“The flight to Eretz Yisrael took many hours,” reminisced Rabbi Shimon Goldman. “I needed to get up and stretch my legs. As I walked down the aisle, a fellow passenger, who was obviously an observant Jew, stopped me. ‘Excuse me, sir,’ he said. ‘You look familiar. Have we met before?’

“ ‘Have you ever lived in Crown Heights,’ I asked curiously.

“ ‘No,’ my companion replied.

“ ‘Do you have business dealings in South Africa?’ I enquired. ‘My son runs the Chabad House there.’ Again, my companion demurred.

“ ‘Do you live in Flatbush, New York?’ I continued. ‘I have a store in that neighborhood.’

“ ‘No, I live in Queens.’ He pondered for a moment, and then a thought entered his mind. ‘Perhaps you are a Lubavitcher?’ he inquired.

“ ‘Yes.’

“ ‘Are you involved with Lubavitch institutions?’

“It did not take long to put the pieces together. I had participated in a board meeting in an effort to facilitate government funding for Beis Rivkah, the Lubavitch school for girls. My companion had attended the same meeting, as a consultant.

“ ‘I have a story to tell you,’ the man continued. ‘I am the vice-president of a well-known college. Although my schedule is very demanding, I try my best to devote some time to Jewish education. I have used my experience with the local bureaucracy to assist Jewish institutions by preparing the necessary applications for state and federal funding. Although this process is long, tedious, and demands much effort, I consider it my contribution to the future of Torah study.

“I have, thank G‑d, met with success. I received much satisfaction from seeing schools and institutions awarded necessary funding. In recent months, however, I noticed a marked change in governmental response to the applications I presented. My long hours of paperwork went unrewarded, as one application after another was turned down. I decided to investigate the reason.

“After a meticulous follow-through, I discovered that the applications had not even reached the federal offices. They were aborted at the state level by a Jewish clerk who deliberately sought petty flaws in every application.

“I felt personally slighted and distressed. Not only had many hours of labor been unproductive, but more significantly, the schools had not received the funding.

“I often drive into Brooklyn to see the Rebbe when he distributes charity on Sundays. One Sunday afternoon, I arrived in Crown Heights, feeling very upset about the applications that I had worked on.

“When my turn in line came, I briefly described the situation to the Rebbe. I was so agitated about the matter that I blurted out: ‘In the past, when a person stood in the way of benefiting the Jewish people, our leaders would make sure that they could interfere no longer. This is what I am asking regarding that Jewish clerk….’

“The Rebbe listened patiently and then responded: ‘Even if one considers another person to be ninety percent lacking in goodness and merit, one must nevertheless remember that he still possesses ten percent of positive virtue.’ ”