Reb Moshe Pardo would travel around the world and meet with the wealthiest philanthropists to raise the money necessary to support the colossal budget of his high school, Ohr Someach. One such meeting was set up in a deserted city in America, which was void from any Torah-observant Yidden, yet he set out to reach one particular philanthropist who lived there.
As Reb Moshe was preparing himself for the meeting, he began to feel very weak and sick, but he refused to pass up on the opportunity. This meeting had been arranged months in advance, and so he decided to push himself and get the job done.
A few minutes before the meeting, Reb Moshe’s attendee caught on to his condition, and told him that he needed to lie down, even at the expense of the meeting. The attendee had seen Reb Moshe looking fine a while before then, and if his condition had changed so drastically and so quickly, then Reb Moshe needed to get checked out. Reluctantly, Reb Moshe called off the meeting.
While lying in bed, he thought to himself, “Why did Hashem bring me to this place? I traveled all the way to this desolate city only to warm the mattress?” But being the baal bitachon who he was, Reb Moshe quickly caught himself. “Who is all this coming from? It’s not coincidental. There must be a good reason for why Hashem planned my sudden illness, even if I don’t understand it.”
That night, a doctor was called to examine Reb Moshe and diagnose the sickness. Before listening in to his chest, the doctor kindly asked Reb Moshe to remove his kapateh for the most accurate results. Holding dearly to Reb Moshe’s tzitzis, the doctor asked in a surprising tone, “There are still people who wear this? I haven’t seen one of these in decades. I thought it was long forgotten.”
“What are you talking about?” replied Reb Moshe in his Hebrew accent. “Come to Israel and you’ll see for yourself hundreds of thousands wearing tzitzis. And even here in America alone, you’ll find hundreds of thousands.
“I run a high school that holds over 1,000 students,” continued Reb Moshe, “whose dream is only to marry men who wear tzitzis. Not only that, but many of my students come from backgrounds where they weren’t accustomed to fathers who wear them, and yet after learning by us, their greatest aspiration is to marry someone of that sort.”
While the doctor continued the exam, Reb Moshe told him that if he’ll one day come to Eretz Yisrael, he should visit his school, and he’ll gladly give him a tour around the property.
The inspired doctor concluded the exam, told him the diagnosis and wrote out a prescription. Before leaving, Reb Moshe reached deep into the pockets of his kapateh to pay, but the doctor refused. Determined to pay, Reb Moshe took out money and placed it on the desk along with a pair of tefillin he was carrying in his bag. (Reb Moshe carried along with him an extra pair of tefillin on his journeys just in case he came across a person like the one he just did — a well-meaning Jew who doesn’t know much and is ready to strap them on once he’s informed about it.)
He pulled out the tefillin from their bag, showed the doctor the straps, and assisted him in placing them on his hand and head.
Although the meeting he’d come all that way for couldn’t be rescheduled while he was there, Reb Moshe departed with a measure of comfort: At least a Yid is better off having met me, and will start wearing tefillin because of the visit.
The Surprise in Bnei Brak
Several months later, on a bright summer day, Reb Moshe’s office phone rang. “I’d like to check out your institute,” the voice told him. “I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”
Reb Moshe had no idea who the person on the other end was, but if he insisted, Reb Moshe wasn’t going to deny. Half an hour later, an extravagant taxi pulls up, a chauffeur jumps out, opens the back door, and who steps out? The doctor who had treated Reb Moshe in that isolated city in America. Reb Moshe greets him warmly, thanks him again for helping him when he needed him, and they proceed to tour the school. As they’re walking around, Reb Moshe sees in the doctor the very same emotions that he’d seen when they first met: the same passion that he had toward Yidden and the thirst for Yiddishkeit that he was sorely missing.
After finishing the tour, the doctor told Reb Moshe that he wanted to meet with him privately. In Reb Moshe’s office, the doctor disclosed the reason for his visit: “When I originally heard about your institute, I thought that you had a mere 100 students. Out of all the 1,000 that you told me about, I was assuming that I’d come and find no more than a grand 100. But now I see what type of empire you built.”
After a few seconds, the doctor then continued with much emotion. “All my life, I’ve been childless, R”l, leaving behind no close inheritors. I’ll be writing all my possessions to your school, my savings of an entire lifetime; I haven’t been much of a spender. Over the next couple of days, I’ll reach out to my lawyer to issue a will, and you’ll be the beneficiary.”
Reb Moshe turned to the doctor and asked, “Do you know the potency of your transaction? This is the greatest you’ve yet to do, as the Mishnah teaches us: ‘Money doesn’t escort a person to the World To Come.’ What you’ve done now is take the ‘worthless’ and transform it to ‘eternity.’ As of now, you’re leaving over something of much superior value than you ever had. What a deal!”
Several days later, Reb Moshe concluded the story: “During the illness, I thought to myself that I was sent there just to have another Yid put on tefillin. Now I see that it brought in the biggest endowment the school has ever seen. This donation was more than tenfold any expectations I had from the canceled meeting.”
Hashem had transformed the unsuccess into the greatest one ever. We don’t understand the ways of Hashem, but we can take away an important lesson: What may seem like the greatest failure may very well turn into being the greatest success in our life. Every detail is precisely planned by the Master Planner.
Leave it to Him.
