I am an avreich from Haifa. One day I traveled by bus carrying a bag in which were papers that were very important to me. I don’t know how it happened and at what point it was forgotten, but the fact is, when I got home the bag was not with me. It was lost.
The loss of the bag disturbed me greatly. I did not have copies of the papers that were in it, and I also worried that someone would see their contents. Time passed, and the lost bag was not returned to me. I asked Hashem to help me find it, and as per the instructions of the Ohr Hachaim Hakadosh, I made my request in a clear and straightforward way – that Hakadosh Baruch Hu should help me find the bag and that no person should see its contents, that it should be returned to its place without other people having to be involved with it. Hakadosh Baruch Hu can do anything.
One day I decided to travel to Meron. I hired a van together with my friends, and when the time came, we waited at a bus stop for the van that would take us to Meron to arrive. We waited and waited, but the van was late. I called the company and asked what was happening. They told me, “We apologize for the delay. A bottle of oil spilled in the van. We’re cleaning it now, and as soon as we’re done, we’ll send the van out to you.”
We continued waiting, and then a bus pulled up at the stop. I had no reason to board it. It did not interest me at all at that moment, and yet, without any logical explanation, I came closer to the bus and looked into its windows. We were the only ones at the bus stop; no one was waiting for the bus, and if I hadn’t moved toward the edge of the sidewalk the driver would not have thought of stopping at all.
I looked into the windows, and I saw my bag in the bus, near the back window! Yes, yes, that very bag, as if I had just left it there today. I got onto the bus and asked the driver, “Did you find that bag in the first seat behind you?” “Yes,” the driver answered. “When I saw that someone had forgotten it, I placed it there, near the window in the back. No one touched it!”
“That’s my bag,” I said. “I’d like to take it.” He was happy to return my lost item to me, and I felt the incredible hashgachah pratis in the whole story. If not for my having to wait for the van, I would not have seen the bus coming. If I hadn’t come closer, the bus would have passed without my paying attention; and this whole hashavas aveidah came about as a result some spilled oil. Just like the jug of oil that remained whole, with the kohen gadol’s seal, so too was my bag, closed and sealed, and no one had peered into it. Hodu l’Kel elyon.
