It was late afternoon, and I was on my way from Yerushalayim to my yeshivah in Elad. The bus stopped at the Shilat junction, and I had to get off and go into the gas station. I imagined that the bus might continue traveling without me, but I preferred to get off.
On my way back to the bus, a young bachur stopped me. “Do you have tefillin?” he asked me. At that moment I was in a quandary: The bus still hadn’t left the stop, and if I ran I could make it, but there was a Yid here who hadn’t donned tefillin yet. I had no idea how this had happened to him, but if I didn’t give him my tefillin right away, he wouldn’t don tefillin that day, chas v’shalom.
The feeling of achrayus for him overcame the urge to make the bus, and I allowed him to use my tefillin.
When he finished, the bus had long since left the stop. I stood there wondering what to do, and suddenly a car pulled up in front of me. There was a frum Jew behind the wheel. “Elad?” he asked.
I was truly excited. I saw how one does not lose out from doing a mitzvah. This was he’aras Panim, which gave me a sense of true closeness to Hashem.
