Everret, MA 5747 Reb Shlomo speaking Transcribed by Rabbi David Abramchik Copyright (C) 1986 Cong Kehillat Jacob HaKrev UShma Division Reprinted with permission from Connections Magazine 
The Boy Who Always Fainted 
The Baal-Shem-Tov had a Hasid who was a lumberjack. He would buy lumber and carry it to the bottom of the mountain where the river would carry the lumber to be sold. He had a son and numerous matches were proposed for him. But a strange thing happened-the moment that he would am the girl he would faint. After a while the matchmakers gave up. Om winter the frost got so bad that all the hasid's lumber was lost. The hasid wen to the Bal Shem Tov and asked for advice. In pmvious Wma when he m@ about his son he was told, "for the right one he will not faint." The Bal-Shem-Tov advised him to become a beggar. He listened to this advice and traveled all over Poland. Whenevu he had some time he sat in the study house and learned Torah. One day he was sitting in the study house when a resident of the town asked him: "How much do you mm a day?" The Hasid replied: "A Ruble and a half." The resident then said, "I will pay you two and a half Rubles every day if you will sit and study in my house. And after a while yen can take your money and go home." The hasid agreed to this deal. After a few weeks he heard the husband and wife crying at night. The next day at breakfast he inquired if them was any way he could repay them for their kindness. After some hesitation they told hun that they had a beautiful daughter. But every time she was introduced to a man she fainted. They told him that they had called in the best doctors, but they had not helped. The Hasid replied: "Maybe my Rebbe, the Bal Shem Tov will help." Sell what you have and let us together take a journey to Mezebizh." So they did as suggested and within two weeks they stood before the Holy Bal Shem. Before the Bal Shem spoke to them he asked the Hasid to bring his wife and son and to wait with them in the next room. So the Bal Shem listened to the story of the husband and wife and asked them one question. "Can you provide a good dowry for your daughter?" They told the Bal Shem how they had gotten rich four years earlier during a bitter frost. They had awakened one morning and had found hundreds and hundreds of pieces of lumber in their yard. They could not find the owner of the lumber, so they sold it to the lumberyard and had made a fortune. So, they said, "We certainly will provide a proper dowry." The Bal Shem then asked the Hasid to come in with his wife and son. They entered the room and the son looked at the daughter and the daughter looked at the son, and neither of them fainted. You see, said the Bal Shem Tov, "the money this girls parents got from selling the lumber belongs to this poor Hasid, the father of this boy. All these events occurred only so that this girl and this boy get together. Mazel Tov!"