kallah your money and pretending that you stole it so that he wouldn't be upset. But then why didn't you give the whole 300 rubles? If you wanted to do a mitzvah and give the father of the kallah his money back, then why didn't you give him the whole 300? Why did you keep 20 rubles in your pocket and didn't give him the last 20 rubles?" He said, "You know why? 'Cause I didn't want anybody to say, 'Oh, he did a mitzvah. He gave back the money.' I want people to think that I'm still a ganav. I'm keeping 20 rubles for myself and giving back the other 280 rubles, and no one would give me covet. No one would give me honor. No one would say, 'Oh, I gave the money.' So that's why I wanted to do

12:06 the mitzvah and give back the money and help, and people will still think that I'm a thief and I'm a ganav and that I'm holding back 20 rubles and I don't wanna give it back. People will not give me covet. On the contrary, they'll look at me like I'm a bad person. But Hashem knows the truth. I'm not a bad person. I did a mitzvah, but I only want Hashem to know. I didn't want anybody else to know." So everybody said, "Wow. Reb Zusha is such a tzadik. He wanted to do a mitzvah and help a person, another person who needed the money, and pretended that he's a ganav, and everybody will think he's a ganav, and they will say, 'Ah, yucky. He's a yucky person. He's a ganav. He steals money from people,' and they won't even know that he's actually a big tzadik." What did we learn from this story? A very important lesson. When you give tzedakah, do it... You don't have to show off. You don't wanna show off so everybody say, "Yeah, they did tzedakah. They're so special. They're so great. They're such a holy person. They're such a tzadik." No. You're doing it only for Hashem, and the best and the nicest and the most beautiful mitzvah that Hashem loves the most is when you do tzedakah in a way that nobody even knows that you did tzedakah. Nobody knows. Only Hashem knows the truth. And not only that, people even think, "Hey, you're not such a good person."

13:28 They don't even know. Not only don't they know that you did a mitzvah, they think you're actually a bad person, which is not true. You're actually a good person, but they don't know. But you don't care. You're just doing it for Hashem and not for anybody else, and that's the greatest mitzvah.