The wheels of the plane lifted off the runway. The earth slowly became smaller and smaller and only the blue skies and white fluffy clouds could be seen out of the plane’s windows.
R’ Chaim waited for liftoff to be completed so he could get out of his seat. He was holding his t’fillin bag and he wanted to walk around and enable Jews to put on t’fillin.
As soon as the passengers were allowed to stand up, R’ Chaim got out of his seat and began walking around looking for Jewish faces. Many Jews were happy to say yes to the Chassid’s offer and put on t’fillin, but there was one who did not like the idea. He made a face and motioned to him to move on. Next to this Jew sat a gentile who watched the scene. When R’ Chaim finished going around the gentile asked him, “What about me?”
The Chassid smiled and said, “Putting on t’fillin is something only Jews do, which is why I only offered it to Jews.”
“Yes, yes,” the man nodded, “but I want to tell you a story connected with Jews.”
R’ Chaim was willing to listen and the gentile began his story:
I worked as a janitor in the Twin Towers. Very wealthy people used to work in the offices I cleaned and we, the cleaning crew, benefited many times. These rich people wanted only the best and they rushed to buy any new gadget. They threw the old ones out, available to whomever wanted them. We often went home with good clothes and quality items that the rich employees discarded.
One day, as I was cleaning, I noticed a small suitcase. “Another bargain,” I figured and I took it without thinking twice. When I opened it I was shocked to see that it was full of money!
I was quite familiar with the office building and I knew that there were video cameras that recorded everything that took place, but in the spot where I found the suitcase, there was no camera. I knew that nobody would know I had found it.
I hid the suitcase in a garbage bag so as not to arouse suspicion and walked home, trying to look as I always did. As soon as I walked into the house, I told my wife excitedly about my find. She jumped from excitement when she saw the piles of bills lying in the suitcase. “Wow! You won’t have to work anymore as a janitor. Our days of scrimping are over! We are RICH! Millionaires! Let us open a business, buy buildings … I will buy diamond jewelry and beautiful clothes …”
I got caught up in her enthusiasm. In our imagination, we pictured the nice life we were about to have with a mansion, a magnificent garden and a pool, nice cars … But the very next day my thoughts changed.
As expected, the huge loss made a commotion in the office building. Policemen and detectives came in and out, questioning many employees, trying to get some information that would lead them to the thief.
I was a lowly janitor and they did not suspect or question me. I acted as though I had no idea what was going on and worked extra hard.
After a while I found out that the lost suitcase belonged to a Jew. At once, memories of my childhood came back to me. I remembered a grandfather whom I loved so much. My grandfather would always seat me on his lap as he sat in his red armchair and tell me stories. One thing he kept on repeating was, “You should know that Jews are the chosen people and one cannot do them any harm.”
This sentence echoed in my brain and I felt dizzy. I decided that I would return the money to the Jew. You can well imagine my wife’s reaction when I told her my decision. She screamed and cursed me for my foolishness and tried, in every way possible, to stop me from doing this. But her efforts were futile. The next morning I put the suitcase in a black plastic bag. I quietly entered the Jewish employee’s office and told him that I had the suitcase.
“I want just one thing,” I told him. “Don’t turn me into the police and make sure they don’t question me.”
“Of course, just tell me please, when do you finish work?”
“At 4:30,” I said.
“Come back to me please, when you finish work.”
When I entered his room, he handed me an envelope with $3000, a nice amount of money for a janitor.
I happily returned home and showed my wife the envelope.
“You fool,” was all she could say. She didn’t even want to look at me. “What is $3000 compared to the tens of thousands of dollars that were there? We could have been rich!”
She kept ranting and raving for hours until I became sick from it all. Painkillers did not help and I could not go to work the next day.
“See? The chosen people, you said. You helped them and what did you get? You became sick. Now you see what a fool you were? This is what you get for returning the money! Let us see now if the Jews will help you …” she continued yelling while my headache got worse.
When I felt that the pain wasn’t going away, I went to the hospital. The doctors did not find any source for the pain but decided to hospitalize me for a few days so they could keep an eye on me.
You won’t believe what happened. A few days later, as I lay in the hospital, the television and radio stations did not stop broadcasting about the terrible tragedy that had just taken place. The Twin Towers had been attacked and had collapsed. Thousands of people had died.
At that moment I understood that G-d had saved me because of what I did and my caring for His chosen people.
***
“Wow!” exclaimed R’ Chaim, but the gentile hadn’t finished. He patted the shoulder of the Jew sitting next to him who had heard every word of his story.
“I, the gentile worker, am alive today thanks to Jews, so how could you, a Jew, a member of the chosen people, not want to put on t’fillin?”
The Jew felt uncomfortable and immediately rolled up his sleeve and put on t’fillin.