I want to tell you about a holy Jew, how he fulfilled and sanctified

himself through the mitzvah of Tzedakah - charity - the most God-like act in the
world. When a person has the privilege to give, he is so close to Yehovah! Just outside
of the Jewish cemetery in Cracow, there is a tombstone that reads, Yossele, the Holy
Miser. Now, miser is a Yiddish word meaning, cheapskate.
It was the year 1550, and we were persecuted and poor. In the ghetto of
Cracow there was one rich Jew whose name was Yossele. He was rich, but he was
also the greatest miser in the world. In his whole life nobody had ever seen
him give a penny to a single Jew. "He must have a heart of stone," they all
thought...You know, my friends, a miser isn't part of the world, because
the world was created by Yehovah just so He could have someone to give to. The
whole world is here for the sake of giving, and if you don't give as God
does, you're not part of His world...Nobody said "Gut Shabbos" to Yossele;
no one gave him a blessing on Rosh HaShanah. When Yossele walked the street,
people would spit, and call him, "Dirty miser."
(Sing, Yossele)
One day the Burial Society was told Yossele was dying. This was their opportunity!
They rushed to his bedside and said, "All right, here's your last chance. You never gave
anything to the poor. Make up for it now! Give us a thousand rubles to pay
for your grave. We'll give every penny of it to the poor." But obviously
Yossele really did have a heart of stone. He answered them, "I can't afford
more than fifty rubles." They got so angry, they started yelling, "Yossele,
you know you can't take your money with you!" He just said, "No. I'm not
giving more than fifty." In the end they gave up and said, "Fine, but we're not going to
bury you." Yossele just smiled and said, "Then I'll bury myself. I've done a lot
by myself, you know." The Burial Society didn't know what he meant. They
shook their heads and got up to walk out, and at that moment Yossele said, "Shema
Yisroel Yehovah Elokeinu Yehovah echad" and passed away.
(Sing, Yossele)
Well, they kept their word. Yossele died on a Sunday night, and they just left his body
there in the house. They didn't bury him on Monday; not Tuesday; not Wednesday.
Wednesday night one of his neighbors decided that he couldn't just leave him lying
there, so he threw Yossele on a wagon and drove out to the cemetery. Still, Yossele
had been a miser: so he buried him outside of the cemetery, under a tree.
(Sing, Yossele)
Open your hearts, dear friends. This was not the end of the story. The
Chief Rabbi of Cracow in those days was R. Kalman, who was a great scholar.
Late Thursday night a poor man knocked on the Rav's door and said, "Rebbe, I
need some money to buy food for the holy Shabbos." R. Kalman said to him,
"I'll be happy to give you money, but tell me: I've known you for such a long
time, and you never asked for Tzedakah before. Why are you asking me today
for the first time?" The poor man said, "Rebbe, I want you to know that for twenty years
I have not been able to make a living. But every Thursday morning, all these years, I've
found an envelope under my door, and on it was written 'Lekhovod Shabbos, (in honor
of Shabbos.)' Today though, there was no letter."
R. Kalman gave his poor neighbor enough to make Shabbos with, and went
back to learning. Two minutes later there was another knock at the door. It
was another poor man asking for money for Shabbos. The Rav asked him the same
question, Why didn't you come and ask last week or the week before?" The man
said, For the last ten years, I've found an envelope containing two rubles
under my door every Thursday morning." Suddenly, more and more people began to
gather at the Ravs door. He brought them in.. They told how each Thursday morning,
they would find an envelope under their door. One had five rubles in it, another had two,
and in yet another was ten rubles. Each envelope had written on the outside: Lekhovod
Shabbos. But that morning, no envelope had arrived.
(Sing, Yossele)
R. Kalman asked a lot of questions that night, and in the end he
discovered that all this had been the work of Yossele the Miser. He was so
heartbroken! They hadn't even buried him! He also wondered something; he asked
the poor people, "How did Yossele know you so well? How did he know how much
to give each one of you?" No one seemed to want to speak up, but finally, a poor water
carrier said,: "At the lowest point in my life - at my moment of greatest desperation - I
thought that maybe I could get through to Yossele. I knocked at his door, and he invited
me in with so much love and sweetness that I opened my heart to him. He sat me down
and said, 'Sweetest friend, tell me everything.' He took out paper and pen and wrote
down all the details: my name; my address, how many were in my family - everything.
He said, My heart is bleeding! You must be starving! How much do you need each
week to live?' I said, 'Yossele, if only you could give me five rubles a week, I will use it
for Shabbos and make it last all week to keep my children alive. Just then, Yossele got
up and served me cake and wine. We talked about everything except Tzedakah. But
then, he jumped up like a crazy man and threw me out, yelling 'Do you really think
I'm crazy enough to give you my precious money? Go away and never come back!
I went home and told my wife that Yossele was crazy. The next Thursday morning there
was an envelope under my door. I never told anyone else this story. I was too
ashamed. R. Kalman looked around the room, and every eye was crying. Everyones
story, was the same as the water carriers.
(Sing, Yossele).
R. Kalman was beside himself. Yossele, had kept all the poor people
in the city alive and never wanted any kavod (honor) for it! Instead, the same children
he had kept alive had mocked him every time they saw him. And they hadn't
even buried him! Now what?
(Sing, Yossele)
That Shabbos he announced in the Shul that Sunday would be a fast day, to
beg forgiveness from Yossele the holy miser. The whole community came to Shul
that day and cried endlessly, "Yossele, forgive us." Just at sunset Rav
Kalman went to the holy ark, opened it, and yelled out from the deepest depths
of his heart,"Yossele, Holy Miser, give us a sign that you forgive us!" and
he fainted. When he woke up he told the people what he saw while he was
unconscious: "In my dream I saw Yossele sitting in heaven, shining. He said, 'Please
tell all of my brothers and sisters to go home and not to worry. There's no
need to ask me for forgiveness. Don't you understand, this is the way I
wanted it to be! I wanted the privilege of giving Tzedakah without anybody
knowing; only the One who knows everything needed to know. I also wanted to
be sure that nobody would ever thank me or reward me - only to thank and honor Him!
So please, thank all the poor people who came to my house, and tell them because of
them, I'm sitting here next to our father Avraham and our mother Sarah. I have
everything now I ever wanted ---except for one thing: I'd give up all of
Paradise for just one more Thursday morning. Rebbe, there are no poor people
in heaven; no doors waiting for Tzedakah; no envelopes to put under them!'
"I was still worried about one thing, and I asked him, "But how did it
feel to be buried alone?' Yossele answered, "I wasn't alone. Avraham,
Yitzchak, and Yaakov, our four mothers, Moshe, Aaron, Yosef and David were
all there. King David walked behind me playing a song, and Eliyahu Ha-navi
walked in front of me holding a candle."
(Sing, Yossele)
So, why do I tell this story? First, you never know if the person you are cursing, is the
one who is actually bringing Gods blessing to you! And second, we should all seek to
be like Yossele, the holy miser, who did his acts of Tzedakah before God, and not
before men. For that is what our Rabbi Yeshua taught when He said, Beware of
practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then
you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.
(Sing, Yossele)