ABSTRACT
REb CHAIRE was the Rabbi of a small and poor congregation in a Russian hamlet, and his salary was accordingly also insignificant. It was paid to him, or rather to his wife, monthly, but sometimes, whenever the congregational finances were at a low ebb, it was indefinitely postponed. But Reb Chaike was of a philosophical turn of mind, and when his wife informed him of the scarcity of money in the house to buy provisions with, he would good-humouredly say to her : “Well, my dear, this slight evil can easily be remedied by our adding a few more voluntary fast-days to those instituted by Biblical and Rabbinical law.”
