A salesman who was traveling to Leningrad was unable to continue his journey because of a severe snowstorm. The stationmaster told him that the trains would surely be running again at six o’clock the next morning, as the tracks would be cleared by that hour. The traveler had no alternative but to go to the local hotel.
By the time he arrived at the small-town hostelry all the rooms had been taken by the other passengers of the delayed train. However the desk clerk was a kindly soul who could not bear to put a weary stranger out in such a blizzard, and he hit upon an idea.
“Listen, my friend, all of the rooms here have a single bed each, so I can’t very well ask the occupants to put you up for the night. But there is one room here with two beds in it.”
“Thank G-d!” breathed the salesman. “I was afraid I might have to sleep out in the cold tonight.”
“Wait a minute, I must tell you something,” said the clerk hurriedly. “The guest in that room is a general in the czar’s army. But I’ll ask him if he will share his room with you.”
“Don’t bother,” sighed the other resignedly. “A general would never share his room with a Jew.” He thought about it for a moment and then his face brightened. “Look, I have an idea!” he said excitedly. “Maybe I can sleep in that extra bed after all. It is very late now, so the general must be fast asleep. Tomorrow I must rise early to catch the six o’clock train. At that hour of the morning he’ll still be sound asleep, and he’ll never know that I was in the other bed. Just be sure to wake me up on time.”
The hotel clerk agreed. Quietly the traveler tiptoed into the room of the czarist officer, and without a sound — almost afraid to breathe — the intruder undressed and went to sleep. In the morning the clerk awakened the general’s clandestine roommate at the appointed hour.
But in the predawn darkness the Jewish guest unwittingly donned the general’s uniform and hurried off to meet his train. On the way, he could not help but notice that everyone he met bowed and greeted him in a most respectful manner.
“How do they know that I shared the same room with a general?” he wondered.
He met a captain and then a major, and both saluted him smartly. At the ticket office the agent handed him a first-class ticket and assigned him to a private compartment.
“How is it that a Jew is treated so magnificently?” he asked himself, bewildered by the unaccustomed courtesy.
Inside the compartment he speculated on the probability that his single night’s association with a great czarist officer might have given him a kind of aristocratic aura — one of reflected glory. He stood before a mirror and stared at his reflection and examined his features for any possible change in his appearance, and as he did, a look of utter shock spread over his face as he recognized the general’s uniform.
“Oy vay!” he groaned. “That schlemiel of a desk clerk! I ask him to wake me up and instead he wakes up the general. Now, how will I ever catch this six o’clock train when I’m still sleeping back at the hotel?”
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Mussar Haskel: Sometimes we conflate our uniforms and our essential selves. It is wonderful to wear the frum uniform: White shirt, dark suit, black hat etc. etc. [I personally haven't worn a shirt that is anything but completely white in about 2 decades] but who we really are depends greatly on our behavior, thoughts and speech. [Not forgetting that we are irrevocably and immutably G-dly souls.]
We can live in the "right" neighborhoods, daven in the "right" shuls, congregate with the "right" people - but still be asleep at the hotel.....
