As retold by Bruce Lowitt

Cohen's furniture business is going down the drain. He sees no way out of his misfortune and has been contemplating suicide. A friend suggests he discuss his predicament with the rabbi. Perhaps, the friend says, he has a solution.

Cohen tells his tale of woe to the rabbi.

"Here is what you can do," the rabbi says. "Take a beach chair and a Bible and put them in your car and drive down to the water's edge, open he chair, sit down and open the Bible. The wind will riffle the pages for a while and eventually the Bible will stay open at a particular page. Read the first words your eyes fall on and they will tell you what to do."

Cohen does as he is told.

Three months later he visits the rabbi again, this time with his family in tow. Cohen is wearing a $2,000 Savile Row suit, his wife Zelda has a $9,000 sable jacket draped over her arm (even though it's 92 degrees), and Leon, one year shy of his bar mitzvah, is toying with his $2,800 Rolex.

Cohen hands the Rabbi an envelope containing $10,000, explaining that he wants to make a donation to the temple as a thank you for his remarkable advice.

The rabbi is both stunned and delighted - and curious.

"Tell me," he says. "When you opened the Bible and the wind stopped riffling the pages, what were the first words you saw?"

"Chapter Eleven."