Everything was going along splendidly. I was learning in kollel, and the stipend went into my bank account every month without any problems. Then one month, Rosh Chodesh came and the stipend did not appear in my account. In addition, the government’s child allowance that I was accustomed to receiving was cut down as well, to about 300 shekels less than I had been receiving previously. I thought that I must strengthen myself in emunah and bitachon, and I decided to start learning the daily limud of Shaar Habitachon in Chovos Halevavos.
The next day an avreich approached me and asked me if the stipend for my children had been cut down. “Yes,” I responded.
“Does your wife work?”
“No.”
“Someone gave me a sum of money for you,” the avreich responded.
He took out an envelope and handed it to me.
A moment later he began to walk away, and I tried to catch what was going on and asked him, “Since when do they give out money here?”
“Don’t ask questions,” he responded. “Take it. It’s yours.”
When I got home, I found a message was waiting for me from the kollel, that the stipend would go into my account in the coming days.
And what about the cut in the child allowance? Three hundred shekels each month is not a paltry sum. Hashem took care of this for me as well, with chessed and rachamim.
In my kollel we have an option to commit to a more stringent learning program, and I really wanted to be accepted into that program. Exactly then, I was accepted into the program, for which they pay 300 shekels more than for the standard kollel program.
I had opened the Shaar Habitachon, and the gates of bounty were opened up for me.
