Two Jews lived next door. One of them was a Torah scholar, and the other was a poor worker.
The learned neighbor got up before dawn and hurried to the synagogue. After several hours of studying, he would pray long and earnestly, go home, have a quick breakfast, and return to the synagogue to study until lunch. Then he went to the market, where he made small transactions that provided him with funds to meet his immediate needs, and returned to the synagogue. In the evening, after prayer and a meal, he again sat over the sacred books until late at night.
The poor neighbor also got up early. But his position did not allow him to devote much time to Torah study. Despite the fact that he worked hard, he barely managed to earn his bread. Having hastily prayed at dawn with the first minyan, he began work that would take him all day and most of the night. On Saturday, when he finally had the opportunity to pick up a book, he quickly fell asleep from fatigue.
When meeting in the yard, the learned neighbor cast a satisfied glance at the poor worker and hurried off to his righteous pursuits. The poor man sighed and thought: “How unhappy I am, and how happy he is. We are both in a hurry, he to the synagogue, and I to my earthly affairs.”
But these two people completed their stay on earth, and their souls appeared before the Heavenly Court, where the life of each person is weighed on the scales of Divine Justice.
The angel-advocate put on the right side of the scale the main virtues of a scientist: numerous hours of Torah study, prayer, moderation, honesty. The angel-accuser placed a single object on the left bowl: a satisfied glance, which the scientist cast from time to time at his neighbor. The left bowl slowly began to descend, caught up with the right one, and then pulled it over, although the load on that one was very heavy.
When the poor worker appeared before the Court, the accusing angel put his pitiful, spiritually insignificant life on the left side of the scale. The angel lawyer could offer only one thing: the sad sigh emitted by a worker when meeting a learned neighbor. But it was this sigh that balanced everything that lay on the left bowl, raising and justifying every moment of hard work and poverty experienced during the life of this worker.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru