“I can’t find my wallet ” he wails.

He can’t find his wallet. He pushes and pulls his blanket and sweaters from off the bed.

He rummages through the dresser drawer.

“Give tzedakah – you’ll find it” the rav who is his host suggests.

“Tzedakah?”

“Charity” the rav clarifies.

“Charity to find a wallet?” the young man questions not stopping to throw his knapsack onto the floor after thoroughly checking through it.

The rav continues “Give a shekel.”

“If I had my wallet I’d have a shekel but I don’t even have that” he says getting exasperated. “My credit card address book …”

He panics.

“Commit to giving the shekel when you find it” the rav offers as a last suggestion.

“Okay okay. I’ll commit to giving a shekel” the young man says semi-sarcastically to the rav as if this shekel story’s too unreal — not that he’s even aware that to speak to a rav like that or anyone is not honorable but he’s never learned or been taught to hold back exactly what’s in his mind.

A second later “Found it!” he calls out victoriously from the guest room.

“I’ll give the shekel later” the young man says and calculates out loud that a shekel actually equals a whole 29 cents. He calculates what 29 cents can buy in Connecticut — a bag of chips a Coke … well really a generic.

The rav’s not sure if the young man’s serious or not about the what 29 cents can buy in America but he feels there’s actually some truth to the young man’s seriousness about the calculation.

Shekels in the rav’s house pass hands like water. He’s never even considered it to be a sum to give when someone knocks on the door needing tzedakah.

That day the young man takes a day trip to the Western Wall feeling the urge since his trip to Israel ends in six days — and then he’ll be headed back to his regular computer-dreamy 8-5 job and life back Bridgeport.

When he returns to the rav’s house he shares the adventures of his trip to the Wall.

“What a chutzpah” he says. “On the bus a guy gets on and starts begging people for money. Not just begging but harassing screaming at the passengers. Even with my headphones blasting I could hear him. Did you ever have those times when you can’t hold it in where your head feels like it’s going to burst if you don’t say something?

So I told this beggar ‘Listen no one’s going to give you money here if you’re asking the way you’re asking. Instead of spending 6.20 to get on the bus – you’d be better off saving it.’”

The young man says that even a few people behind clapped for him.

The rav on hearing the story finds that very hard to believe and hopes that this point is over-exaggerated.

It isn’t exactly the rav’s way to scream at the poor for a number of reasons one being that he understands having to beg — maybe better than most — after having had to do so himself at one point in his life and also because of how he felt HaKadosh Baruch Hu would feel about doing it. Of course he couldn’t exactly explain this at the moment to a young man in brand new Nikes.

The rav himself had many times gone fundraising in order to accommodate boys like the one telling the story.

The rav sat quiet waiting to hear where the story would lead.

“On the way there were tens of beggars and I decided I’m not giving my shekel to anyone who asks. And not to the ones who stand in the alleyways sticking their hands out so you can’t pass without giving.

“I earned this money; I worked for it.

“One beggar after the next came at me” he says ducking this way and that as if he were in a 3D video game. “Finally I saw a woman staring straight ahead — not asking. She was sitting humbly holding an empty cup.

“At first after I dropped the shekel into the cup I wondered it if were her drink and she wasn’t really a beggar. But after she looked up and said ‘Shanah Tovah ’ followed by a few other blessings I couldn’t make out. Then I saw another man quietly sitting squished between two guys who were aggressively approaching people.

“Doesn’t G-d hate people doing that?” he interjects the question.

“And I even took out another shekel and gave it to him.”

The rav’s wife has been listening to the entire story as she served dinner.

Although she is shocked at the story and amazed at the lack of shame the young man had about his attitude towards giving and the poor she understands — it isn’t him but the way he was raised and the values he was exposed to.

She is very grateful she has learned the very opposite in her father’s home. As her father would always say “If someone asks you have to give — even if only a shekel.”

The next day the rav’s wife has a very bad earache. Usually she tries never to show up at the doctor’s office without an appointment and during no-secretary hours as she hated that kind of anxiety that comes from standing by the door vying for a turn.

That feeling like am I going to get in next or will I have to wait an hour? Or not get in at all?

It is sort of a begging situation.

Usually she stands there with everyone else tensely wondering if the doctor will for some reason or other call another patient before her. This time the rav’s wife sits down in the waiting room and takes out a Tehillim and begins to concentrate with real kavanah. Every so often she looks at the door to see who has gotten in or hasn’t but then she decides — let me try to be like the woman who doesn’t share her cup but waits patiently.

She davens harder and harder and then remembers that she should look up to check to see where the people are holding.

Instead she sees the doctor standing in the opening of the door waving for her to come into the office.

This has never ever happened before.

It is a lesson a new calm she will carry in her pocket for the rest of her life.

Her father was right — a person’s life can be changed — even with only a shekel.