A Husband for the Rich Man's Daughter

It is told that Rav Chaim once received a letter from a wealthy man in Rabat, asking him to find an honest young man, learned in Torah, to marry his daughter. Days passed and Rav Chaim could not settle on anyone suitable. One night, unable to sleep, he went out with his servant to the Mellah, the enclosed Jewish quarter, and saw people leaving a shul. He went inside and found a young man learning Maseches Yevamos with great diligence.

Rav Chaim whispered to his servant that they must leave, so as not to disturb the learning and be responsible for interrupting it. They walked on, and a Jew invited them in for coffee. When they returned to the shul some time later, the young man was asleep on the floor. Rav Chaim remarked that he was fulfilling the words of the Tanna, to sleep on the ground, and told his servant to let him rest and bring him the next day.

In the morning Rav Chaim asked whether he had no place to sleep. The young man explained that he was an orphan from another town, and that his friends in the yeshiva brought him food. He was twenty-six. Rav Chaim told him that he was old enough to marry, and when the young man protested that he could not even support himself, Rav Chaim gave him money for new clothes and sent him to Rabat. The wealthy man married him to his daughter, and the couple raised sons and daughters while the husband continued to learn. The man who tells this story says that he later visited him in Amsterdam, where he heard it from him directly.