I would like to share another beautiful story about the Bet Halevi, that I saw in the book that I recently found.
The Bet Levi was appointed as the rabbi of a town which was slightly bigger than the town he had come from. In the larger town, it was customary for the community to gift the rabbi with a cow and chicken. This way, the rabbi would have his own steady supply of milk and eggs. These were some of the perks given to the Rabbi for his Parnasa.
One day, a poor man came to the Bet Halevi with nothing. The rabbi told the man to take his cow. The man refused, saying that the community would want it back. So the Bet Halevi told him to come in the middle of the night and take it. This way, everyone would think it was stolen. When the man protested, saying he didn’t want to break in, the Bet Halevi instructed him to come at 3am, and he’d leave the barn door open. “Everyone will scream and yell that the rabbi’s cow was stolen and they’ll buy me another cow.”
Sure enough the plan worked. (It was the rabbi’s cow and he was free to do whatever he wanted with it, even if the people were upset. It was all legal, obviously.)
What town was in an uproar. Who would steal the Bet Halevi’s cow?!
They searched everywhere, and they looked for evidence, but there were no broken locks or finger prints. They couldn’t believe it; they didn’t know what to do. After a few days they bought the Bet Halevi another cow.
A short while later, another poor man came to the Bet Halevi. The first poor man had told him what happened and sworn him to secrecy. He approached the Bet Halevi and asked for help because was very poor. Again, Bet Halevi told him to come back at 3am and take the cow, and that’s what they did.
The next morning, when the townspeople found that the Bet Halevi’s cow had been stolen again, they realized something strange was going on. Why would a cow thief only pick on the Bet Halevi? Eventually, they figured out what was going on and they came to him with a plan:
There is a Halacha that you can give someone a cow (or chicken) in its entirety, or you can tell him that he only owns the milk of the cow, or the eggs of the chicken.
So they told the Bet Halevi that from then on, he would only own the milk of the cow and the eggs of the chicken. In this way, the Bet Halevi would be able to eat what he needed, but would not able to give away the animals.
We can see from the story how totally selfless he was.
In a similar story, while the Bet Halevi was out one day, a large meal was being prepared in his house. When he got home, he instructed his Gabbai to take all of the chicken and meat and other food, and bring it to a sick person, whom he had come across on his way home that day.
When the person who had prepared the meal walked in and saw all of the food missing, the Bet Halevi’s wife explained that this was a normal occurrence in their house. Her husband was always up to something.
That is the way they lived. When something needed to be done, they just did it, without making any general calculations.
Imagine that someone is hosting a Sheva Berachot one night , and hears that a family of Ukrainians has just arrived. They’re living down the block, they haven’t eaten in a week, there are eight families living in one apartment and the stores are all closed. The main course is about to be served at the Sheva Berachot. How many people would tell their guests to skip the meal and just have dessert, and then take all of that food over to the refugees? I’m not sure how many people would think like that, but that is the kind of greatness and insight that we see from Gedolei Yisrael.
Have a wonderful day.