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Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berdichev once met a Jew who was smoking on Shabbos. He said to the Jew, "Reb Yid, perhaps you forgot that it is Shabbos today." "No Rebbe, I know that it is Shabbos, " the Jew replied. "Perhaps you did not realize that you are smoking," said Reb Levi Yitzchak, trying a different tack. "Rebbe, how could a person not know that he was smoking," answered the Jew. "Perhaps you forgot, or perhaps you never learned, that it is forbidden to smoke on Shabbos." "Of course I know that it is forbidden to smoke on Shabbos, " the Jew said, cutting off the last possible defense. At that point, Reb Levi Yitzchak of Berdichev turned his gaze upwards and called out, "Ribbono shel Olam, who is like Your people Israel? Even when I gave this Jew every opportunity to lie and somehow mitigate his offense, he refused to do so. Where is such scrupulous honesty to be found?" Reb Levi Yitzchak concludes by telling the Jew who was smoking, "Such a level of honesty is not for this world; it belongs in the Olam HaEmes (the World of Truth)." |