The most important thing is not study but action. (Pirke Avos 1:17)

It is told that a holy rabbi prayed that the Holy One, blessed be He show him his place in Gan Eden (Heaven). One night in a dream he saw that he would be seated next to a cook. This surprised him, and he thought to himself, “I have studied Torah day and night, yet my place is beside a cook.” After the dream, he decided: “I shall go and find him and ask him what he has done so special.”

He went and found that the cook was a very wealthy man. He became a guest of the cook and stayed with him for eight days, and the cook showed him great honor and respect. The holy rabbi requested the cook meet him in a field outside of the city and asked him: “Please tell me what you have been doing that is so special.”

The cook thought for a moment and then slowly answered, “By reason of my many sins I have studied very little Torah. All my life I have been a cook. At first I was poor but I have grown wealthy. Every Shabbos (Sabbath) eve since I began cooking, I have distributed meat to the poor at my expense and I give a great deal in charity.” The holy rabbi listened and then asked, “Please tell me whether you have done anything more than that.”

Then the cook slowly began, “I’ll tell you about something I was once the local tax collector for this city. When a ship arrived, I collected any goods I thought proper as a tax. Once a ship came here, and I collected the dues. After my collec¬tion the captain came to me and said: ‘If you wish to purchase what is in the hold on my ship, I’ll sell it to you.’ ‘Tell me what it is,’ said I requested. ‘I shall not tell you,’ the captain answered, ‘until you have bought it and paid for it. And if you do not buy it, I shall not sell it at all.’ ‘In that case,’ I agin requested, ‘tell me how much it is, and I shall decide.’ “Ten thousand in gold,’ the captain told me; and I told him: ‘Show me the goods, and I shall pay it.’ ‘I shall only give it,’ he answered ‘if you give me twenty thousand in gold.’ ‘Show it to me,’ said I, ‘and I shall pay.’ ‘I shall not give it to you,’ he said then, ‘unless I receive forty thousand in gold.’

“When I saw that he was raising the price all the time, I decided that it must be something very valuable, so I agreed to pay him the gold. ‘Give it to me,’ said he, ‘before I show you.’ And I gave him forty thousand in gold.

“Immediately he brought out from the ship’s lower hold two hundred Jewish souls whom he had captured, and said to me: `If you had not purchased them today, I would have slain them and flung them into the sea. “Now he handed them over to me, and I brought them home. I fed them and gave them to drink and anointed them with oil and clothed them. I also enabled those who were unwedded to wed one another.

Among the refugees was an exceedingly beautiful maiden, and I took pity on her and gave her to my son, and he wedded her. Then I invited all my townsfolk to the wedding feast. When the guests sat down to eat, I stood among them and saw that a young man who had been among the cap¬tives was weeping. ‘Why are you weeping?’ said I to him; but he did not wish to tell me. Finally, I led him to a room, and there he told me that the day they had been taken captive was the very day on which he should have wedded that maiden. ‘If you are prepared to divorce her,’ said I to him, ‘I shall pay you a hundred pieces of silver.’ ‘My lord,’ said he to me, ‘I desire her more than all the silver and gold in the world, but what can I do if your son has stood under the bridal canopy with her.’

“At this, I went to my son and told him: ‘Divorce her.’ And I gave her to that young man and made them wealthy. This is the thing I have done.”

Then the holy rabbi said to him: “Blessed be the Ever Present who has privileged me to be seated beside you in Gan Eden!”

So let a man engage in Torah and good deeds at all times, and practice charity. For money is not his but belongs to the Holy One, blessed be He, as the Prophet Haggai said: “The silver is Mine, the gold is Mine, says the Lord” (2:8). And it is also written in the Book of Psalms: “For God judges; this one He brings down, and that one He lifts up” (75:8).

(based on Tanchuma, Mavo 68)

May all your tales end with Shalom (peace)

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