The Blanket and the Humble Rav

On another of his journeys of exile, the Gaon met the rav of a small town. It was a cold and rainy night, and the rav invited his unknown guest to sleep at his home. He led him to a comfortable bed and covered him with a sheepskin. The Gaon feared that the blanket might be shatnez according to a stringent view in the Rambam, and he slipped it off.

The rav came to check and found his guest uncovered. He covered him again and went back to his learning. Again the Gaon slipped off the suspect blanket, and again the rav found him uncovered. “Now, my good man,” said the rav, “I want you to be warm. Please see that the cover does not slip off. I cannot keep coming to interrupt my learning to cover you again and again.”

The Gaon was impressed by the rav’s humility, that he would come back to cover him again and again, and by how strong his love of hachnasas orchim was. He told the rav the true reason, that he feared the blanket was shatnez. The rav simply brought a different blanket, lighter but less problematic.

But the Gaon’s explanation of the halachah had given him away as a Torah scholar. The next morning, when the rav went to look for his guest, the Gaon had already left. What stayed with him always was his envy of the humility he had seen in that rav.