I’m an avreich, and I live in Tzfas. I also work as a musician at weddings and other celebrations in the evenings. My music accompanies the beautiful singing of my twin brother, and we appear together from time to time, singing and bringing happiness to Hashem and to His people.
My brother has a connection with someone whose job is to mediate between us and those who want music at their happy occasions. This agent called me one day in Tishrei and told me, “I have a great event for you. I think you are the best person to play for it. The producer said he heard about you, but before he closes with you he wants a recording of you in real time, working with the public. So make sure to send him a recording.”
My brother said he would take care of sending the recording. He very much wanted the job, but he did not have a recording. What would he do? Because people don’t generally make weddings in Tishrei, he needed to find someone to hire us for something, so we could record ourselves singing and playing.
He was clueless about what to do next, but then at the entrance to the beis midrash he saw a notice inviting all the mispallelim to a bar mitzvah. An idea came into his mind: He would call the boy’s father and offer to sing at the bar mitzvah for free, and then he’d be able to record himself.
He called me and asked me to accompany him with my music. “I do this for parnassah, not free of charge,” I told him.
“It’s so that we’ll have a recording of how we work together,” he said, trying to convince me. “It’s very important to me.”
I asked my Rav if it was correct to use this time for playing, and the Rav told me, “It’s your brother – your twin; it seems your helping him is the right thing to do, especially in this case, because there is no one else who can do it.”
I agreed.
My brother called the boy’s father and said, “I saw that you’re making a bar mitzvah. Maybe you’d like me to come with my brother, and we’ll play and sing at the event?”
There was no response at the other end of the line. My brother waited and waited, and finally he asked, “Are you with me?”
“I...I...I...I have no words. Are you for real? You’ll come with your brother and play for free?”
“Yes. Does that work for you?”
“Work for me is not the word. You simply don’t understand what happened here.”
Then the father started telling my brother everything that had happened to them over the past month:
“My son, the bar-mitzvah boy, very much wanted a band at his bar-mitzvah. We are not people of means, and everything connected to the bar mitzvah, from the tefillin up to the dessert, we are bringing with true mesirus nefesh. We’re preparing everything ourselves, homemade food in the simplest hall, and it’s just not possible for us to add 6,000 shekels for a band. I explained this to my son, but he stubbornly insisted. “If you can’t help me,” he told my wife and me, “I will ask the Ribbono shel Olam to help me.”
During the past month he went to the beis hachaim in Tzfas every day and davened at kivrei tzaddikim for Hashem’s help in honor of his bar mitzvah, and each time, he asked that there should be a band at his bar mitzvah. This has been going on for thirty days.
My wife and I saw how much he wanted this and how much he was davening, and we were really afraid. What would be? He is so sure that Hashem will help him, and we see the reality. There is no musician on the horizon to come and make the bar mitzvah pleasant. I had already informed him that I had no intention of paying for it. No generous donor had offered us the money we needed, and then suddenly...this call. Hashem heard the boy’s tefillos! You are the messengers of the Creator yisbarach!”
It was an especially happy event. The bar mitzvah boy’s face shone with joy. The recording was only a sibah – a secondary reason for us to perform. We saw the Hand of the Mesoveiv here – the Navigator of all occurrences. We had the zechus to be part of an amazing display of the fruit of emunah – bitachon.
