Motzei Yom Kippur Story: A Chazakah on the Pasuk “ויהיו נא”

The following story was told over in the name of Rabbi Menel Drizin OBM, who passed away this year:

My father had the חזקה every year for the possuk of ויהיו נא אמרינו at הקפות every year in 770.

The way it worked was that if you had the חזקה then no one else could buy that possuk.

One year the רש”ג ע”ה approached my father and asked him if he would mind switching his possuk for another one?

It seems that someone important specifically wanted to buy that possuk.

My father told the רש”ג that his brother Sholom Ber had just told him an interesting story:

Baron Rothschild used to buy מפטיר יונה every year at the Synagogue in London.

One year, as he was bidding for it, someone else in the back row start to bid too.

Enraged as to who would dare to bid agains the great Baron Rothschild, he walked over to the back row, only to be surprised to see that his gentile business partner was the one bidding against him!

“What are you doing?” He exclaimed. “You aren’t even jewish!”

His partner responded: “I know you are a great businessman, so if it is good for you Baron Rothschild, then it is good for me..”

And my father concluded, telling the רש”ג that he is not switching and if it is good for the other guy then it is good for him!

After yom tov, my father again ran into the רש”ג who told him with a smile: you know who wanted the possuk? It was the Rebbe who wanted to be מכבד a relative of his who came that year.

Mortified, my father asked what the רש”ג had told the Rebbe?

And he responded: I told him the whole מעשה of Baron Rothschild etc.

And then he said that the Rebbe האט שטארק צולאכט and said: זאל מענדל האלטן דער פסוק מיט אסאך מזל..