The Rich Family in Our Shul
By Chaim Ogan
I'll never forget Pesach 1934. I was 14, my little sister Yetta, 12, and my older sister Hilda, 16. We lived at home with our mother, and the four of us knew what it was to do without many things.
My father, Alav Hashalom, had passed away 5 years before leaving my mother with seven school age children to raise and no money. By 1934 my older sisters were married, and my brothers had left home.
Just after Purim, the Rabbi of our Shul announced that he would be collecting "Kimcha D'pischa" to help a poor family. He asked everyone to save and give generously. When we got home, we talked about what we could do.
We decided to buy 50 pounds of potatoes and live on them for a month. This would allow us to save $20 of our grocery money for the 'Kimcha D'pischa' (Charity for the needs of Pesach).
Then we thought that if we kept our electric lights turned out as much as possible and didn't listen to the radio, we'd save money on that month's electric bill. Hilda got as many house and yard cleaning jobs as possible, and both of us baby-sat for everyone we could.
For 15 cents, we could buy enough cotton loops to make three pot-holders to sell for $1. We made $20 on pot-holders.
That month was one of the best of our lives. Every day we counted the money to see how much we had saved. At night we'd sit in the dark and talk about how the poor family was going to enjoy having the money the Shul would collect.
We had about 20 families in our congregation, so we figured that whatever amount of money we had to give, the Tzedakah would surely be 20 times that much. After all, the Rabbi had reminded everyone to save money especially for "Kimcha De'pischa".
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On the Friday before Pesach, Yetta and I walked to the grocery store and got the manager to give us three crisp $20 bills and one $10 bill for all our change. We ran all the way home to show Mom and Hilda. We had never had so much money before.
That night we were so excited we could hardly sleep. We didn't care that we wouldn't have new clothes for Pesach; we had $70 for the "Kimcha D'pischa". We could hardly wait to get to the Shul and place it in the Pushka!
A few days before Pesach, rain was pouring. We didn't own an umbrella, and the Shul was over a mile from our home, but it didn't seem to matter how wet we got. Yetta had cardboard in her shoes to fill the holes. The cardboard came apart, and her feet got wet.
But we both went into the Shul proudly. I heard some other girls near town speaking Loshon Hara about the Kelman girls 'having on their old dresses'. I looked at them in their new clothes, and I felt so rich.
When we reached the Shul we went to the Pushka which was affixed to the far wall we placed the $10 bill, and then each of the $20 bills. As we walked home from the Shul, we sang all the way. At lunch Mom had a surprise for us. She had bought a dozen eggs, and we had boiled eggs with our fried potatoes!
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Late that afternoon the Rabbi drove up in a car. Mom went to the door, talked with him for a moment, and then came back with an envelope in her hand. We asked what it was, but she didn't say a word. She opened the envelope and out fell a bunch of money.
There were three crisp $20 bills, one $10 and seventeen $1 bills. Mom put the money back in the envelope. We didn't talk, just sat and stared at the floor. We had one from feeling like millionaires to feeling poor.
We kids had had such a happy life, that we felt sorry for anyone who didn't have our mother and father Alav-Hashalom for parents and a house full of brothers and sisters and other kids visiting constantly.
We thought it was fun to share silverware and see whether we got the fork or the spoon that night. We had two knives which we passed around to whoever needed them. I knew we didn't have a lot of things that other people had, but I'd never thought we were poor. That day in Nissan I found out we were.
The Rabbi had brought us the money for the poor family, so we must be poor. I didn't like being poor. I looked at my dress and worn-out shoes and felt so ashamed that I didn't want to go back to Shul.
Everyone there probably already knew we were the poor fa! I thought about school. I was in the ninth grade and at the top of my class of over 30 students. I wondered if the kids at school knew we were poor.
I decided I could quit school and get a job since I had finished the eighth grade. That was all the law required at that time. We sat in silence for a long time. Then it got dark, and we went to bed.
All that week, till the Seder, we girls went to school and came home, and no one talked much. Finally on Erev Pesach, Mom asked us what we wanted to do with the money.
What did poor people do with money? We didn't know. We'd never known we were poor. We didn't want to go to Shul on the Chag, but Mom said we had to. Although it was a sunny day, we didn't talk on the way.
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At Shul, during Chol Ha-moed, we had a Mishulach (fund raiser) from Eretz Yisroel speak. He talked about how Shuls in Yerushalaim, and Tzfat had fallen into disrepair, and their need for money to buy new roofs.
He said $100 would put a roof on a Shul. The Rabbi said, "Can't we all do Gemilus Chasidim and help these poor people?"
We looked at each other and smiled for the first time in a week. Mom reached into her purse and pulled out the envelope. She passed it to Hilda. Hilda gave it to me, and I handed it to Yetta.
Yetta put it in the Pushka. When the Pushka was counted, the Rabbi announced that it was a little over $100. The Meshulach was excited. He hadn't expected such a large amount of Tzedakah from our small Shul.
He said, "You must have some rich people in this Shul." Suddenly it struck us! We had given $87 of that "little over $100." We were the rich family in the Shul! Hadn't the Rabbi said so?
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From that day on I've never been poor again. I've always remembered how rich I am, because I have faith in Hashem. As it is written in the Mishnah, "Who is wealthy, he who is happy with his lot".
