244. The Shpoler Zeide Helps A Foolish Boy

00:15 Shalom Aleichem, kinders. It's been a while, but I'm gonna go back to telling you stories, as many stories as I can. Bli neder, im yirtze Hashem. The story today is about the Shpala Zeide. It's a story that was told but by the Mashpia in Lubavitch, Reb Shmuel Grenim. Shmuel Grenim was a Mashpia in Lubavitch at the time of the Rebbe Rashab. So, uh, the story was told like this, that the Shpala Zeide had a Hasid, and this Hasid was-- had a son. A son was-- who was not very smart. In fact, he was pretty stupid. Okay? Foolish. He, he did not know how to do anything. Some people, Hashem didn't give them sechel. It's not his fault. It's the way he was born, the way he does not do anything. He's, he's, he's not smart. Not smart at all. So, this Hasid, the father of this foolish boy, um, passed away. He was niftar. So the Shpala Zeide felt bad for the son 'cause the Hasid left a lot of money and property, uh, that he had when he was alive, and he had only one son, and the son is not smart. And if you leave him with, with all that money, he's gonna waste it all, and he's not gonna know how to use the money properly. He's just gonna... People are gonna... He's gonna give it away to everybody. He's not gonna know how to hold onto it. And then he's gonna be poor. He'll have nothing. He needs somebody who can

01:56 take care of his money, take care of, of all the, the, the, the property that his father left. So the Shpala Zeide took the boy into his house, and he became sort of the, the one taking care of, of the boy's money and property that his father left him. But slowly, you know, as time goes by, the money gets less and less because he's using up the money to feed the, the, the son and to give him clothes and to give him what he needs. He needs to go to the doctor, that costs money. So slowly, slowly, all the money started going away and, and there was very little money left. So the Shpala Zeide told the son of the Hasid, he said to him, "Listen, I have an idea for you. You should go to Peterburg, the capital of Russia, where all the government offices are. I want you to go to Peterburg, and then you'll do business. You'll get involved in business and you'll be... You'll make money. And I will give you a letter to a certain person, and that person will give you some business to do, and you will make money." So the son of the Hasid, uh, said to the Shpala Zeide, "Me? Going to Peterburg? I don't know how to do anything. I, I'm so stupid. I'm so... I'm not smart. I don't know how to do anything. I've never been to big cities with business. I don't know, I don't know anything. I have no idea how

03:27 to even start." Shpala Zeide said to him, "Listen, one of my Hasidim is traveling soon to Peterburg. I'm gonna ask him to give you a ride when he travels to Peterburg with his horse and wagon. He'll put you on the horse and wagon, and I will give you this letter, and he will take you to Peterburg, and you will go find the address, right? And, and, and give the letter, and he will take care of you." He said, "Okay." So the Shpala Zeide spoke to the Hasid. The Shpala Zeide spoke to the Hasid that traveled to Peterburg, and he said, "Can you please take this boy with you and, um, and, and, and drop him off in Peterburg. He knows what to do there." And of course, when they arrived in Peterburg, the boy-- the, the Hasid dropped him off somewhere in Peterburg, and the boy went to look for the address. Shpala Zeide told him that on the certain street by a certain name, you'll ask people to show you where it is, and then you count the tenth house on that street. That's the, the house you wanna go to. So the boy did exactly that, and he goes and he counts ten houses on that street. And when he gets there, he sees there's like a... It's a big b- big hou-- big building and big house, big mansion, and there's a guard with, with, you know, armed guard, um, that's standing in front of the door. So he got very scared.

05:03 He says, "Okay, this is no- uh, can't be the place that the Rebbe sent me to." So he started counting again. Went back to the end of the street and counted one, two, three. Yeah, this is the number ten. So he went over to the guard and he showed him a letter. He has a letter for a certain person. So the guard said, "Okay, you can come in." He goes in and he s- sees this big lobby. You can sit down and wait. They told him to wait till the... This is the house of a very famous minister from the government, and, uh, he has the right-- He's the in charge of all the businesses in the country. And, uh, he has to wait till the minister will call him in. In the meanwhile, the secretary took the letter from the, this boy, this foolish boy, and took the letter and brought it to the minister. And then they told him, "You wait here till the minister will call you." He waited and waited and waited for a long, long time. And then he sees that who walks into the mansion? Somebody else has an appointment with the same minister. Who is it? The Hasid that gave him the ride. He didn't know. The Hasid didn't know that this boy was supposed to be here, and the boy didn't know that the Hasid was meant to be here. But the Hasid also came for a special business meeting. The Hasid had a lot of business

