On a Sabbath day, several children fell into a well. The community was thrown into a terrible dilemma: the Sabbath prohibits most forms of work, including the kinds of physical labor that would be needed to rescue the children. But the children were in mortal danger.
The adults were paralyzed with grief and indecision. Some wanted to mount an immediate rescue, Sabbath or no Sabbath. Others argued that the children were certainly dead already — the fall was deep, the water was cold — and violating the Sabbath for corpses served no purpose.
The parents, remarkably, did not grieve during the Sabbath. They trusted in God and waited. When evening came and the Sabbath ended, they rushed to the well — and found the children alive and safe. The water had cushioned their fall. They had survived the entire day without injury.
The story echoes a famous teaching: when a mother lost her two sons on the Sabbath, she did not tell her husband until the Sabbath was over. She used a parable: "A man lent me two jewels," she said. "Now the owner has come to reclaim them. Shall I return them?" Her husband said: "Of course." She then showed him the bodies of their sons. "The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away" (Job 1:21).
Both stories teach the same principle: the Sabbath is holy, and grief must not break its peace. Not because the Sabbath forbids sorrow — but because trusting God means believing that even tragedy can wait until the day of rest has been honored. The children in the well were saved. The jewels were returned to their Owner. And the Sabbath remained unbroken.