For several years I have been confined to a wheelchair. Since I became handicapped, we live on a low floor and we’ve learned how to cope. My house runs smoothly, thanks to my eishes chayil. People come in and out and fill the house with talk and discussion. There are those who love to come to pour out their hearts and also to get a portion of hot food.
One of our regular guests was a Yid who had a difficult life, who would often come for his portion. He would sit down and talk about what was on his heart, eat to satisfaction, sit around a little more, and at the end of the long visit, he would leave and we would breathe a sigh of relief.
His visits became more and more frequent, and they definitely bothered us. My wife treated him forgivingly and always welcomed him respectfully, but she also grew tired of the whole thing.
The man became like a member of our household, and I no longer even remembered when we had first met him.
One day, we moved. I was fearful of the move, because I knew we would now be living on the fifth floor. Anyone who understood my situation told me it was worth it, because the apartment itself was spacious and suitable for someone in a wheelchair, and there was no reason for me to worry, because there was a proper elevator in the building, and I would be able to use it and feel almost like someone who was healthy and walking on his own two feet.
We arrived at the apartment, and from the first day we realized we had a problem. The elevator would go up to the fourth floor, and it would stop there. To get to the fifth floor one had to go up one flight of steps, and this was no simple matter at all. I wouldn’t wish anyone reading this to ever know how much effort is required to get a wheelchair up one flight of stairs. It’s not like one flight; it’s like a mountain!
And we had to climb this Everest every single day!
“I think there is some message here from on High,” my wife said. “It reminds me of the story with the scorpion.”
And this is the story: A lonely man would come to a family in Yerushalayim every Friday and receive a portion of kugel and a bit of attention. Then the family moved and did not inform their Friday guest about the move.
In the morning, the woman of the house woke up and saw a scorpion right in the middle of her kitchen. She was frightened and asked someone to kill it on the spot. The next morning another scorpion appeared. The family understood that something was strange, and they asked their rav to help them understand what message Hashem was sending them. The rav opened Perek Shirah and showed them, “The scorpion sings: And His mercies are upon all His creations.”
“Perhaps there is someone to whom you should have shown mercy, and you did not?” the rav asked them.
The couple thought about it, and then they remembered the lonely man who would visit them ever Friday. He probably did not understand how they’d disappeared and forgotten about him. They searched for him, told him about their move, and the scorpions disappeared.
“I think our story is very similar to that one,” my wife said. “We want Hashem to have pity on us and enable you to get up to the house without problems, but we did not have pity on the guest who was used to coming to our home, and we did not tell him we were moving.”
On that very day we looked up the man and sent him a message that we’d moved and that he was invited to come whenever he wanted, as in the past.
The next day, all the problems with the elevator disappeared. It started working perfectly, going up to the fifth floor, and ever since then it has been operating without any problems at all.