06:24 in Petersburg, and he was-- he knew this, this minister, and he came to meet him to give him a, a chance to do business, you know, to-- they sh- the, the minister should give the, the Hasid, uh, an opportunity to do business. So the Hasid, he went straight in. He didn't, you know, the-- didn't wait in the room. He, he looked at this boy sitting in the waiting room. This Hasid thinks to himself, "What is this boy-- What business does he have with this minister? He's just a foolish little boy. What does he know? Um, but it's strange. I don't know what he's doing here." But he decided to go into the room of the minister. And after a short while, the minister came out to the waiting room with the Hasid and invites the, the boy to come in. And the minister says to the Hasid, "What should I do? I was gonna give you the contract that you have the right to do a certain business." Because the minister, he was in charge of the business, and he could tell people-- give people the right that you can sell sugar. You're the only one who can sell sugar in the entire, uh, country, okay? So that means that everybody who buys sugar has to buy from you. It'd make you very rich because if everybody buys sugar only from you, then you're gonna make a lot of money. Or something else. You can, you can, um, you know, you have the right to,

07:49 um, sell certain clothes, okay? Uh, uh, you know, this is a big business. So he s-- So the minister says to the Hasid, "You know, what should I do? I know you want me to give you the right to a certain business, but I already signed the papers and documents for this boy that he should be the one to, to, to do the business." So the Hasid says, "But this boy is, is, is a foolish. He doesn't know how to run a business. You give him a business, he's gonna destroy it. He doesn't know what to do." So the minister says, "You know what? I'll give you the right to the business, but you have to give him a portion of the profits of whatever you make. Money you make, you have to give him because the business officially I already wrote to him." But he can write a special document and say that he lets you have the business, but in return you have to give him a certain amount of the money. And they agreed how much money, and that's what's... So he asked the boy, "Are you willing for me to let me run the business, and I'll give you a little bit of money from the business, and you don't have to do anything?" And the boy said, "Yes. Yes. I don't know how to run a business. I don't know anything." So that's what happened. So when they finished signing the papers and the boy agreed, signed the paper saying,

09:06 "Yeah, I'll let this Hasid have the business, the right to the business, and he'll give me in return a certain amount of money." And then before they left, the minister says to the boy, "Don't you wanna know why I was willing to sign a, a business like this to you, to your name? I don't even know you. And now I see you're actually a foolish boy. You don't even know how to run a business. Why was I agreeing to it?" The boy says, "Yeah, I wanna know. I wondered why would you give me... I give you a letter of some rabbi, and, and you, you, you agree right away to give me the business." So the, the, the, the minister said like this, "When I was a young man, I was not a minister yet. I worked at a government office as a secretary, and I was sitting in a room with other secretaries. We're working hard at different things. We're writing letters and this, working for the government. Suddenly we see an old rabbi, a man with a white beard, dressed in white clothes, is walking into the room where all the secretaries were sitting in and, and doing work for the government. He walks over straight without asking permission to a-- to one of the closets, pulls out a document, a piece of paper that was signed by the, by the-- at that time it was the minister, with all kinds of decrees. There was a big box with all kinds of letters

10:33 and decrees and, and laws, new laws. One of the letters there was a dec- a decree against the Jewish people. He pulled out that paper, and in front of our eyes, without asking anyone, tore it up to pieces, threw it in the trash, and then walked out. And of course we should have stopped him, but when he walked in, we felt such fear of him. We don't know what happened, but all of us were-- became so afraid that we were, like, paralyzed. We couldn't move because we were so afraid that we didn't know what happened. And he did it, and he walked out, and nobody said a thing to him. Nobody did anything to him because everybody was, like, like, terrified and afraid to move. It was totally, you know, unbelievable. What, what happened to us? Why did we become so fearful? We didn't know what it was." He says, "I was a young man," says the minister, "and I was very curious, who is this person that was able to make the entire room so fearful of him that they wouldn't say a word, and he just tore up their papers and then ran out? So I ran after him, and I asked him, 'What's your name?' And this was the Shpole Zeide. And he told me his name. He says he's the Shpole Zeide. And he said to me like this, 'One day, if I ever send you a letter with my name, you see my name, the Shpole Zeide, and I ask

12:05 you for a favor, please do it.' And I promised him. And now this foolish boy came with this letter, and I saw this letter, and I remember the story. This is a man I saw many, many years ago who was an incredible tzadik, who was able to come into the government office and tear up gezeiras against Jews, and nobody was able to do anything. And that's why I gave you the business. But I realized that you can't run a business. You're gonna run it to the ground. You're gonna destroy it. You're not gonna know what to do. So the Shpole Zeide also made sure that the Hasid also came. And now through this Hasid, you'll be able to get enough to live for the rest of your life."