R. Moshe Chaim’s father, R. Gavriel Saidov, was a biology and chemistry teacher; and his mother was a dentist. Actually, R. Gavriel had at first studied medicine, but in his second year of school, the students were instructed to start dissecting sections of dead bodies. R. Gavriel's family came from the ancient priestly class of Kohanim, and being a Kohen, he remembered that dissecting corpses might pose a problem. He asked his father what to do, and his father referred him to a rabbi, who told him that due to the special degree of holiness associated with the Kohen, he could not come in contact with the dead under any circumstances. Although he was a simple Jew, the rabbi's words were enough for him to decide that that was the end of his medical career, and he opted to become a teacher instead. In those days, it should be noted, the teaching profession was considered as respectable as the medical profession.

Once he started to teach, he had to contend with the issue of observing Shabbos. His brother, R. Yehuda Saidov, today a Chabad rabbi in Netanya and the spiritual leader of the local Bucharian community, relates the brilliant “educational exercise” that Gavriel instituted in order to keep Shabbos:

Gavriel taught in the upper grades and his abstention from writing on Shabbos would be obvious to his pupils. Instead, he told them that he wanted to develop their self confidence and speaking skills. Therefore, once a week, he would choose one of them to be the teacher. He would supervise and guide the “teacher in training.” Naturally, the day of the week on which he instituted this exercise was Shabbos. He made the simple calculation that in a class of about forty students, he had enough “teachers” for nearly all of the Saturdays of the school year.

The students were enthusiastic about the idea. However, his fellow teachers, some of whom were antisemites, realized that this was Gavriel’s way of avoiding Shabbos desecration, and they decided to inform on him to the Ministry of Education. One Shabbos, without prior notice, a supervisor from the ministry came to observe him. He entered the classroom and sat in a corner and observed.

He was so enthused by Gavriel’s unique teaching method that he apparently forgot what he had been told, namely, that this method was employed solely for the purpose of the teacher's Shabbos observance. At the end of the day, he shook Gavriel’s hand warmly and said that he wanted to replicate this brilliant idea in other schools as well.

To me, the story clearly demonstrates that when a Jew truly desires to keep Shabbos, he is granted with the most ingenious ideas to enable him to do so - ideas that even gentiles will find worthy of admiration.