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    My kingdom for a horse – Sukkot

    The Chassidic teacher Rabbi Mordechai of Neskhiz was such a poor man that he constantly wondered how he would ever be able to afford an etrog for Sukkot.

    Eventually he succeeded in putting together the necessary amount.

    Off he went after Yom Kippur to the nearest town to buy his etrog. But on the way he met a man who was in a terrible state.

    The man was crying and the rabbi had to stop and find out what had happened.

    “I am a water-carrier,” the man told him, “and normally I take barrels of water in my wagon drawn by my horse from village to village. But a terrible thing has happened to me.

    “On my way here, my horse collapsed and died, and now I have no way of carrying the water and scraping even a meagre living.”

    What could the rabbi do but to give his purse of money to the water-carrier.

    He never got to buy the etrog he dreamt of, but still he returned home with a grin on his face.

    “Thank God,” he told his family, “I have an etrog that no-one will be able to beat. Some people will mark the yom-tov with a top-quality etrog. Me, I will celebrate with a horse. I will make the b’rachah over a horse!”

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