One does not purchase a baby carriage every day, and when there is a happy reason to make the purchase, the buyer does not necessarily have cash on hand. Some customers pay by check or by credit card, and every form of payment has its disadvantage. The best and most rare form of payment is cash.
So you’ll understand how tempting it was when my chavrusa received a call in the beginning of seder. The caller told him, “Listen, I need a baby carriage. If you sell it to me now, I’ll pay in cash immediately.”
But my chavrusa decided that he would not make any sort of deal at the cost of his learning. “Right now I cannot come to bring you the carriage,” he said in a calm voice. “Talk to me in another three hours.”
That same day, at 12 p.m., he called me and told me, “Remember that call I got in the beginning of seder?”
“I remember.”
“I generally sell this type of carriage about once in two weeks. Today I sold three such carriages. I’ve never had this many sales in one day!”
I was amazed. My friend withstood the nisayon of not dealing with other things during learning hours, and not only did he not lose out, but he gained threefold. While we have no promise of seeing such a quick revelation of hashgachah from Above, this he’aras Panim is simply moving.
I Got a Refund
My grandfather suffers from a certain health issue for which he requires a type of medical apparatus that costs 440 shekels. The members of the family started looking into this equipment and checking whether it was possible to be reimbursed by his health insurance. When I asked if they had bought it, they told me that we probably would not get a refund, and they were thinking about what to do.
“What’s there to think about?” I said. “Saba is suffering; we have to help him. If there’s something else to be done, you do it. I’m buying the machine.”
At that specific time, I had the money, and I purchased the machine. The money was meant to be used for the needs of my home, but I understood that this was not a time for making cheshbonos. I felt that buying the machine was the right thing for me to do, and regarding the near future – Hashem would help, at least like He had helped Saba and sent him the machine through me.
Yesterday, a Yid came over to me and gave me one hundred dollars, which, according to that day’s exchange rate, is worth 370 shekels. Another Yid gave me 200 shekels, and thus, after I took off a fifth for ma’asros, I had 440 shekel in hand, plus an additional fifteen shekels – the sum I had paid the delivery man to bring the machine to Saba’s house.
So exact. Such hashgachah.
On the Fortieth Day She Started Talking
Last winter we were dealing with a complex nisayon. My mother caught pneumonia, and complications ensued. The infection was especially aggressive, and she lost consciousness. Hatzalah was called, and they hurried to take her to the hospital, where she was hooked up to an ECMO machine – a machine that does the work of the heart and the lungs. Whoever knows what an ECMO is understands that her situation was not at all simple. It was critical, and my mother is relatively young. She was in intensive care for a month and a half, while we davened for her refuah, and from there she was transferred to rehab. Throughout this period, my greatest desire was for her to come back to life and good health, and I thought about what I could do to arouse Heavenly mercy.
On the fifteenth of Kislev, when I arrived in kollel I put up a notice with a special request that each person should take upon himself not to talk at all during davening, for forty days. My friends heeded my request for the sake of my mother’s refuah and accepted upon themselves not to talk during davening.
Only two weeks after I hung up the notice, the situation began to stabilize. Ima started to get back to herself. The head of the department called us and said that Ima could already breathe on her own. It was too early to rejoice, however, because even if she lived, we did not know if her brain was damaged. The head of the department prepared us for the worst.
On the twenty-sixth of Shevat, something incredible happened: My brother informed us all that Ima had started talking! The next day, when I was taking my shift with Ima, the nurse came over and gave her a yogurt as a first trial to see if she could eat, and Baruch Hashem, she ate and digested it properly.
Only several days later did I notice the significance of the timing: Exactly forty days after my friends had accepted the commitment not to talk during davening and krias haTorah, my mother started talking! Today she is also walking, baruch Hashem!
I am relating this miracle so that people will know how much Hashem loves this kabbalah, and so that they will be mischazeik in this mitzvah as a zechus for her complete recovery.
If Only I Could Be Someone’s Miracle
There are many stories about good people whom Hashem chose to be His messengers. I think it’s important to publicize the story I’m about to tell, so that we will understand that the zechus of being able to help others is not a given.
In our kollel there’s an avreich who has difficulty with parnassah. He learns b’chavrusa with an avreich of means, but he usually does not ask for his help, since this chavrusa has a rule: He loans money only to someone who knows clearly how he is going to return it. Since this avreich is not in that category, he doesn’t even try to borrow money from his chavrusa.
Last Thursday he got into a bind, and although he knew his chavrusa’s rule, he told him, “I don’t have a way to buy food for Shabbos. Can you please lend me 350 shekels?”
Unexpectedly, his chavrusa answered, “You know that in general I don’t lend money to someone who has no foreseeable way of returning it, but you are accustomed to miracles, and from time to time you’ve told me how Hashem sent you your needs in incredible ways. Therefore, I’ll lend you the money.” The chavrusa took 350 shekels out of his pocket and gave the money to his friend as a loan.
The chavrusa who gave the loan related the end of this story:
Before davening Minchah that day, a spirit of generosity came over me. I thought to myself: So many miracles happen to my friend! Today I will be his miracle. I planned on taking an additional 350 shekels out of my pocket, giving it to some other avreich, and asking him to give the money to the borrower, so that he’ll immediately have a way of returning the loan.
I decided to hurry and do this right after Minchah, but to my surprise, right after Minchah the borrower came over to me and returned the money he had borrowed before Minchah. “Someone already gave me money,” he told me.
I stood there, amazed. Hakadosh Baruch Hu took care of my friend and sent him the money through another messenger. And I probably need to strengthen myself in order to be zocheh to be someone else’s miracle.
Another Story of Timely Help
As they were talking, I saw that the American still wasn’t satisfied, and he took out another few hundred shekels and gave them to Reb Shmuel. They left. Reb Shmuel – who had been so desperately in need of money just then to cover his electric bill – and I, remained there, amazed to the point of tears by the incredible hashgachah pratis we had just experienced.
Two minutes later, two other avreichim arrived and sat down to learn. Hakadosh Baruch Hu had arranged the precise moment when Reb Shmuel was learning alone in the beis medrash, so that he would receive the sum that was meant especially for him.
