The daughter of Rabbi Zusia of Anipoli was engaged. As poor as he was, Reb Zusia and his wife scraped together enough money for a seamstress to sew a beautiful gown for the bride-to-be. After a month, the gown was ready and Reb Zusia's wife went with her bundle of rubles to the home of the seamstress to retrieve the finished gown.
She came home empty-handed. "Where is the gown??" asked both the Rebbe and his daughter, almost in unison.
"Well," said his wife, "When I came to pick up the gown, I saw tears in the eyes of the seamstress. I asked her why she was crying and she told me that her daughter, too, was getting married. Then she looked at the beautiful gown that she had sewn for me and sighed, "If only we could afford such beautiful material for a gown."
"At that moment" concluded Reb Zusia's wife, "I decided to let the seamstress have our gown as a gift."
Reb Zusia was delighted. The mitzvah of helping a poor bride was dear to him and he longed for the opportunity to fulfill it. But he had one more question for his wife. "Did you pay her for the work she did for us?"
"Pay her?" asked the wife, astonished, "I gave her the gown!!"
"I'm sorry," said the Rebbe. "You told me the gown was a gift. We still owe her for the weeks of work she spent for us."
The Rebbetzin agreed and returned to compensate the seamstress for her dedicated labor...for the gown she was given as a gift.
Now that's greatness.
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