Tefillas HaDerech
The Imrei Emes zt'l would buy old kisvei kodesh, handwritten sefarim, and invest money to have them written legibly and then get them printed. (Portions of the Meiri were printed with the Imrei Emes's efforts in this manner.)
Once, he came across Reb Chaim Vital's commentary to mechilta. This was a sefer that no one had, so he brought it to a publisher to handset the letters and bring it to print. That year, 5696, was very difficult for the Jewish community in Eretz Yisrael due to the Arab attacks, and the publisher didn't have time to work on it.
In the year 5699, the Imrei Emes lived in Poland, and the publisher returned the sefer to him. He wrote that he wasn't getting around to putting out the sefer, so the Rebbe should find someone else to do the job. The messenger who brought it back to Poland was Reb Avraham Elimelech of Karlin zt'l hy'd. Almost immediately upon arriving in Europe, this great tzaddik was murdered, r'l, hy'd, and the manuscript has been lost ever since.
The Imrei Emes returned to Yerushalayim. The publisher said to him, "I’m so sorry. I tried..." The Imrei Emes replied that it was bashert and it wasn't his fault. "But tell me, did you see anything in the sefer that you remember?" He didn't. The Imrei Emes said that he remembered one thing. It states (Bereishis 44:4) העיר את יצאו הם האנשים אחרי רדף קום ביתו על לאשר אמר ויוסף הרחיקו לא, "They had exited the city, but had not gone far when Yosef said to the overseer of his house, 'Get up, rush after the men.'"
Reb Chaim Vital writes in his introduction, "After I finished writing this sefer, it became revealed to me in a dream: Why does the pasuk emphasize, הרחיקו לא, 'They had exited the city, but had not gone far?' And why did Yosef say, האנשים אחרי רדף קום, 'Get up and rush after the men'? Shulchan Aruch states that one should say Tefillas Haderech within the first parsah outside the city limits. Yosef wanted to catch them before that time because after they said Tefillas Haderech, there was no way he could cause them any discomfort and distress."
One Thursday night, a group of yungerleit traveled to Meron. They stopped the car on the side of the road to say Tefillas Haderech with kavanah. They continued driving to Meron, and the police were behind them. They quickly put on their seatbelts. Soon afterward, a truck drove toward them, and they had to swerve quickly. It was raining, the roads were slippery, and the car fell off the road into a ditch. The car turned over, but their lives were saved because they were all buckled in safely. This story teaches us the power of tefillah, particularly the power of Tefillas Haderech.
