Rav Joseph B. Soloveitchik tells of the great difference between a person's Shabbos and weekday appearance.
In Warsaw, we lived three houses away from the Modzhitzer shteibel. Generally I would go to this Modzhitzer Sheibel for Seudat Shelishit. Poor Jews would be seated around the table. This was a neighborhood where many Jews worked as porters. I knew these Jews well and I constantly spoke with them. They were sincerely pious Jews who willingly sacrificed for their spiritual commitments. I once spoke with one of them who was frail and short. He constantly carried heavy metal pieces and I wondered where he got the physical strength to support this weight.
On Shabbat I saw this very Jew and I did not recognize him. He came over to me in his tattered kapoteh. It was covered in endless patches, even the patches had patches.
Yet his face shone with the joy of Shabbat. I recognized in a tangible fashion that a person’s Shabbat countenance is totally different than his weekday appearance.
From “Stories of the Rav”
Submitted by Debbie Stone