Receipt of Merit
My wife once purchased a piece of furniture which we needed at home. After paying, the salesman gave her a receipt to sign. She signed, “Pinto.” Looking at her signature, the man let out a low whistle. “Pinto?” he asked, in incredulity. “Are you perhaps related to Rabbi David Pinto?”
“Yes. He is my husband.”
“In that case, I am ripping up the receipt. You deserve a better price.”
In response to my wife’s bafflement, the man related the following: “About ten years ago, I approached your husband in order to receive a blessing for a specific problem. The Rav asked if I wore tefillin and observed Shabbat. After I replied in the negative, he convinced me to begin observing these basic mitzvot. For the last ten years I have been laying tefillin and keeping Shabbat. Besides for that, I study Torah and constantly seek ways of improving my relationship with Hashem. I ask you, don’t you agree that you deserve a discount?”
My wife was very moved by his account. “It was worth me coming to your store if only in order to hear your story. I know my husband is a tzaddik who brings merit to the public, but it is a singular privilege to hear, firsthand, of a Jew who was so affected by my husband.”
When my wife retold the story, I, too, was very happy. I was grateful that my words had fallen on fertile ground, entering this man’s neshamah and sprouting the fruits of mitzvot and closeness to Hashem.
I was filled with an added measure of joy, for the far-reaching effects of bringing merit to the public is incomprehensible. All the mitzvot which a fellow Jew observes in the merit of what I taught him, as well as those of his children and all future generations, accumulate and redound to his credit, as well as to mine. The reward awaiting one who brings merit to the public in Olam Haba is beyond anything we can imagine.
