An Unusual Shlach Monos

Every year, one of the town's wealthy merchants sent Rav Shlomo a gift of one gold ducat as shlach monos. One Purim, however, the shlach monos contained five gold ducats. Rav Shlomo kept the one customary coin and sent the other four back. When his family asked why he had returned such a princely gift, he explained.

"Every year this man sends me the same gift of one gold ducat. He has kept this minhag for many years. Now suddenly he sends five? There must be a reason. He must have an upcoming din Torah that he wants me to sit in judgment on, or some other matter for me to decide. I refuse to be bribed."

As Chazal say, chochom adif minovi, a scholar is preferred to a prophet. Rav Shlomo was proved right. A few days later the merchant arrived with a sample bottle of English rum that he had bought, hoping that Rav Shlomo would permit it for Pesach and issue a kosher certification. Instead, Rav Shlomo forbade the rum, and his ruling against drinking it on Pesach appears in his glosses on the Shulchan Aruch, Chochmas Shlomo.