The Illiterate Millionaire - R. Yehoshua Zitron - TorahAnytime.com

there was a guy who came in from europe and he didn't speak a word of english this guy he tried to get as jobs but he didn't speak a word of english how is he going to you know get a job so he decided this is post-world war ii he decided that he's going to go and he's going to start you're going to go and going to try to work in um you know in jewish companies but he had no skill so the jewish company wasn't it wouldn't even them they wouldn't even hire them i thought finally you know what he says you know what let me go and i'll be a shamish i'll be the guy in shul that cleans up after everybody i'll be the guy that the janitor that goes and helps you know whatever they need to you know for the show so goes and he meets in a certain certain show and he was speaking yiddish that's where most people most jews were speaking and they were about to hire him says everything looked good and then they asked him and yeah there says uh do you uh do you speak english and the guy says no i don't speak english but what do i need english for he says you know i'm cleaning and the the you know the shul or the synagogue are better yet they were like you know what i don't think this is gonna work we need somebody that speaks english and the guy was like what why do i need to speak english he says well i'm literally just sweeping the floors i'm cleaning i'm not even interacting with people he says no no the synagogue the board said like sometimes people are going to come in and they're going to need to ask questions we need somebody that speaks english and he couldn't even get the job of being a janitor in a synagogue in a shul but he needed to provide he needed to make some money so he goes and he decides that he's going to borrow some money from his friend and he's going to start the you know push cards he's going to buy some some you know products in a certain store and he's going to go door-to-door this is before there was an internet obviously and go door-to-door and try to sell some uh some product so he bought he decided he's gonna get into the household uh business the the house house where and he started he bought some houseware products he put it in his push cart and he went to door and he was quite successful you know he you know he couldn't even figure out the words in english he was showing them you know five dollars this ten dollars uh or back then it was actually a dollar two dollars and uh he was quite successful to the point that he was able to buy two pushcarts and he was able to even hire somebody else to go door-to-door to make a long story short he was very successful with his two push cards they ended up being into five pushcarts to the point that he decided that he's going to close his push cart business and he's going to instead open up a storefront he had money for a storefront so he opened up a storefront and again house same same houseware items that people are coming in people are you know he was doing business it was going great within a short period of time he opened up another store and within another short period of time he kept he opened up another store another store with within within a relatively few years he was a very very large corporation and he was a successful businessman became very very wealthy many years go by he's running his business and he decides that he's going to he came across this uh business opportunity we'll he where he will join you know partnership with another very large corporation and he reviewed all the information he decided he's gonna go through with it he's gonna do this joint venture and they're gonna go together with this other company and they go and they meet in this you know skyscraper in manhattan with the top-notch lawyers and they're sitting over there his future business partner with his lawyer and you know and him himself with his lawyer and they're going in there and they're going over the documents and they're about to finalize it and now they have to go and they just have to sign the documents so his future business partner the two corporations that are merging together they go and they the lawyer presents him the documents now he has to sign where the x is so this businessman is taking it and he starts signing wherever he sees x and he starts pulling out the papers and signing where there's x and his other businessman stops him and says no no no i said i don't want you just to sign the paperwork he says i want you to read it we're going to wait over here as long as it takes i want you to read everything to make sure that you're able to go and you agree with everything that's written so this from jewish businessman says start smiling and he says don't worry about it i'm just gonna sign and the guy goes to him and his future business partner he says no no i refuse to go and continue until i know that you read it i want everything to be straight everything to be clear on the table so finally the jewish businessman goes over to his future partner and he says to him he starts smiling at him and he says listen he says i would love to read i would love to read this whole thing but there's a problem and the guy says what's the problem he says don't worry as long as it takes you and the jewish businessman says no that's not a problem he says you know the promise the problem is i don't know how to read and the guy this future bit literally almost fell off his chair he says what you don't know how to read he says you're a multi-millionaire you know like you have numerous businesses under you he says you know you have thousands of employees what do you mean you don't know how to read and i guess it says i don't know how to read and the guy says what what's go like how do you not know how to read and the guy says i don't know what you're so shocked i just don't know how to read that's it you know so the guys the guy was shocked and the guy his future business party says do you understand he says you made so much money and you still don't know how to read do you know that if you knew how to read do you know how much money you would make now so this jewish businessman goes over there and he says you know he says you don't want to know what would happen if i knew how to read and i'll tell you even better if i knew how to speak english properly it was you know from the you know speaking even his english was broken he says if i knew how to read and i knew how to write and i know how to speak english property you know where i would be today and the guys think he could probably be a multi-billionaire by today and the jewish guy says you know you know where i'm going to be or what i'll be i would be if i know how to read it i know how to write and i know how to speak english properly i'll be cleaning synagogues that's where i would be this is because and he goes and tells them all the story because i couldn't get a job because i couldn't go and i couldn't you know even even be a janitor i wasn't even on the level to be a janitor that i am where i am today so many times we go and we realize we think you know how we get where we got to because of all our success we never even realized that our biggest failure could be the biggest reason of our success our biggest downfall could be our biggest windfall [Music] you