The Wedding Dress

One day a woman came to Rav Aharon and cried that her daughter had been engaged for several years, but that her family could not meet its financial obligations and the groom was threatening to break the match. “How much do you need?” asked the Rebbe. When she named a sum, he took out that amount and gave it to the distraught mother.

The next day the woman returned. “Thank you, Rebbe,” she said. “You saved the match, but I cannot afford a wedding dress.” Again Rav Aharon asked how much she needed and gave her the sum she named.

After she left, the Rebbe's wife questioned him. Why, she asked, could the girl not marry without a wedding dress, when there were poor people who had no bread to eat? Rav Aharon answered that at first he had thought the same. “But then I asked myself why I had not thought of it until today. If I truly care about hungry paupers, why did I not give that money to them yesterday? So I understood that it was the yetzer hara that was advising me not to give the bride's mother money for a dress.”