Reply To: Some notes about what it means to be truly poor…

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#1001100
DaMoshe
Participant

I wish I was in a position to help, but unfortunately I’m not. My wife has been unemployed for a long time, and our savings have dwindled to next to nothing.

One thing I can offer as advice is this: try to help others! You never know how it can help you later on. Here’s an example.

The wife of a friend of mine has helped out numerous people with various things – marrying off kallos without money, baalei teshuva, she helped a geyores with no money get new kitchen utensils, etc. They’ve never been rich, and just make ends meet, so she says she volunteers her time since she can’t help with money. She approaches various people she knows and gets donations of money, items, and other things.

A few months ago, their Shabbos hot plate broke. They tend to have a lot of guests, and had a very large, expensive hot plate to keep the large amount of food needed warm for the meals. They weren’t sure they could afford to buy a new one. So she called a store she had approached for various cases in the past, since she knew they sold them. She said to the owner, “My hot plate broke last week, and I need a new one. The one we had was very expensive, and I don’t have the money to replace it. Can you recommend a similar one that might be cheaper?”

The owner called her the next day and said, “I’ve spoken to you numerous times where you were always helping out others. I found out that you never took a penny for helping them. Now it’s your turn!” He sent them a new hot plate for free. Not only that, she had called a few stores to shop around for the best price. 2 other stores did the same thing! When she called to tell them she didn’t need 3 of them, she was told to keep them anyway – she could have one for Pesach, and one as a spare in case it was ever needed.

They kept one for Pesach, but true to her usual self, she gave away the 3rd one to a baal teshuva who was just starting to keep Shabbos!

My point is, if you help other people, Hashem will help you when you need it too.