(Photo from istockphoto.com)

In Rebbetzin Jungreis’ book LIFE IS A TEST there is story on page 117 about Piazeczna Rebbe, Harav Kalonymous Kalman Shapiro, zt”l. The story tells about how after the Holocaust a manuscript of the Rebbe’s D’vrei Torah was found in among the rubble of the Warsaw Ghetto by “a young Polish boy who sold it to an American soldier for a bar of chocolate. The soldier was not Jewish, but he recognized the Hebrew writing, and he handed it over to the Jewish chaplain of his unit.”*

The Piazecnza’s manuscripts were written during the war. They are some of the only collected works that survived. For sure, they were worth more that a bar of chocolate.

We tend to put a value on things based on our needs at the time. There are time that I choose what I want to do over what I need to do.
For some, papers or books written in Hebrew seem to hold less importance than the “Great American Chocolate Bar”. Others put work over family, or family over work. If we only knew the value of what we each have? If only we could recognize what value Hashem places in each of us?

I believe it was the Vilna Gaon who said that for the cost of a few coins one can purchase tzitzis and have the zechus to constantly serve Hashem.