You think it doesn’t happen that Hashem steps in? I’ll tell you a story of a tzaddik – he was a bigger tzaddik than that girl – who even without opening his mouth he hurt his wife and he was punished; he perished because of that.
I’m talking about R’ Yehuda, the son of R’ Chiya. You know R’ Chiya had two sons, R’ Yehuda and R’ Chizkiya, both talmidei chachomim, both tzaddikim. But Chizkiya, we know very much about him; Chizkiyah the son of Rabi Chiya, he’s frequently mentioned in Shas, in the sugyas. But his brother, Yehuda, is rarely mentioned. And it’s a queer thing because we know that both men were great.
And the answer is because he died when he was young. He too was going to be as great as his brother, maybe greater, but he went lost. Lost?! What happened? The Gemara tells that all week he sat in the yeshivah and learned. He didn’t come home at night; his wife allowed that for him, so that he should be able to grow great in Torah. Today we praise the women who give their husbands permission to be out all day Sunday in the beis medrash and late at night too on the weekdays. Excellent! But R’ Yehudah’s wife was especially loyal and she only saw her husband on Shabbos; erev Shabbos, that’s when he came home.
And so, every Friday his wife would wait by the window, looking down the road. She’s so happy – her husband is coming home for Shabbos. What kind of Shabbos would it be without a father at the table?
