In the Hashgacha Pratis Newsletter, it was printed a personal story that someone shared:
I was at a chasuna one evening when a friend came over and made an unusual request: “Would you allow me to drive your car?”
“Do you have a license?” I asked him.
“That’s the thing. I want to get a license, and I need to practice. Would you allow me to drive around in your car?”
I thought for a moment and said, “It’s a bit scary to give the wheel over to someone who doesn’t know how to steer it, but if we drive on a side street where there is no danger to any passersby, then I agree.”
We left the hall and drove quite a distance until we reached a quiet, unassuming road where I stopped the car. I switched places with my friend and allowed him to drive. After circling for some minutes, he wanted to practice parallel parking. He tried parking between two cars, and...oops. He hit the car in front of us.
We went out of the car to ascertain if there was any damage, and baruch Hashem, there was none. Right near the car, we noticed a sefer Noam Elimelech and several Torah pamphlets lying on the street. It seemed that someone who didn’t know the value of sacred writings had thrown them there. We picked up the pamphlets and found a name and phone number on one of the pages. I called the number, and the person who answered was very excited.
“Where did you find my Noam Elimelech? Tell me exactly.”
And I told him. “All those things were in my car,” replied the owner. “Recently, my car was stolen, and the thief probably threw out my pamphlets. Can you describe the car that was parked near where you found these sheets?”
I described the color and shape, and I read him the license number, and indeed, the car we had hit belonged to this Yid. We were all very excited. While I was speaking to the car owner, my friend was scanning the deserted area and noticed that something did not look right.
He came closer and discovered that the string of the eiruv was torn. The eiruv was pasul. “Look at how Hashem cares about our mitzvos,” my friend enthused. “First, He brought us to this deserted street to return the forlorn sefer, and now we’re going to let the eiruv committee know that they need to fix the eiruv here.”
The postscript to this story was shared several days later. The owner of the car called me to express his gratitude and told me about what had occurred after he got his stolen car back:
“I decided to get the police involved in order to find the thief,” the owner of the car related. “Within a few days, they located him. Now I was left with the decision of whether to press charges, which might lead to him getting sentenced for grand theft auto. I decided to make a kiddush Hashem. I contacted the thief and told him that I wanted to meet him. He agreed.
“At the prearranged place I saw there waiting for me an Og Melech HaBashan–type of thief: tall, curly-haired, and wearing jeans. I told him, ‘You stole my car, but I’m not going to press charges, because in your merit, we discovered that the eiruv was torn and needs fixing. In your merit, Jews will be keeping Shabbos properly.’
“While I was talking, the bandit started crying — not just tears but really bawling. I couldn’t understand what I’d done, so I asked him what was causing him to cry so much. He answered me in Yiddish: ‘I simply don’t believe it. That’s how good you all are?’
“He went on to tell me that he was born into a chareidi home, but the yetzer hara had entrapped him. He was lured after bad friends and went from bad to worse. Now he looks the way he does and hasn’t had a single good day in his life.
“‘And now I see that I ran away for naught,’ he admitted. ‘What was I escaping? If there are good people by us, why should I stay in this horror?’ We exchanged phone numbers. I reminded him that it’s never too late, and he could come back to his Father in Heaven, even today.
“Baruch Hashem, I merited to take part in the journey of a neshamah as it returned home, and to see tangibly how Hakadosh Baruch Hu navigates circumstances so as not to reject those who are distant away from Him.”
Hashem planned an outstanding hashgacha all so that one forlorn neshama could come back and be able to keep the Torah and mitzvos once again. He cares for the mitzvos of every Yid, no matter where he finds himself or the level of ruchnius he is holding at.
Reprinted from the Parshas Bo 5785 email of Rabbi Moshe Hirschberg’s Zichru Toras Moshe.
