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57 The Disciples’Envy of the Rabbi’s Son T O L D B Y R A B B I YA ‘A K O V A S H R A F T O M E N A H. E M B E N - A R Y E H In a certain city there lived an extremely wealthy rabbi, renowned for his good works. He accepted students and taught them for free. This rabbi had an only son. He taught his son every day, until the child reached the age of bar mitzvah. Then the rabbi starting teaching the boy more than he taught the other students. Every day, the rabbi went to his shop to conduct business, leaving his son home to teach the students. On Thursdays, the rabbi would distribute charity to the poor for their Sabbath needs, giving each poor man a sum appropriate to his family’s size and needs. One day, the rabbi stayed at the yeshivah,* and the son went to open the shop. The poor people showed up to collect their weekly alms. “What do you want?” asked the son. “Every Thursday we come to your father,” they replied, “and he gives us alms for the Sabbath, each according to his family. Please, won’t you give us charity too?” “How much does my father give you?” “Thirty pence a family.” “My father doesn’t know anything.” The penniless men thought the son would give them less. “Whoever receives thirty pence from my father will get sixty from me. Thirty isn’t enough.” So the son gave each and every pauper double alms, as well as clothes, hats, shoes, and any other garments they needed. “Now I ask you a favor: Get up early tomorrow morning, go to the market, and buy whatever you see—meat, fish, eggs, vegetables, and so on. Don’t leave anything in the stalls.” The paupers did just that. They got up early the next morning and bought out the market. When the rich people came later, as was their habit, to buy what they needed for the Sabbath, nothing was left. “What is 513 * Jewish school of higher learning.  514  Folktales of the Jews: Volume 1 different today?” they wondered. Investigating, they discovered that the poor had bought up everything. “Who gave you money?” they asked one pauper. “The son of that rabbi.” The rich people thought about this. “Look for some way to deal with the rabbi’s son,” they told their children. “Get him away to some remote country, and then come back.” So the students at his father’s yeshivah said to the rabbi’s son, “How would you like to go into business with us? We are going to travel to a distant city to buy merchandise we can sell at a profit.” The rabbi’s son told his father, “Father, I want to go with my friends to do business in a distant city.” “My son,” cautioned the rabbi, “whatever amount you could make from this trip, I’ll double it, provided you don’t sail away to a distant land.” But the son was adamant. The other students had made him eager to travel and do business. His mother (the rabbi’s wife) told her husband, “Give him money to travel with those students. He’s our only son. We shouldn’t cause him pain or worry. We should do what he wants.” So his father gave him money, and he set off with his fellow students. When they reached their destination, the other boys eluded the rabbi’s son and went their own way. The rabbi’s son was left all alone. He kept walking until he reached a place where a Jewish baker lived. “Who are you?” asked the baker. “I’m a Jew,” replied the rabbi’s son. “Will you take me in? But not for free—only on condition that I pay for my room and board.” “Yes, willingly,” replied the baker. The rabbi’s son starting performing mitzvot* and writing them down in a notebook. He gave whatever money he earned to charity and recorded it in the notebook. If someone needed tefillin** and could not afford to buy them, the rabbi’s son would give him money and write it down in the notebook . He kept doing this until all the money he had brought with him was gone and only the price of the trip home remained in his pocket. When the young man’s...

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