Due to an Address Error: The Swindler Exploits the Innocent Man

This poor man, Yankele, hasn't had nourishing food in days. His clothes are worn and torn, and poverty shows clearly on his unfortunate face, unable to hide it.

Yankele walks the city streets hoping to find his food and clothing from merciful people, and lo and behold, a good Jew appears before him. Yankele asks him: Perhaps you know a place of charity that distributes food and clothing for free to the needy? The Jew answers: Certainly! How have you not heard? On 18 Jaffa Street, there are kind-hearted individuals distributing free food and clothing, especially to someone like you who seems not to have eaten properly for days. Go to this place to satisfy your hunger and cover your nakedness.

The poor man rejoiced and went towards that address, but somehow he made a mistake and instead of entering 18 Jaffa Street, he entered house number 16 on the same street, a large, beautiful, and spacious house. He knocks on the door, and the homeowner comes toward him. He opens with a question about his wish, and the poor man answers: Is this the house of charity for food and clothing? The homeowner immediately realized that this poor man had made a mistake, arriving at his house at number 16 instead of the adjacent building, and decided to exploit him. He replied: Certainly! Here, we give out everything! But your ear has led you astray a little; the distribution is not entirely free, one needs to work a bit. The poor man thought he must have been mistaken, and who gives food and clothes for free anyway?! Therefore, he said to the homeowner: I agree to do any work on the condition that in the evening I will receive food and clothing. The homeowner promised him that indeed, it would be as he said.

The hungry and weary poor man worked all day at the homeowner's house, cleaned his garden, his house, and also carried out some errands.

In the evening, when he was almost out of breath, he asked for his food and clothing. The homeowner immediately replied: I will certainly keep my promise! Go to the adjacent building, and there you will receive everything you desire!

In his innocence, the poor man thought this was the procedure - work here and receive there. He innocently went to the adjacent building with his claim: I worked in the building next door so to receive food and clothing here.

The charity owner immediately understood that this poor man had fallen victim to the swindler due to a mistake in the address, supposedly so that he would receive here the food and clothing he would have received for free, had he arrived straight at the correct address.

And the moral is: A person requires food, clothing, and other necessities. He meets the yetzer hara (evil inclination), which suggests effort! Without effort, you will die of hunger. One must work and toil for a living, and even though sometimes this work comes at the expense of Torah and prayer or other commandments. After he has toiled and worked, the yetzer hara sends him to receive his sustenance from "the one who opens his hands and satisfies every living being to their desire", since does the yetzer have life and sustenance to give to man?! He is, after all, the source of death and evil. Thus, one is drawn to the temptation of gaining his sustenance from the evil inclination when in truth, he sends him to receive it from the very source that would have given him his sustenance, and even more generously and honorably, had he not strived at the expense of his Torah and prayer.

We must strive to expose the deceit of the swindler within us, who pretends to be a friend but is, in fact, a foe unlike any other, entangled in the depths of our souls, waiting in ambush and seizing every opportunity in life's occurrences to draw our hearts away from Hashem and rob us of the inheritance of our ancestors - the faith - which they bestowed upon us as its purity. And in his cunning, he devises thoughts to shake our truth and supply us with matters that are clear and simple, thus troubling our peace and mixing our composure, the opposite of the purpose of faith and trust commanded upon us by the Creator, to increase for us tranquility and serenity and to be stable and grounded in any event and situation that passes over us.

Especially in our time - the time of "Ikvesa d'Meshicha" (the footsteps of the Messiah), we are witnessing openly the "birth pangs of Messiah", and every eye sees that there is no household that does not receive some slice from the bitter cake of "the birth pangs of Messiah", here and there, and it is our duty now to take that slice and bless its "eating" with a pleasant visage without doubting His blessed conduct.

The article is taken from the book "Living in Faith". To purchase Rabbi Yaakov Israel Lugasi's book, click here.