Adapted from: Moments of Greatness by Rabbi Yitzchok Hisiger

R’ Moshe Gobioff, today of Lakewood, New Jersey, was a bachur living in Monsey, New York, years ago when this story occurred. He had davened Shacharis at the Vizhnitzer Beis Medrash in Kaser Village, one of the most popular minyan factories — forgive the term — in Monsey. Upon returning to his car, he was chagrined to find a parking ticket on his windshield.

Parking near Vizhnitz is not for the faint of heart, and arriving mispallelim often have a difficult time finding a vacancy, sometimes parking in areas that aren’t clearly marked. R’ Moshe had apparently parked illegally, and now he was going to pay for it.

The ticket sat in his room at home for weeks, almost a forgotten memory. By the time R’ Moshe remembered about the ticket, it was long past the due date and he was sure he’d have to pay some sort of penalty on top of the fine. He went down to the Rockland County courthouse to settle the ticket.

Upon arriving at the courthouse, R’ Moshe greeted the hawkeyed guard at the door and then headed to the clerk, giving her his ticket number and explaining that he’d like to pay his summons.

“Sir,” the clerk said, “this summons has already been paid.”

“Madam, I’m certain that I never paid.”

“What can I tell you?” said the clerk, pointing to her screen. “I’m telling you, it’s been paid.”

R’ Moshe thanked the clerk and headed home, confused.

Upon seeing his bewildered expression as he walked through the door, R’ Moshe’s mother knew something was up.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

R’ Moshe explained that he had gone to pay his summons but was told it was paid.

Putting the pieces together, along with a strange phone call Mrs. Gobioff received some weeks prior from a man who said he’s paying for a parking ticket of which she had no knowledge, the full story emerged:

The morning R’ Moshe had gotten his ticket, traffic outside the Vizhnitzer Beis Medrash was at a standstill. There was total gridlock and no one was moving. One well-meaning observer felt that there was no choice but to have the police come down simply to clear up the bottleneck and direct the motorists out of the vehicular quagmire. However, once the police were present, they wasted no time writing out summonses to those vehicles that they felt were not parked legally.

The well-meaning Yid who had contacted the police now felt terrible, having caused the summonses to be given out. He had merely wanted to clear up the traffic, not have people be paying parking tickets, even if the tickets were warranted, but that was what happened.

The man immediately walked over to each car and took down the ticket and license plate information. Then, he contacted the police department and paid every ticket, not wanting to be the cause of any loss to a fellow Yid.

R’ Moshe now understood why and how, indeed, his summons had already been paid.

When R’ Moshe told me this story some twenty years after it happened, he was still inspired by the compassion and understanding of this special Jew, who demonstrated once again why there’s no nation like ours.