Avraham Rotman, a Satmar Chassid who runs a well-known store in the Me’ah Shearim neighborhood of Jerusalem, with a satellite store in Beit Shemesh know as Kol Zol Rotman’s, found 600,000 NIS in cash that was tucked away in between crates of Yizkor (Yartzheit) candles.
In a viral video, Avraham relates the story: “My friends, listen to this story. One of my workers, a truly righteous Jew, ordered 20 cases of Yizkor candles prior to Yom Kippur. He opened one of the cases and found the money inside it. More than half-a-million shekel.”
Avraham continued: “He asked a Rov what to do. The Rav Paskened that he could take the money for himself as the owners most likely have already given up on finding it. But the finder decided that he was going to return it in any case. He tracked down the owner, the person who lost the money…”
“The person who lost the money, a modern orthodox man, cried in a gush of emotions when the money was returned to him. He couldn’t stop praising Satmar Chassidim. He said that he heard that our group of Chassidus was an extreme sect, but here he saw something completely different with his own eyes.”
“Mi K’amcha Yisroel!”
(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)
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18 Responses
Satmar doesn’t allow medina money
Six hundred thousand mitzvot!!!
i think that the dayan was wrong in these circumstances.
the carton was sitting in the Kol Zol warehouse already for a while.
as such the owner of kol zol would be the responsible party
Mi K’amcha Yisroel
I was visiting Israel just before COVID in late February and lost my valet with hundreds of dollars in it in the Male Dafne area. Couldn’t believe it it was returned to me within an hour. I wanted to give a reward and it was refused.
Beautiful story. The man was wise to ignore the advice of the person he asked and instead followed the specific mishna in bava metzia 24b, codified in the shulchan aruch in choshen mishpat 262:11 and followed by the mishne torah in gneiva va’aveida 16:2.
Id love to see the person whose money it was.
Hashvas avaidah isn’t always a simple mitzva to do. Often you have to track down the owner, but when you do it you usually save someone from much agmas nefesh. You often are saving the loser money from needing to buy a new item. Finally, the smile you get is worth the whole bother. Just last week i found a wallet that belonged to a non-jew I decided I will make a kiddish hashem and return it. I had a license, a green card, Ss card and about $50 in cash. I had an address but no phone #. I spent a long time trying to find a phone #. No luck there. I went to the address on the license which was on the outskirt of boro park. No answer so I left my cell phone # in the mail box. The next day the guy called me, but he only spoke Spanish. I have a Spanish speaking worker he translated and that was kiddish Hashem #1 He couldn’t believe I was doing all this leg work for someone I don’t even know. That afternoon I met the guy who lost the wallet ( I asked him for his birthday to verify it was him) and returned the wallet. Kiddish Hashem #2. He wanted to give a reward I felt that would take away from the story so I declined. His smile and thank you was the best reward Hopefully he will be kind to another jew because of this.
He’s wrong, they are extreme, extremely kind!
MI K’AMCHA YISROEL!
Beautiful! Beautiful! This really warms my heart and makes me feel good about the future!! This post is the one that should have dozens of comments!! Don’t just put your two cents in for every ridiculous story! THIS is what you should comment on.
What is the time frame here? I find it hard to believe that anyone would give up hope on so much money over the presumed short time period between having shipped a box on the one end and someone having opened it at the other end.
Next question: Why does anyone have that much cash? Tax avoidance?
This is very nice but seriously, why should it be such big news? The man is a Satmar chasid and therefore presumably knows the halachos of Hashovas Aveidah. Fulfilling a Mitzvah just isn’t news.
I don’t understand the praise of the person that returned the money. He did what he was supposed to do. Is this kind of honesty so rare that we need to shout מי כעמך ישראל
In response to some of the previous comments:
It is indeed praiseworthy because it is such a big nisoyoin.
It is newsworthy because we live in a society where such actions are extremely rare, and therefore it is an opportunity to be mekadeish Shem Shomayim.
And finally, it is an opportunity to give credit to the Satmar Chasidus as a whole, when so often they are demonised.
To 5Tresident and cowdoc
Please read the article
“Avraham continued: “He asked a Rov what to do. The Rav Paskened that he could take the money for himself as the owners most likely have already given up on finding it. But the finder decided that he was going to return it in any case. He tracked down the owner, the person who lost the money…” ”
This isn’t just a mitzva. Al pi din he was allowed to keep the money and chose to go above the letter of the law and return it. Therefore it isn’t the halachos of hashavas aveida or “just” a mitzva. It is big news.
And to GeorgeG
Do you think if you lost that amount of money you wouldn’t know about it within a couple of minutes and give up hope on ever getting it back? Even if he tried tracking it down it does not mean he didn’t give up hope. He just would have been trying anything to get it back but in essence he gave up hope. Especially in the secular world, where returning something makes you a Good Samaritan and not just a regular halachic person, there isn’t much hope to get back your lost money (I mean that in a general way not that in this situation he was just a halachic person).
He mentioned that he was modern orthodox. The list the guy should do is “covert” to a Satmar.
NOW that’s a story
To 5Tresident and cowdoc
Please read the article
“Avraham continued: “He asked a Rov what to do. The Rav Paskened that he could take the money for himself as the owners most likely have already given up on finding it. But the finder decided that he was going to return it in any case. He tracked down the owner, the person who lost the money…” ”
This isn’t just a mitzva. Al pi din he was allowed to keep the money and chose to go above the letter of the law and return it. Therefore it isn’t the halachos of hashavas aveida or “just” a mitzva. It is big news.
And to GeorgeG
Do you think if you lost that amount of money you wouldn’t know about it within a couple of minutes and give up hope on ever getting it back? Even if he tried tracking it down it does not mean he didn’t give up hope. He just would have been trying anything to get it back but in essence he gave up hope. Especially in the secular world, where returning something makes you a Good Samaritan and not just a regular halachic person, there isn’t much hope to get back your lost money (I mean that in a general way not that in this situation he was just a halachic person).