Yankele Shabbos

The Pshervorsker Rebbe told the following. When the Rema was chief Rav of Cracow, there lived a Jew named Yankel whom everyone called Yankel Treiger, Yankel Shikir and Yankele Shabbos. He was a vasser treiger, a water carrier and a porter of heavy loads, and this explained the first nickname. The others came from his other well-known practice, his drinking. Every Erev Shabbos the same scene played out. Yankel Treiger became Yankel Shikir, as he gathered his week's earnings and headed to the local tavern to buy honey mead and drink himself into a stupor. With each sip he would say, "Ahh, Shabbos, Shabbos. Shabbos is coming." That was how he became Yankele Shabbos.

One Erev Shabbos began as usual. Yankel was seen heading to the tavern, the coins jingling merrily in his pocket, waiting to be spent. Then he heard a voice of despair from an open window above the street. "There he goes to spend his money on liquor and get drunk, while my children and I starve this Shabbos."

Yankel froze. He had a good heart, and that sad sigh had just broken it. He turned and saw the face of a mournful Jewish mother looking down at him from the window. Without a second thought, he gave her his hard-earned coins. The mother was overjoyed, and she and her children did not go hungry that Shabbos. That Shabbos, Yankele Shabbos truly earned his name.

That same Shabbos, Yankel came home and passed away. On Motzo'ei Shabbos his spirit came to the holy Rema and told him the whole story. "In Shamayim I heard that the woman was a gilgul of Esther HaMalka. She came back as a poor woman because when the Beis Din Shel Maalah heard her case, the prosecution insisted that she was a wealthy queen and had to prove her loyalty to Torah as a pauper. As for me, I was neither a sinner nor a tzaddik. I had no merits or mitzvos, except this tzedakah that I gave on Erev Shabbos, and so I was given the task of shliach beis din. I come to you, honorable Rav, as messenger of the heavenly court, to warn you to collect tzedakah from the poor. You always give tzedakah and collect from the wealthy, but I am here to teach you to collect from the poor as well."

At first the Rema thought Yankel was joking, until he realized that he had passed away. Then he took the warning seriously. From then on, when the Rema collected tzedakah, he collected from the poor as well as from the wealthy.