The Baker's Son in the Storm

It is told that on a stormy winter night Rav Yechezkel sat learning in his room when the sound of weeping reached him through the wind. Outside, on a stone in the downpour, sat a little gentile boy, crying and shivering. "What is wrong?" the Rav asked.

Through his tears the boy told how his mother had passed away and how his father, a baker, had married a harsh woman. All day he sold bread, and each night he had to give her the full sum before he was allowed to eat or rest. That evening he had sold everything, but on the way home the money was gone. He feared a beating if he went back, so he stayed out in the cold, hungry.

The Rav asked how much had been lost, gave him that entire amount and added a few coins for food.

Some thirty years later, on the last day of Pesach, a gentile knocked at the Rav's door and said he carried a secret that touched on life and death. He had never forgotten the kindness of that night. A priest, he said, had gathered the bakers and urged them to poison the bread they would sell once the festival ended, promising them reward in the world to come.

The Noda BiYehuda thanked him warmly. He then had a notice read in every shul in Prague: the Rav forbids every Jew in the city to purchase bread at the non-Jewish bakeries. The community listened and was spared.