The Embarrassed Fish

There was once a chassid of Rav Yehuda Tzvi who was a fisherman by trade. One day he caught a very small fish and was bitterly disappointed. Without thinking, he spitefully cut off its tail and threw it back into the water. For the next three months he did not catch a single fish.

In those days people went to their Rebbe about anything and everything, so the fisherman went to ask why his nets had come up empty. Before he could speak, the Rebbe asked him, “Tell me, did you ever do something strange to a fish?” The fisherman answered that he had not. The Rebbe asked again, “About three months ago, did you do something to a little fish?” Suddenly the man remembered and confessed what he had done.

The Rebbe began to weep. “That little fish was so ashamed to be without a tail that he begged his friends to hide with him under a big rock, and they have been hiding there ever since because of what you did. You must understand that the honor of any of Hashem's creatures must never be taken lightly. If you promise never to do such a thing again, I will tell you where they are hiding.”