Welcome to the Daily Holy Story. The Gaon (great scholar) Rabbi Yosef Mashash used to tell a story that he saw written in Tunisian Arabic and translated into Hebrew. The great and wealthy man, the tzadik (righteous person) Binyamin Duran, was one of the wealthy people in Algeria. He was a businessman who traded in diamonds and precious stones, and he became very wealthy. At a very young age, he passed away, leaving behind a son, 17 years old, by the name of Daniel, who was wise and intelligent, feared Hashem, and knew how to learn Torah. He helped his father in business, and he was very well versed in diamonds and precious stones. He continued his father's business, earned a good name, and also became very wealthy. His wealth was the envy of all the businessmen in Algeria who competed with him in diamonds and precious stones.
He knew that they were planning to trap him, make him fall in business, put him in jail, and confiscate all of his assets. He decided to take action before they could trap him. Secretly, he sold his home and his store, and he took with him all his precious stones, diamonds, and money. He went with his mother, the widow, to the neighboring nation of Tunisia. He decided to settle in Tunis, where he bought a beautiful home and opened a store selling diamonds and precious stones. His business became even greater, seven times greater, and his mother would handle the household.
When he reached the age of 20, he was single, smart and rich, and feared Hashem. Nobody could ask for a better chatan (groom) for his daughter. And so, he got engaged to the daughter of a very wealthy man in Tunisia, a beautiful, good-looking, intelligent, and educated girl. Twice a week, he would meet with her, on Thursday evenings and on Fridays before the lighting of the nerot (candles) for Shabbat. From there, he went to synagogue, escorted by his future father-in-law, who was very proud and arrogant about his future son-in-law. The time of the wedding got closer. Suddenly, the chatan decided to cancel the engagement. It fell on the wealthy family like a ton of bricks. They could not digest the terrible news that the chatan had broken the engagement. Why? For what reason? The father-in-law sent messengers, and they came back with no answer. The household was very saddened.
To make matters worse, to put salt on the wound, news went out that he was about to get engaged to a poor girl who had nothing and could not compare with the beauty and intelligence of the rich man's daughter. The wealthy man of the girl, insulted and feeling bad, went to the rabbi of the town, Rabbi Yeshua Basis, and cried to him, “Why is Daniel doing this to me? Why is he distancing himself from me? Why is he not paying attention to my daughter? Why did he dump her? He insulted her. What blemish did he find in her? Why is he preferring a poor girl over the daughter of a rich man?”
The rabbi heard him and was bewildered. He recognized the wealthy young man, who was always the first to give tzedakah, the first to give for anything that's holy, and whose home was open to all the rabbis. Why did this wealthy young man, who came from Algeria, do this to the daughter of a rich man in Tunisia? The rabbi summoned him and asked him. He said to the rabbi, “You're correct. The first girl is better than the second one. But all of that is in physicality: her beauty, her intellect, her wealth. However, when it comes to spirituality, she's on a much lower level.”
The rabbi investigated. “What blemish in spirituality did you find in the rich girl?” He answered, “I investigated and found that the custom of the place in Tunisia is to prepare all the food for Shabbat on Thursday evening. Therefore, I decided to visit the home of the girl I was about to marry at that time and see how they prepare the food for Shabbat. I found that they were very lenient about things that are transgressions of the Torah. They did not check the vegetables for insects and worms, and they would have the meat salted and koshered by the non-Jewish servants. When I rebuked them gently and told them this is not correct, they wouldn't pay attention to me. ‘So what if you find a worm in the vegetables? We're not so careful about that. And as far as the non-Jewish servants, they're trustworthy to us. We don't worry about what Chazal (the Sages) say, that meat that is hidden from the eye of a Jew and falls into the hands of a non-Jew—we're worried that maybe they switched the meat or the meat became not kosher.’”
“I decided to visit them also before Kabbalat Shabbat (welcoming Shabbat), when every Jewish home fears the coming day of Shabbat, everything is prepared for Shabbat, and the women light the candles very early and ask Hashem to bless their children and their husband. I got there, and my eyes turned black. They delayed the lighting of the candles on Shabbat. They lit quickly, and only after they lit the candles did they go brush their hair and take showers. There are many, many transgressions of Shabbat in what they do. Even here, I tried to gently tell them that this is not correct. But they didn't pay attention to me. And it was terrible. ‘The main thing,’ they said to me, ‘is the food of Shabbat.’”
“I thought to myself: Is this the type of woman I want to marry? Is she going to raise my family in this fashion and teach my children this way? I decided to go for the poor girl who's not as pretty as the rich girl and obviously not wealthy, but she had fear of heaven and she was pure.”
The rabbi stood up and kissed the rich young man on his forehead. “You are blessed and you are correct because you know not to go after the sheker (falsehood), because beauty is sheker and only a woman who fears Hashem is praiseworthy. May the woman that you marry come into your home, and may you build a holy home.”
The rabbi went to the father of the wealthy girl and told him what he heard. The father sighed and said, “It's true. They don't listen to me. My wife and daughter don't listen to me. Many times I told them, but they wouldn't listen to me.” He left the rabbi's house distressed and told his wife and daughter the reason that the rich man left her. They accepted what he said, and the young man got married to the poor girl. He respected her like a queen, and they were able to build a beautiful home that feared Hashem for many years.