Torah Dose - Rabbi Paysach Krohn: Amazing Story - When you look after Shabbat, Hashem will look after you

Short Summary

Main recommendation: Keep Shabbat even when it costs you a major financial opportunity, because Hashem will look after you for it. Rabbi Paysach Krohn tells the story of Jacobo Sharon, a Mexican architect who refused to continue a building-sale negotiation past Friday afternoon, and whose building was the only one left standing after the 1985 Mexico City earthquake.

Key Points

• Jacobo Sharon had a difficult-to-sell downtown Mexico office building; the mortgage and costs were so high that few tenants or buyers were interested.
• Two buyers from abroad kept negotiating late Thursday into Friday, and Jacobo, already attending synagogue on Friday nights for several weeks, refused to stay past the time he needed to leave for Shabbat.
• The buyers warned that they were leaving the next day and that the sale would fall through; Jacobo declined to stay, and they left without buying.
• On September 19, 1985, a catastrophic earthquake struck Mexico, killing 4,541 people, injuring about 14,000, with 236 left missing; almost every building in downtown Mexico collapsed except Jacobo's.
• After the earthquake, Jacobo rented office space at very high prices and later sold the building, becoming far wealthier than he had expected.

Details Worth Noting

• Concrete instructions: The video gives no step-by-step method. The only actionable guidance is to set a firm personal cutoff for Shabbat observance and hold to it even when a major deal is pending, rather than letting negotiations run past that time.
• Jacobo had been attending synagogue on Friday nights for a few weeks before the incident, and was not yet a full Shabbat observer; he chose not to break that growing pattern.
• The negotiation was highly costly: he was desperate to sell, and he admitted the decision was painful, and he questioned himself that night, but he believed he had done the right thing.
• The earthquake occurred two weeks after the Shabbat decision, and the story is presented as an example of divine reward for Shabbat observance, not as a financial strategy.
• Jacobo kept the story private until he made his first siyum Mishnayos, after finishing Gemara with Sheadyke, at which point he showed aerial helicopter photos of his building standing among the ruins.

Bottom Line

The story presents Shabbat observance as a choice that can carry real financial risk, and frames the later windfall as a sign of Hashem's protection rather than a predictable outcome.