Last Shabbos, toward the end of krias HaTorah, the gabbai approached one of the mispall- elim, a Yid who was standing right near me, and asked him to daven Mussaf for the amud. The man nodded as though in agreement, then turned around and looked both ways. To my surprise he turned to me, bent down and whispered: “Can you be the chazzan for Mussaf?”
Never had I encountered such behavior. This man was just asked to serve as shaliach tzibbur, and he was passing the job on to another random mispallel! To my wonder, the man whispered in embarrassment, “I lost a tooth.”
Now I identified the strange tone of his voice, the accent of a person who was missing some- thing in his mouth. Without delay, I rose from my place and marched over to the front of the shul, ready and prepared to fulfill my unexpected role. I honored Hashem with my voice, and the mispallelim had true oneg Shabbos.
On Motzaei Shabbos my brother told me, “On Shabbos at Minchah, I was the chazzan in honor of Saba’s yahrtzeit.” Then it hit me: This week was the yahrtzeit of our great-grand- father, who was a great talmid chacham, and I am named after him! For one second I was upset that I’d forgotten about the date and hadn’t made sure to serve as shaliach tzibbur in davening on Shabbos, but suddenly I realized that I had indeed been the shaliach tzibbur!
Even though on Shabbos I hadn’t remembered anything, and it did not enter my mind to offer to serve as shaliach tzibbur in one of the tefillos, min haShamyim it was orchestrated that I fulfill the minhag to daven for the tzibbur on the Shabbos preceding the yahrtzeit, for the zechus and ilui neshamah of our righteous great-grandfather.
After I told the family this story, another brother added his own story:
“As you know, I was visiting the neighborhood where I lived in the past. On Shabbos in the
